The Master and Margarita by Mikhail BulgakovMy rating: 1 of 5 stars
One-star to this very trippy book with a crazy narrative that didn't make sense, interweaving events in Stalin's Russia with the last hours of Jesus and Pontius Pilate, featuring You-Know-Who, his minions including naked witches and talking cats, and various unfortunate writers and literary men.
I have some dear friends who count this among their favorites, and so I bought the cheapest edition I could find and read it in the name of friendship.
And honestly if I didn't regard these friendships highly I wouldn't have forced myself to finish my copy, hehe.
Intellectually, I understood the narrative. Even got most of the references (hurray for college and footnotes!). But for the life of me, I just don't get WHY it's considered one of the greatest novels of the 20th century.
I understood what the story is about. But it's a bad thing if a reader has to Google the ending just to make sure she understood it (I used the Internet to verify that, indeed, things did turn out the way I understood they did).
I'm now wondering if I would have fared better had I read a different English translation? Hmmm. To those who loved this book, I'd be really interested to find out what drew you to it!
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