The Devil Went Down to Moscow

I finished a book Saturday! Just in time for me to start a new one for the summer. Just for you curious readers out there, the books I have on my list for the summer are The River Why by David James Duncan, One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck, and maybe some short stories by Graham Greene in between. And that's just the fiction!

Anyway, the book I've been reading for the past couple months was... interesting. I'm sure I'm missing something about it: some social context, some other literary allusion, or something. All the same, I enjoyed it. Mikhail Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita is set in Moscow during Stalin's reign. How it was able to be published (mid 1960's) without heavy censure is a mystery to me.

I don't want to spoil it, but I can say a few things about it. Basically, it's about the chaos that ensues when Satan and a few demons come to Moscow. They set-up shop in a recently deceased author's apartment, and proceed to haunt, terrorize, confuse, and disorient... Moscow. Their focus is on the literary community, and it's because of this that I think Satan and his retinue must represent the communist regime of the early 1900's.

The other plot of the book is the events surrounding Christ's crucifixion. Special detail is given to Pontius Pilate and his Inquisition of Christ before the crucifixion, a conversation with Matthew Levi about the book he is writing (presumably our Gospel of Matthew), and his involvement in the murder of Judas. This narrative is written by one of the authors that get sent to a mental institution after their interaction with Moscow's visitors.

The two story lines are mixed together with little apparent overlap. However, there is one parallel I see between the two stories. In the whole book, Caesar and Stalin are conspicuously absent. Their presence is undeniable: in Moscow, there is a general fear of the political machine that controls the country. In the same way, the strong hand of Caesar seems to always be on Pilate's mind. Their goals of cultural unity and civil peace at the cost of individuality and freedom seem to go hand in hand.

Again, I highly enjoyed this book. It was at times profound, hilarious, confusing, and absurd. But, as I said, I feel like I'm missing something. Maybe this one just takes a little time to sink in.