Rereading a beloved book is sometimes fraught with "danger." -- Will it pass the test of time and remain great or have the changes wrought by time on the reader have created such a different person that he or she can no longer relate to the book? I recently reread a book that was a favorite of mine and of my college buddies way back when...50 years ago to be precise. The book is The Master and Margarita, written in the 1930s in Stalinist USSR by Mikhail Bulgakov. Although written in the '30s, the book was banned by Soviet authorities for some 30 years, as Bulgakov suffered the same fate as umpteen Russian artists, musicians and authors such as Nabokov, Shostakovich, etc. Bulgakov was rehabilitated in the '60s and an English translation of the novel came out in 1968, when it became wildly popular and ultimately a cult classic. Supposedly, the book was the inspiration for the Rolling Stone's song "Sympathy for the Devil" after Mick Jagger read the book (maybe an urban myth??). A precursor of the Latin American genre of "magical realism", Master and Margarita is a wild, crazy and extremely funny mix of fantasy, social satire and philosophy. It tells the story of a visit by the Devil (called "Woland") and his entourage to 1930s Moscow and all sorts of wild effects. Two people caught up in the event are "the Master", a novelist, and his lover, Margarita. Segments of the Master's novel, an unorthodox take on the condemning to death of Jesus by Pontius Pilate, are interposed into the main narrative. The novel is unique in its theme, style and the sheer joy it produces. This reread was very successful!
For a review of the book from the NY Times, click here: https://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/29/books/review/moscows-magic-realism.html
