I’m not intending to write a review, since I want to hold back from such things. There’s a plethora of opinion out there already, without me adding to it. But I’m currently reading The Master and Margarita, and I simply couldn’t believe that this book passed the Soviet censors.
A fantasy classic, it’s the story of the devil and his henchmen (including a massive talking cat) arriving on the streets of Moscow in the decades before WWII when Stalin’s regime was at its grimmest, and follows various interlinked escapades that they get involved in. But it’s an amazingly Faustian, funny, profound, and… well, it’s blatant about turning over Soviet propaganda. It even comments on things such as the secret police vanishing people from the streets of the city. The footnotes are essential in putting the novel into context, too.
How the hell was that allowed to be published?
