Beginning The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov

In complete disgust I have laid down Stephen King’s 11/22/63. Like a tough piece of meat, I’ve been chewing on it all November, and it just won’t go away. I’m on page 500-something of 800-something pages, and frankly, it’s not the depth of the book that’s getting me down. It’s that November is  more than half gone, and I have Things To Do.  

I’ve promised myself to read Norwegian Wood this November for my own Japanese Literature Challenge 6.

 I’ve also promised tuesday to participate in her Russian Reading month this November.

So, bye-bye Stephen. Until we met again. Not that I haven’t enjoyed some of your novel, such as the trip down memory lane to the 60’s when I myself was a child.

Last night I opened The Master and Margarita for Russian Reading month. It is every bit as thrilling as I’ve been promised. I find myself inserting post-it tabs in several places, and I’m only on page 62. Behold what has struck me thus far:

• “I couldn’t agree more!” concurred the stranger, his eye agleam, and he continued, “But this is what disturbs me: if there is no God, then, the questions is, who is in control of man’s life and the whole order of things on earth?” (p. 8)
• A quarter of an hour later Ryukhin was sitting all by himself, hunched over a plate of carp, downing glass after glass (of vodka). He was coming to realize and to acknowledge that he could not rectify anything in his life, he could only forget. (p. 61)

There’s so much in these two passages! Who is in control of man’s life? We could talk about that forever. Is the solution to rectifying anything in one’s life to only forget? We could talk about that, too.

And, I hope we will once I finish The Master and Margarita in all its tremendous power.