Wilkie-Along Post IV: The back view is the loveliest view

Here we are, the final epochs in the SENSATIONAL life of Wilkie Collins. Thank you, Alice, for finding this book and then hosting this readalong, cos our readalongs are the best readalongs. #fact

In these final chapters and Wilkie's final years, he travels around the US on a less-than-successful tour, stages a few more plays, can't really match the success of his early work, continues to fight for copyright laws, has a few grandkids and then dies. You'd think this would be where the book ends but no, we get another chapter that, in the same vein as the rest of the book, talks about a bunch of people that are not Wilkie. I do not care if his ex-son-in-law had to file for bankruptcy.

Anyway, let's just get to a bunch of bullet points

• Wilkie does a reading tour around the US and things aren't so great. Only partially filled venues with a consistent criticism that Wilkie isn't the most engaging reader. Which is weird because he was an actor so you'd think this wouldn't be that big of a stretch. Or maybe he was a terrible actor the whole time and Lycett didn't make that clear. One review says: "We should counsel Mr Wilkie Collins to adopt the tone and method of a lecturer, which anyone can acquire, rather than attempt those of an actor which lie beyond his reach."

• Also we get this amazing line: "He has many fine qualities but he has an unusual amount of conceit and self-satisfaction - and I do not think any one can think Wilkie Collins a greater man than Wilkie Collins thinks himself." I never really got this sense at any other point in the book and I don't know if that is because the woman who said this is alone in this belief or that Lycett has been glossing over this behavior. 
• Wilkie becomes friends with a guy due to a shared "interest in mildly pornographic pictures of women". Of course.

• The book says Wilkie visited "Oneida, a community in Connecticut." Except Oneida is in New York. NOW this community, which practiced their own communal sex beliefs and rituals that Wilkie was down with (including pantagamy), had a few off-shoots, including a group in Wallingford, Connecticut. This is where it seems that Wilkie actually went. So yeah, minor error, BUT STILL.*
• Wilkie makes the hero in one of his short stories a Roman Catholic, prompting Lycett to declare that it "shows that Wilkie was not always prejudiced in matters of religion." Which, let's be honest, is pretty much the equivalent of someone saying they're not racist cos they have a black friend. 

• Throughout his life Wilkie talks about how much he HAAAAATES the institution of marriage and will not consider it at all and wants to live his bachelor life while having his two mistresses. Then he apparently starts calling some little girl "Mrs Collins" and looks forward to a "conjugal embrace" with the girl. And WTF?? Lycett says my reaction is me just taking this the wrong way and there was nothing weird about this and the girl's mother was included in the exchanges (which, does that mean there was a Victorian version of CC-ing someone?).
• Wilkie says he thinks "the back view of a finely-formed woman the loveliest view...The line of beauty in those quarters enchants me, when it is not overladen by fat." Thanks for that "no fatties" line thrown in at the end, Wilks. 
• Oscar Wilde had a brother named Willie. Willie Wilde. This makes me smile each time I say that name. I realize this has nothing to do with Wilkie but it comes up in the book and I didn't know this fact before so there you go.

And there we go. Wilkie's life and the lives of a lot of people around him (and around them...) I do now want to read a LOT more Wilkie so there will be many more readalongs in the future. 

*Also, fun fact, this sex commune is also the group that is responsible for the Oneida silverware. 

Wilkie-Along Post III: Bringing the sensation novel into the home

Summer Wilkie Readalong, post the third! And can I say thank you to Alice (aka Reading Rambo aka Readalong Queen) for keeping this week's section short cos the holiday weekend was eating into my reading time. But there was important stuff to do, like watch The Muppets Take Manhattan in the park.

#important

This epoch dealt with Wilkie not so much falling out with Caroline but sort of drifting away and picking up a new mistress, Martha. There's also a lot about Victorian publishing rules which is now added to the list of things I sort of skimmed over. There's less talk of venereal diseases, more issues with gout and rheumatism (which, I mean, could have been more STIs cos medical science at that point had only come so far) and the deaths of both Wilkie's mother and BFF (although there had been some drama there) Dickens. Oh also Wilkie and Martha have two daughters together but Wilkie basically doesn't talk about them. So. Father of the year, over there.

Alright, let's list out some stuff that happened

• The section starts with Wilkie's meeting of Martha, which Lycett describes as "a buxom wench" and really Lycett? What are you doing? 

• In this description we also get "she was as near as Wilkie could reasonably get to his ideal of the broad-buttocked Italian woman". I don't know if any of this is coming from Wilkie's writing or just Lycett's feelings on the lady. I mean, if Wilkie specifically talked about her butt whyyyyyy aren't we getting those direct quotes, because they would probably be hilarious. Anyway, call back to the first epoch and Wilkie losing his virginity to the "voluptuous Roman lady".
• There's a paragraph about how Victorian men were sexually aroused by women in inferior positions and this is apparently what Wilkie saw in Martha? Lycett seems to have a problem with her.
• In addition to commenting on women's hats and crinolines (earlier epochs), he's now giving footwear advice. He advised a woman, Nina Lehmann, "not to be afraid to wear thick boots. It was wrong to think that women could not look attractive in such footwear, he declared with an air of authority, adding that men understood such matters." I would love to see this from Nina's pov where she is just rolling her eyes at him. Or who knows, maybe he can speak with authority on the topic of women's fashion. Then I'm sort of wishing we could have some time traveling and get him to be a judge on Project Runway.

Wilkie does

• One day Wilkie is working with the window opened and a kitten wanders in and drapes itself on Wilkie. This makes it difficult to write but no one can resist an adorable kitten.
• Caroline gets married to a twenty-three year old and Lycett seems VERY JUDGY about this. "She was thirty-seven and quite what she saw in the mere stripling was hard to determine." I'm sorry she decided she wanted to find someone and get married and didn't want to wait around for gouty, opium addicted Wilkie. 
• Dickens, continuing to be a dick to Caroline, wrote to a friend saying that Caroline's wedding was probably a sham affair and an attempt to trick Wilkie into marrying her via emotional blackmail. 

• Publishers make Wilkie remove the word "damn" from his work and Wilkie does it but is annoyed. In his words "Readers who object to expletives in books are - as to my experience - readers who object to a great many other things in books, which they are too stupid to understand." 
• Later more "inappropriate language" is cut from his work and Wilkie is VERY unhappy, claiming he does not look to young people as the court of appeal and maybe his work isn't meant for children.   

So there we go. Until next week!

Wilkie-Along Post II: Wilkie's Unduly Assertive Women

Are you ready for some more Wilkie? Because it's post II of our Wilkie Summer Readalong, hosted by Alice aka Reading Rambo.

So this week we read Epochs 2 and 3, Wilkie starts making money from his writing and also is basically common law married to a woman but DEFINITELY not freal married cos he does not approve of said institution.

I actually took a bunch of notes for this section. And by a bunch of notes I mean I wrote down a page number and then key phrases like "daisy hat" or "pretentious breezes". Stuff that was ridiculous and made me laugh. So I am pretty much going to bullet things out, just like I did last time around. #AintBroke #DontFix

But before I do that, I need to confess that whenever Lycett wandered away from talking about Wilkie or Dickens, I faded. Not even a guy named Egg could keep me interested. That's not to say these little tangents couldn't be interesting and I kept thinking how I would rather someone like Bryson was tackling those parts cos his books are like 46% tangents and I love them.

Anyway, let's list out ridiculous things that happened in these sections

• "But here, to confuse matters, were to apparent opposites that Wilkie regarded as very similar. As he stated in his letter...he believed 'that the Novel and the Play are twin-sisters in the family of Fiction, that the one is drama narrated, as the other is drama acted.'" I reread this section like five times because...yeah, that seems like a pretty good working description of the difference between a play and a novel. Why are these apparently opposites? Is the opposite of a play a novel? Or vice versa? I tried Googling to see if that is a thing and Google has no idea what I'm talking about (it gave me a definition for "novel" the adjective and told me "work" is the opposite of play). Basically, Wilkie thinks these two similar things are indeed similar. 

• Dickens and Wilkie (and Egg) go on vacation together and get on each others' nerves. Actually it seems like Wilkie mostly got on Dickens nerve by being stingy and cos he would whistle opera hits off-tune.
• We also learned from this section that Dickens referred to himself as "Inimitable" in letters. As in, that is the name he gives to himself. "Inimitable bringing up the rear". So not only does he refer to himself in the third person but he gave himself a nickname. 

• Wilkie had a cat named Snooks. That is all.
• Wilkie hates the giant hats he sees women wearing when he's in Kent. Just real judgey about these women and their hats, which he does say are "as wide as umbrellas" so he may have a point BUT he also talks about how ugly the women are that are wearing said hats so shut up, Fivehead.
• Dickens and Wilkie attended a production of Paradise Lost where the draw was that Eve would be naked. Just Eve apparently. Except the producers were unable to find a woman with "to her knees" to play that part. Dickens was duly disappointed.

Dickens, basically

• Wilkie starts seeing a woman named Caroline who is below his station and also has a daughter (her husband died). He tells people that Caroline had been held prisoner by a name who controlled her through mesmerism (hypnotism) but she managed to escape when he threatened to kill her. Even Lycett is like "So this story is pretty much just bullshit."
• Also, Wilkie Collins believes in mesmerism and when someone explains cold readings to him, he is INSULTED at the idea that this isn't real. I do sort of like the idea of Wilkie writing a book inspired by the Long Island Medium.

The Woman in White that could have been

• Hans Christian Andersen "annoyed Wilkie by surreptitiously attaching some daisies to his hat and allowing him to walk thus into the village."
• Wilkie continues to be annoyed at women's fashion, writing "his protestations about the proliferation of crinolines." Perhaps concern yourself less with judging women's clothing choices. (BTW, I would totally have read this lifestyle piece he wrote. I am a hypocrite.)
• Wilkie had a temporary maid who kept busting in on him while he was in the bathroom. He wrote to Ward telling him "I have reason to believe...[she] must have seen My Person!"

• Wilkie decides to hang out in London instead of going to the beach and talks about how the air in London is "so much healthier than those pretentious humbugs the seaside breezes" and WAS the air in London really ever healthier than pretty much anywhere else in the country? Also HOW are the breezes pretentious? 

Alright, this was pretty long, so sorry about that. But there was a LOT of important stuff to get through. So until next week!

Wilkie-along Post I: Sympathetic treatment of strong, independent women

Right, we're going with "Wilkiealong" for this, cos all readalongs must have some sort of nickname?

Anyway, post the first (cos the other one was the intro and thus does not count) in this Wilkie Collins biography A Life of Sensation readalong, hosted by Alice, our fearless leader. Which, now that I'm thinking about the title, doesn't necessarily mean a "sensational life" so much as a life where things are sensed. Or at least that's another way to read it. You know, like smell or touch. Which is basically how all of us do this life thing. Wilkie included. And now I've said the word "sensation" so much to myself that it's lost meaning.

This is off to a great start.

Our biography of Wilkie Collins begins with his dad, and how William Collins was a painter. Not like, a super famous painter. Not even a particularly interesting one with crazy stories. Definitely not, like, the rock star of painters. More like...the accountant of painters.

Anyway, there's a good amount of boring stuff about his dad and I skimmed a lot of this because really, let's get to the Wilkie. Also there are multiple Williams and Wilkies (there's a David Wilkie and then Wilkie Wilkie whose name is actually William and was sometimes called that or Willie and staaahp) and Harriets in this early section and, past-people, could you PLEASE come up with some additional names? Variety is the spice of life.

Anyway, let's focus on Wilkie stuff:

• Wilkie's head looks like that, likely cos of some issues during birth where some old-timey forceps were used. 
• Wilkie's mom lacked an outlet for her creative spirit and suffered from "nerves". Wilkie would later "write sympathetically about women with anxiety disorders" so good on him.
• The Collins family travelled to Italy for art, but then spent almost no time in Florence cos it was Christmas/New Years and stuff wasn't open and also it snowed a lot. You guys probably could have planned that better.
• Wilkie may or may not have lost his virginity around age twelve to a "voluptuous Roman lady". Will this lead into his tastes later? 

• While at school Wilkie is told that he can "tell a lie beautifully" and he seems to take this as a compliment, which does not appear to be how it was meant. But Wilkie is an optimist / hears what he wants to hear.
• Wilkie was small for his age and the boys at school bullied him by making him tell them stories. I feel like some crucial detail is lost here, or bullying was very different back then.
• Wilkie gets a job doing something with tea but the job is boring and leaves him time to write so good for us.

• Wilkie travels around Europe a bit getting stuck in France twice and needing his mom to send him money so he can get home. Come on, Wilks
• Wilkie decides he "does not take much interest in Matrimony". I mean, not that anyone was asking him to get married, but still. He takes a stance and he sticks with it.
• Wilkie helps his 31 year-old friend elope with a 15 year-old (ewww). But DON'T WORRY, they weren't rushing into anything cos the "passion for each other had been clear for four years". You know, when he was 27 and she was 11. EW EW EW EW EW

• Wilkie doesn't give out his books for free, not even to friends. In fact, when his publisher gave out a few free copies to Wilkie's friends, Wilkie said nuh uh, you gotta pay for those. No word if they actually did pony up or just gave him the book back.

Alright, there have been some treats here but I'm hoping for some more sensation in the next section. UNTIL NEXT WEEK!

Title quote from page 62

Lycett, Andrew. Wilkie Collins: A Life of Sensation. Windmill, 2013.

Wilkie Collins: The Man, The Myth, The Forehead

Hey

Hey, you. Do you know about Wilkie Collins?

You know, it's OK. I'd judge you except I had no idea who he was prior to our amazing Woman in White readalong. 

He was a writer (obviously), friend of Charles Dickens, opium addict, creator of the first modern English detective novel (so sayeth Wikipedia), lover of big butts, impressive forehead-and-facial-hair haver. 

Take it all in

But really, how much do we know about the guy? Not enough, I say. Or really Alice aka Reading Rambo says, because she is hosting a readalong of a (the? are there others?) Wilkie Collins biography Wilkie Collins: A Life of Sensation

This is our introduction post so Hi, I am Alley. Or Red. Or What Red Read. Or WhatRedRead if you say it real fast. I also have a confession. I do not yet have the book.

I know. I KNOW. I am bad at planning and assumed I could get an ecopy and that everything is immediately available to me at the push of a button at all times. And then I learned that was NOT the case with this book and I'd have to get an actual physical copy. 

But I paid for for expedited shipping, as an act of penitence so hopefully I will have it soon. I mean, it shipped today, so that's a good sign. Right? 

Though really, this lack of planning made up for by an abundance of gifs is a good indication of how the rest of my posts for this readalong will be. Just excuses and nonsense and gifs.

It's gonna be so much fun

Visual representation of readalong

MasterAndMargareadalong Post V: The devil, believe me, will arrange everything!

This is it, the final post for the final chapters of this MasterAndMargareadalong, hosted by fearless leader Alice.

I feel so naive. Because, despite all evidence to the contrary, I legitimately thought something was going to happen in these last chapters that were going to pull everything together and shed light on what we just read. My eyes would be opened and I would understand everything.

Let's see if we can make sense of this ending.

Margarita finishes reading the Master's Pilate fanfic, and instead of realizing she's made a terrible mistake, what with the whole deal-with-the-devil-for-this bit, she seems pretty happy with the story. Just...ugh. I hope you guys are happy together.

Some of the people who were disappeared are returned, though no one can explain how Woland & co. were able to do their performance and paperwork around this is a Very Big Deal. Police are trying to figure out where people have been and what's the deal with apartment 50 and oh yeah, Margarita and Natasha seem to have gone missing. Except, OF COURSE they are most concerned with the apartment, so police are dispatched there where they get into a shootout with Behemoth, who sets the apartment on fire and then jumps out the window. Now NO ONE CAN HAVE IT!

Then we get maybe one of the best chapters cos it's just Behemoth and Koroviev screwing with people and I realize I wish the book was just these guys. Maybe these 2 plus Margarita and Natasha being witches together. They show up at the restaurant/house/thing from the early chapters where all the literary people hang out, where they get fancy food before police show up to continue their shootout and another place gets set on fire.

I feel like I may have misunderstood this next part. Like, I hope I am missing something. But what I got was, Matthew Levi shows up to tell Woland that Jesus read the Master's Pilate novel AND LOVES IT!!!

It isn't quite enough to immediately get the Master and Margarita into heaven but they get "peace" and for some reason the Devil is in charge of this?

Azazello poisons M&M but then revives them, except they're still dead but now get to hang out with Woland & co. and ride around on flying horses. They fly off to somewhere and meet Pilate and his dog Banga and the Master gets to release him from his torment and what? What?

Fine. Whatever. I don't know happened with this book. Was this a happy ending? It seemed happy, but honestly I don't even know. Did Woland show up in Moscow to get the Master, and screwing with people was just something to do since he was in the area? Or was the purpose just to randomly mess with Russians and the Master thing just sort of worked out that way? Can someone else make heads or tails of this?

The point is we're finished with the book and now I can say I've read it. So success.

Title quote from page 365

Bulgakov, Mikhail. trans. Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky. The Master and Margarita. Penguin Classics, 1997. Originally published 1966.

MasterAndMargareadalong Post IV: Is that vodka?

It's Monday which means another MasterAndMargareadalong post! Thank you, Alice, for hosting this fever dream of a readalong. Now let's jump right into Devil Dance Party

Woland is having a ball and Margarita has to play hostess, as we learned in the last section. She has to wear a picture of a poodle around her neck because sure. That's what I think of when I think of Devil night wear.

Guests start popping out of coffins that are falling out of the fireplace and it's very exhausting to stand there and wave to people and her arm and leg get super tired. Also there's some racist shit happening here, with a jazz band turning into gorillas and other apes and

Anyway, it's a few hours of this and finally Woland shows up but he's dressed all in rags, which really, everyone else dressed up. Mikhail's (tram death guy from the first section) head is brought out on a platter and while talking over it they kill some guy that was eavesdropping on the party and drink his blood out of the head (or the head becomes a cup. I'm a little confused here). Woland's clothes now turn into something suited for a ball but it's also pretty much time for the ball to end. Also Margarita drinks some of this blood and this should be coming back up, right? I would assume so but who knows with this book.

Me at all times with this book

All of the guests (save for the guy who ended up murdered) had all done terrible things so I guess they're all in Hell but you get to go to fancy parties so seems like an odd version of Hell. Unless they were all really shy people and this is their version of Hell. One of the women attending, Frieda(?), had smothered her child with a handkerchief which yes, very not good but Margarita points out the man that abandoned them should also share part of the blame. Frieda also seems to be the only one tormented for what she did, as a handkerchief follows her around, which seems more like what you'd expect Hell to be like. But I don't know why she's the only one that seems to be punished. Maybe cos she's upset about it? The others seem pretty happy with all the murders they committed so I guess the lesson here is own your terribleness?

Oh hey, also why did all of the women have to be naked but the dudes were all dressed up fancy?

After the party the gang is hanging out in Woland's room and at this point Margarita is expecting her wish to be granted, since that was the deal. But no one seems to be paying attention and Azazello and Behemoth have a shooting contest. Finally they ask Margarita what she wants and instead of asking for the Master she asks that Frieda be forgiven. Which is sweet and is granted but is also sort of anticlimactic. I mean, we saw Frieda for like 2 seconds and there isn't a lot of drama around the idea that Margarita is using her one request not for herself.

Not that it matters cos then Woland brings back the Master anyway and disappears the guy that had moved into their basement apartment so they can live there. He then starts granting a bunch of wishes like giving the Master back his burned manuscript, letting Natasha stay a witch (good choice, Tash), giving the pig-man (who is back to a regular man) a certificate saying where he was last night (...is that a thing?), and turns the vampire guy back into people. Woland even gives Margarita a gold and diamond horseshoe and then sends she and the Master back to their apartment, instead of Margarita deciding to stay with Natasha.

Margarita briefly loses the horseshoe, which is found by the lady that spilled the sunflower oil that caused Mikhail's death, but Azazello gets it back and again, it doesn't seem like much happens in this scene and I don't know why we needed it. But I'm sure it's a biting satire about...something important.

The Margarita starts reading the now-unburned manuscript which means we get some more chapters from it and uuugh. Well, we learn that Pilate's dog is named Banga, so that's fun. Otherwise Pilate orders that Judah should be protected but actually means that he should be killed and then he is killed and Jesus is sad.

You guys, I don't even anymore. I have no idea what happened in the ball or why it happened; I don't know why the devil is granting all these requests; I don't understand the shooting contest or the bit with the gold horseshoe. I have no idea anymore and this section, which lacked a flying Margarita was far less interesting than last week's read. And I have no idea what's going to happen in the end. Maybe Margarita will finish reading Master's book and decide the critics were right? Maybe she'll get sent back to the devil cos of the witch-being and blood-drinking? What about the people back in the hospital?

One section left and perhaps all of our questions will be answered!

Title quote from page 276

Bulgakov, Mikhail. trans. Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky. The Master and Margarita. Penguin Classics, 1997. Originally published 1966.

MasterAndMargareadalong Post III: Don't dream of any apartments in Moscow

It's Monday so it's another #MasterAndMargareadalong post (chapters 17-22), wherein we try to make sense of this fever dream. Or at least use a lot of gifs. Thank you, Alice, because there is no way I could have got through this without readalong support.

We are now more than 60% through this book. And are things making any more sense?

But I do believe this is a truly biting satire for anyone with an understanding of Soviet Moscow during this time. Really, housing sounds terrible and I understand the pain of trying to get an apartment in a city.

All of the money that the devil & co. rained from the sky during the magic show keeps turning into scraps of paper, which is causing chaos in the wider city as all these cab drivers and other merchants are getting paid in what appears to be money, but turns out to be trash. The only guy left running the theater is the bookkeeper* cos everyone else has been disappeared in one way or another. He's trying to report what happened to someone important, so he goes to visit Petrovich except instead of it being a guy, it's just his suit. Sitting at his desk, conducting business as usual.

Not wanting to file his complaint with a sentient suit, Vasily (bookkeeper) goes to another office but everyone there keeps bursting into song. In between verses they try to explain to Vasily that they can't help themselves and the choirmaster has done this to them. Everyone is taken to Homeless's hospital because I do seriously think everyone will end up there. And then Vasily is arrested cos his money from the theater show turns into foreign money and of course. Everyone is either arrested or ends up in the hospital. Or Yalta.

Berlioz's (guy who got his head cut off) uncle gets a telegram from Berlioz announcing his own funeral. Which is odd but his uncle is ALL ABOUT getting his hands on a sweet Moscow apartment and I get it, but man, we are beating a dead horse over this Moscow housing thing. He doesn't get the apartment, however, because instead one of the devil's cronies beats him with a roast chicken.

Part of me wants to know what the satirical significance of that is and another part of me wants to never find out a deeper meaning and just enjoy the Boston Market Beatdown for what it is.

Another guy, the bartender from the theater, is at the apartment to ask Woland what is up with the fake money. The devil is instead concerned with the fact that the bartender was serving rotten food during the show and hey, fair point. Feta cheese should NOT be green. So then the giant cat beats him up, sans-poultry.

We then FINALLY meet Margarita. I mean, we somewhat met her before, in the Master's stupid story, though we never technically got her name. But now we know and she is far better than the Master made her out to be. She's still super in love with him and sad that he's gone and makes a pact with the devil (or really, one of the devil's friends, the one who administers chicken beatings), to rub this mysterious cream all over her body. She knows she's walking into something dangerous but doesn't care.

She rubs the cream on her as instructed and it turns her into a 20 year old and also gives her the power of flight and makes her invisible. So that's neat. Before she becomes invisible her housekeeper(?) Natasha sees her and is pretty impressed that she looks so good and also I think a little cos she's naked and OH MAN,

this is already a way better relationship than between the Master and Margarita.

Margarita flies off on a broom and decides to go fuck things up for one of the critics that was mean to the Masters (terrible, terrible) book. He's not home, since he's at Berlioz's funeral, so she smashes her way in through one of the windows, destroys everything with a hammer and then floods not only his apartments but the ones below too.

After she's done with her destruction who shows up but Natasha, also naked and flying on a pig who was actually some guy who really would rather be a person and not a flying pig. Natasha and Margarita have a good laugh and think how awesome it is that they're witches now and then Natasha flies off while Margarita follows Azazello's instructions. She lands and then is picked up by a rook driving a car and is driven to a party.

Back at that Moscow apartment everyone wants their hands on, the devil is having a little get together and needs a female hostess, hence Margarita's transformation. The cat is cheating at a game of chess, while the vampire woman Hella rubs some sort of fire and brimstone salve on the devil's knee. He's looking at a globe which is actually the real globe and Margarita is intrigued because let's face it, that's pretty neat. Then Natasha and her flying pig show up, and please, let's just have Natasha and Margarita get together, hmmm?

So yeah, Margarita is pretty cool and not the subservient wilting flower Master described. I guess that's the cream's doing but I'd like to think it was there all along. At the same time, she is sort of a dick, destroying that guy's apartment cos he, a critic, criticized the Master's book. But still, she's at least interesting to read now, especially that I've given up trying to make heads or tales of things. A bird driving a car while a witch flies a pig? Of course!

I can't begin to predict what will happen next week since I hardly know what's happened up to this point. I'm sure it will be bonkers.

*FUN FACT totally unrelated to this book at all, but every time I see the word "bookkeeper" it reminds me of an Encyclopedia Brown story where they had to come up with a word that had 3 double letters in a row and they came up with this one and somehow that blew the case wide open. That is all. Back to the Russian fever dream.

Title quote from page 200

Bulgakov, Mikhail. trans. Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky. The Master and Margarita. Penguin Classics, 1997. Originally published 1966.

MasterAndMargareadalong Post II: Congrats, citizens, you done lied!

Another Monday, so another #MasterAndMargareadalong post! Thank you, Alice, for making us read this book we've all been holding on to.

This week covers chapters 9-16 so we're almost 50% through this book and I still have only the vaguest sense of what's going on. But according to my friend who lent me the book, that's pretty much exactly how you should be going through a first reading of the book so WELL DONE, US! So, let's see if we can make heads or tales of things.

When last we posted, the devil and his cronies had disappeared this guy Styopa to Yalta, which is quite far from Moscow, so they could take over his apartment. I wonder what the devil wants with this crappy apartment. But he wants it. Except now the landlord is asking questions so they frame him for insider trading or something so another problem disappeared. I dunno, I thought the devil would be more creative but I guess making people suddenly disappear is sort of a Soviet thing.

Styopa tries to get in touch with some colleagues to tell them where he is but since they had just talked to him that morning before the disappearing thing, they are skeptical, despite being sent a ton of telegrams (why not just one, sir?) saying where he is. The devil breaks from his normal way of dealing with people he wants to silence (predicting a gruesome death or disappearing them far away) to just straight jumping the guy, and again, this seems like way below the devil. This is not the poetically ironic punishment I have come to expect from the devil, nor is it the ridiculously over-the-top torture I thought demons would dole out.

Then we go to the theater where Woland and his buddies actually do perform some magic, which I had assumed was just some lie they were telling to take Styopa's apartment. They do some card tricks, rain money down, and then give a bunch of clothes away. At this point, they're basically the show from Now You See Me. The MC for the event keeps explaining the tricks (kind of) which is kind of a dick move and everyone is getting annoyed at him. So annoyed that someone in the crowd yells "Off with his head" and Behemoth the cat takes it literally and, well, takes off his head. Don't worry though, when the audience freaks out at this he puts it back and apparently the guy is fine.

Back at the hospital with the Poet/Ivan/Homeless we finally meet someone that I think is the titular "Master" though who knows really. This guy stole some keys off of one of the nurses but instead of using the doors he goes through the balcony and the hospital rooms have balconies? That's fancy. He tells some story about falling in love with a lady with yellow flowers (and apparently carrying ugly yellow flowers is a sign for him to follow her?)

and how they're secretly married except she's already married and I dunno. He was writing some novel about Pilate but it's terrible and a bunch of negative criticism drives him insane, hence why he's now at the hospital.

Lots of people end up at this hospital, like Nikanor, the guy framed by the devil. At some point, you'd think enough people at the hospital are going to have stories about run-ins with the same guys and someone is going to put two and two together. 

We then get another Waynes World flashback to Jesus days, where we see Jesus being hanged on the cross. Matthew Levi had tried to kill Jesus before he could suffer but didn't manage that. Instead one of the guards watching the prisoners gives them each some water and then stabs them in the heart to end things quicker. I don't have much to say here except at one point the book says "the back of his white shirt dark with sweat" and all I could think is white clothes get transparent with sweat and that was a stupid moment to pull me out of the story, but given I still have only the vaguest idea of what is happening or who anyone is, I guess it's not too surprising.

What will happen next week? Legit no idea. Maybe a few other people will end up at the hospital? A few more people will get disappeared to far away locations? The cat will rip off a few other heads and limbs? WHO KNOWS! Not me.

Title quote from page 123

Bulgakov, Mikhail. trans. Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky. The Master and Margarita. Penguin Classics, 1997. Originally published 1966.

MasterAndMargareadalong Post I: "Scat!" the cat barked, suddenly

It's October which seems to be readalong season. The perfect method to get through something that you want to read, but you need some support to get through. And today we have the first post of #TheMasterAndMargareadalong (100 points for that hashtag.)

I've had The Master and the Margarita sitting on my bookshelf for a few years now. Ever since I mentioned I was totally going to read it to fulfill a reading challenge and a friend lent me his copy. And then instead of reading it, I didn't.

So when our fearless leader Alice announced it for a readalong I was excited to finally defeat this book and give my friend back his book.

I pick up my copy and make it through the first sentence when I see a superscript 1. I glance down at the bottom of the page, but there's nothing there. And then I realize: Motherfuckin' endnotes. Well, I will surely miss out on some very interesting details cos there's no way I'm going to be flipping back and forth the whole time. Fellow readalongers, I hope your copy is set up differently and you can fill in those gaps. Though when I did read the notes it said stuff like "Several characters are named after composers. But there's no actual meaning to this." So...thanks?

For this first post we're to read chapters 1-8. Which I did. But

We established during sign up that there are no ships, there are no margaritas (at least not the tequila kind), there's a crazy cat and according to the cover I have, some giant fish and swords. Reading the first fifth of the book has yet to explain any of the cover. There have been zero masters and zero margaritas introduced. 

Let's see what there has been.

Two men, an editor for a literary magazine (Mikhail Berlioz) and a poet (Ivan Ponyrev aka Homeless), are discussing a recent poem that's been commissioned, which was supposed to deny that Jesus existed. Which, sure, whatever you wanna write. Then some foreigner that speaks perfect Russian (so then why is he so foreign?) sits down right in between them, like a creep, starts talking to them about atheism and then predicts Berlioz is going to be decapitated before the day ends.

The correct response

This creepy stranger is the Devil. I mean, right? I realize they haven't officially said that yet, but the back cover says the Devil shows up in Moscow. And also people start talking about the Devil A LOT right when he shows up. So yeah.

We then get a Wayne's World-esque flashback where the Devil/Professor Woland starts telling the story of Jesus and Pontius Pilate. This chapter made slightly more sense than the others in this section, though there were some odd moments. At one point Yeshua correctly identifies that Hegemon is sad and just wants to be with his dog and you'd think this would be because of some divine insight. Except when asked how he knew this, the response is

"It's very simple," the prisoner replied in Latin. "You were moving your hand in the air" - and the prisoner repeated Pilate's gesture - "as if you wanted to stroke something"

Elementary, my dear Pilate

We go back to Moscow where Professor Woland is telling them he was there so Berlioz and Homeless decide to call the authorities on him when SURPRISE, Berlioz slips on some oil and falls onto some train tracks and his head does get cut off and it's crazy. Homeless believes the guy is responsible for this and starts chasing him and then, OK this is roughly where I stopped being able to follow what's happening, and we're only in chapter 3 so shit. But this is already pretty long so how about some bullets for the rest?

• A cat tries to ride the tram, AND even goes to pay the fare, but gets kicked off. Cos cat.
• Ivan breaks into some random woman's apartment and watches her shower, thinking he'll find Woland there (he does not).
• Then he decides Woland must be in the water for some reason and his clothes get stolen so he has to wander around in his undies.
• Ivan then shows up (still in his undies) to the literary society that Berlioz headed (HA) and tells people that Berlioz is dead and a crazy man made it happen. He is taken away to an insane asylum
• Ivan continues to rant that a man who witnessed Pilate and Jesus killed Berlioz. No one believes him.
• Berlioz's roommate (Styopa, they live in a communal apartment deal with lots of bedrooms and shared bath/kitchen) wakes up to Woland sitting in his bedroom, telling him they have a contract for Woland to perform...something.
• Then Woland's buddies plus the cat show up and kick Styopa out of his room and teleports him to Yalta, which distancecalculator.net tells me is over 900 miles away from Moscow.

I look forward to reading everyone's posts and seeing if you guys could make sense of things.

Title quote from page 84. I picked it cos it made me laugh when I read it. Of course, I read that part while on the way home from the bar, so that is probably related.

Bulgakov, Mikhail. trans. Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky. The Master and Margarita. Penguin Classics, 1997. Originally published 1966.