We had a surprisingly good meeting today, surprising because the prospect of reading such a seemingly weird, wild work of magical surrealism put half of the group off venturing far into the 500+ pages of Mikhail Bulgakov’s novel, The Master and Margarita. 

However, first we listened to a clip from a BBC Meridian programme from Moscow, (on BBC Sounds) where it was entertainingly shown both how massively popular and how seriously the novel is taken over there, and then to the introduction to a World Service “The Forum” discussion by Bulkagov scholars, where it was immediately stated that this was a many layered novel famous for its satire, lyricism and philosophy.

In our discussion of the novel we found imagination, philosophy and subversion, with prominent themes of political repression, religion, personal integrity versus cowardice, and autobiographical elements concerned with persevering true love, as well as an Alice in Wonderland kind of surrealism which requires a childlike suspension of disbelief. 

The novel was written in deadly secrecy in 1930s Moscow by Bulgakov who was previously a medical doctor but had become a well known playwright and novelist, most of whose work was censored by Stalin’s bureaucrats. It was only published fully in 1967 (thanks to the perseverance of his wife) when famously, Marianne Faithfull gave a copy to Mick Jagger who was then inspired to compose the song “Sympathy for the Devil”. We watched a short but amusing French video cartoon which merged the song with scenes from the novel.

At our next meeting on January 22nd we will be discussing Welsh women authors and at our February 27th session, the work of Freida McFadden, to find out why this writer is so popular. It was felt that after Conor McCarthy and Bulgakov, something light (we hope) would be a good idea.