Reading: Master and Margarita – Chapter 3 Posted by yelena on Jun 19, 2010 in Culture
Weekend is a great time for catching up on our big summer reading project – Mikhail Bulgakov’s Master and Margarita. Guess what, we are on Chapter 3 already! But before we dive into the review, let’s do the Readers’ Mail (look at me, I sound like a real National Public Radio show host!).
So, based on the comments left on the last M&M post:
Martti – how are you getting along? Are you reading M&M in 3 languages? What are the other two (other than Russian)?
Rob – thanks for bringing up the question of whether Bulgakov himself was «верующий» [a religious person]. I assumed that he was, but never looked into it. Now, here’s something I found on one of the Russian forums regarding Bulgakov’s relationship with faith. He was from a religious family and his grandfather was a «священнослужитель» [member of a clergy]. It seems like Bulgakov wasn’t religious in his youth, but became so in later years.
Valerie – “glamourtrash restaurant” – awesome! «А как перевести на русский?» [How would it be translated into Russian?]
Richard – I’ve never met an M&M collector before! I love lacquer boxes and have a very small collection (I keep giving them away as gifts ‘cause my friends love them so much). Maybe you can take a few pictures of the tops of the boxes and send our way? (yes, it’s not M&M related, but I just can’t resist)
Richard (again) – I tried making it to the Bulgakov’s flat last time I was in Moscow, but it was closed that day. If anyone been there, please share your experience and pictures!
Sean – you’re right, we did skip over the opening quote. But I’m going to make it up to you. Read on…
Jan – thank you for a link to a great panoramic shot of the Patriarch’s Ponds.
Svetlana – great photo! Have you been to any of the Bulgakov’s tours? I’d love to go next time I’m in Moscow!
(Don’t see your name in this mail call? This means you commented after this post had been written.)
And now, to Chapter 3 we go. In this chapter our old acquaintances, Berlioz and Bezdomniy, are talking to the «специалист по черной магии» [black magic specialist] Woland, with disastrous consequences.
But wait a second, who is this mysterious Woland or Voland? Doesn’t just the description of him send shivers down your spine?
«…росту был… высокого. Что касается зубов, то с левой стороны у него были платиновые коронки, а с правой – золотые… под мышкой нес трость в виде головы пуделя… Рот какой-то кривой… Брюнет… Правый глаз – черный, левый – почему-то зеленый. Брови черные, но одна выше другой.»
[…was simply tall. As for his teeth, the left ones had platinum crowns, the right – gold… he carried a walking stick with a black knob shaped like a poodle’s head… Slightly crooked mouth… Dark brown hair. Right eye black, left – for some reason, green. Black eyebrows, but one was higher than the other.]
Is this the devil himself strolling around Moscow just before Easter holiday? All this talk of black magic, astrology, black poodle, and the infamous «а дъявола тоже нет?» [and the devil doesn’t exist either?].
Plus there’s the name itself – «Воланд» [Woland or Voland]. Does it remind you of any other fictional black magic specialist? C’mon, I know we’ve got some Harry Potter fans here. Yes, that would be Lord Voldemort (incidentally, translated in Russian books as «Воланд-де-Морт»).
Original «Воланд», «Велунд», «Фаланд» (there are countless versions of the name’s spelling) was one of the Norse demi-gods or heroes. The myth of Weland (or Wayland) mentions Weland beheading his enemies and making goblets out of their skulls (something to keep in mind as we continue reading).
Now, here’s the “Six Degrees” game:
- The name Woland or Weland or Wayland is linked to an old Germanic word meaning “canning craftsman”.
- Do you know how “canning craftsman” translates into Russian? «Лукавый мастер».
- «Лукавый» [a cunning one] is, by the way, one of the euphemisms for “devil” as in «на грех меня лукавый натолкнул» [it was the Cunning One who pushed me to mischief].
- The quote above is from a fable by «Иван Андреевич Крылов» [Ivan Andreevich Krilov]
- There is a large statue of Krilov at Patriarch’s Ponds (see the picture above).
- Patriarch’s Ponds is, of course, the place where Woland makes his first appearance in the novel.
Once pagan believes became replaced by Christianity, Weland became closely associated with the devil. Yes, that’s him in Goethe’s Faust.
This is a good time to get back to the first page of the Part One to re-read (or read for the first time) the opening quote from Goethe:
«Я – часть той силы, что вечно хочет зла и вечно совершает благо» [I am part of the power which forever wills evil and forever works good] says Mephistopheles.
But let’s not put the cart before the horse or spoil it for those who are reading M&M for the first time. Let’s not talk about what “good” comes out of “evil intent”… not yet anyway.
Instead, there’s a much more pressing issue to explore – was Woland based, at least in part, on a real person? Many believe that «прообраз» [prototype] of Woland was Stalin himself. What do you think?
And now, let’s talk about the Seventh Proof itself. For many of us the best proof of anything is «не слово, а дело» [not the word, but the deed] a.k.a. experiential proof. That’s exactly the type of proof that was «предъявлено» [presented] to Berlioz.
«Кстати» [by the way], there are several synonyms for the word «предъявлять» [to present], including «показывать» [to show, to present] and «представлять» [to present]. But don’t you think «предъявлять» has a bit of alliteration with «дъявол» [devil] in it and is particularly suitable for the occasion?
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Comments:
Throbert McGee:
При дъ’я’воле предъявл’я’ю…
yelena:
@Throbert McGee Indeed, in Chapter 1 “дъявол предъявлял документы” 🙂
Throbert McGee:
@Yelena: First, thanks for the wonderful insights! I need to catch up with my blog. My goal now is to finish uploading the entire book before Monday, and to finish the highlighted annotations of chapters 1-3 by Thursday.
Throbert McGee:
One suggestion I would make: When you’re marking stressed syllables, you should also mark one-syllable words that are stressed. For example, он is always stressed, but да may be stressed (да, я знаю) or unstressed (да будет свет!).
And then you have sentences like Апельсин пал на пол. (Where the stress unexpectedly shifts from the noun to the preposition!)
Throbert McGee:
Oh, fudge! I tried to mark the stressed vowels with underlining, but it didn’t work!
Martti:
@елена Thanks for supporting us in out reading! I have my own book, a Finnish languge translation by Ulla-Liisa Heino “Saatana saapuu Moskovaan” from 1969. Recently I bought a paperback translated by Diana Burgin & Katherine Tiernan O’Connor printed in 1995. From the Helsinki City Library I got the “Мастер и Маргарита” printed in 1983 in Moscow.
Having first read this book in Finnish a long time ago, I have a vague memory of the whole. Now I am slowly and firmly repeating word by word, referring English and Finnish translation of the interrogarion in the 2. Chapter.
Svetlana:
Re: Have you been to any of the Bulgakov’s tours?
I went on one a couple of months ago. I love the novel, so I couldn’t but enjoy it a lot) My husband did too, even though he is not so crazy about the novel or the author 🙂 The most exciting thing about the tour was that it was at night, and it seems to be just the time to discuss the novel about the devil.
And one more thing: you wrote about the Bulgakov’s flat – indeed, there’s a nice little museum there, with a few things dating back to the early 20th century. But there’s another Bulgakov museum in the same building. There are some pictures and books there, and young people who work there are always ready to answer any of your questions about Mikhail Bulgakov. THey also arrange Bulgakov’s tours, including the one we went on.
There’s also a theatre whose performances take place right inside the museum. I haen’t seen any of them, but must be interesting 🙂
Throbert McGee:
One point I wanted to bring up from Chapter 2: Do you think there’s any significance in the имя (name) and прозвище (nickname) of the centurion, Марк Крысобой?
“Mark,” of course, happens to be the name of one of the four Gospelists, and in the Master’s novel the centurion has the same form of the name — Марк — that is used in Russian when referring to the Gospel. (In other words, Bulgakov doesn’t call him Маркус, for example.)
On the other hand, let it be clear: there is no tradition in Christianity that Mark the Evangelist was a former Roman soldier from the officer ranks. (Roman centurions were relatively well-educated and literate.) There are, however, at least two nameless Roman centurions who are mentioned in the Gospels: one who asks Jesus to heal his servant (Matt. 8:5-13, Luke 7:1-10), and one who says, “Truly, this was the Son of God!” (Mark 15:39).
And why is he nicknamed Крысобой? One can simply translate this as “Rat-fighter” or “He who kills rats,” although the Michael Glenny edition latinizes the name to “Muribellum” (in Latin, mūrēs = мышы или крысы and bellum = война).
Again, it’s possible that there’s no “hidden meaning” in the nickname — it may be simply the humorous braggadocio of soldiers, because Mark the centurion is described as a giant of a man, so tall and broad-shouldered that he seems to block out the sun, and therefore the enemy would seem like rats compared to him.
But at any rate, we will meet Mark the Rat-Killer again later in the novel.
yelena:
@Throbert McGee Rob, I think this might be the case of reading a bit much into it. In Russian the Roman name Marcus is almost never written as such, but instead as “Mарк” (i.e. Marcus Aurelius is Марк Аврелий). I love your question – it made me do some additional research and I dug up something very interesting that I hope to share in the next M&M post and that’s directly related to Марк Крысобой.