I would normally say that it’s not a great idea to found a lifelong relationship on the basis of liking one particular book. I have a friend who married her husband almost exclusively because he told her he had read it. I’ve formed friendships with people purely on the strength of the knowledge that they have read and enjoyed this novel. Otherwise you’d cry.”įor those who already know and love The Master and Margarita, there is something of a cult-like “circle of trust” thing going on. Not only is this a possibility at any time occasionally, it’s an absolute necessity: “You’ve got to laugh. The Master and Margarita is a reminder that, ultimately, everything is better if you can inject a note of silliness and of the absurd. It’s a novel that encourages you not to take yourself too seriously, no matter how bad things have got. Most of all, it is the book that saved me when I felt like I had wasted my life. It is widely acknowledged as one of the greatest novels of the 20th century and as a masterpiece of magical realism, but it’s very common even for people who are very well read not to have heard of it, although among Russians you have only to mention a cat the size of a pig and apricot juice that makes you hiccup and everyone will know what you are talking about. In some ways, the book has an odd reputation. It’s funny, it’s profound and it has to be read to be believed.
Of all the Russian classics, The Master and Margarita is undoubtedly the most cheering. If many Russian classics are dark and deep and full of the horrors of the blackness of the human soul (or, indeed, are about the Gulag), then this is the one book to buck the trend. ‘“And what is your particular field of work?” asked Berlioz.
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