The Master and Margarita #

Mikhail Bulgakov #

September 10, 2024

5/5

I read this book for the first time a few years ago. At that time I had rated it slightly less (I think a 4/5). Reading it again, I cannot comprehend why I had done that.

This is an incredible book, and I think that anything that I could possibly say (from the wheelhouse of my imagination) has already been said. To one degree, I had one reading of this novel (at this moment) that had totally different from my first reading of this novel. And I believe that if I were to read this novel again at some future date, my reading will once again change.

Every time I hear someone discuss this novel, they have their own intricate understanding of what takes place and what it reminds them of or of what they feel like it explains. I think the first time I read this book, I had trouble with that fact, and ended up rather confused at a number of instances. However, on this reading, it felt rather clear to me. Perhaps that is just because life has changed since I last read it. And surely, that will be true again.

I think that in that way, this is maybe one of the most pure forms of a novel, in fact I suppose that I have heard some people call this book the novel, as though it were the novel to end all novels.

I may disagree that this is the novel, but it is only because my heart has been taken by another. Still I better understand why some people feel that way.