Heart of a Dog - Mikhail Bulgakov

 

A neighbour left a whole bunch of novels by some of my favourite authors in a box on a doorstep. When I saw it I was running back home. I stopped. I dove into the box. And I came out with this, with a bunch of books by Coetzee, some by Eugenides, some 19th century classics, and had a good backpack full of books (needless to say, that last 1 km back home was a tad bit slower than the previous ones...). 

Only thing: in my oxygen-deprived state my mind swapped Bulgakov and Nabokov (I can't be the first one, though that's no excuse). I had found The Master and Margarita to be ponderous and self-indulgent, but having got this book anyway I decided to read it (also because, in all honesty, it's very short...). 

Turns out, I don't particularly like dogs, I don't particularly like Bulgakov, and I don't particularly like mad doctors playing god with brain transplants. I also don't particularly like allegoric depictions of the Soviet Union characterized by a sense of humour that was probably dated already in the 1920s. 

So, guess what, I didn't particularly like this book...

The Master and Margarita – Mikhail Bulgakov

The unfortunately high expectations that I had from this book probably ruined it for me. I though my mind was going to be blown away by Bulgakov’s masterpiece, instead I was left extremely disappointed. I remember a school re-enactment of the first chapter of the novel, with the mysterious Iraqi kid playing a great Woland, but as it turns out that was, for me, by far the most interesting chapter in the entire novel. My father loved the book, but maybe it was a generational thing.

As I mentioned before, I already have issues with magical realism, but works of fantasy are just too much for me. After a couple of hundred pages the book just got boring for me. The intentions of the devilish characters are generally quite foreseeable from the start, so just get on with it. And I was hoping for at least something more satanic (and not just plain decadent) for the ball.

After a while even Behemoth, the most entertaining of Woland’s gang, becomes boring and repetitive. And the sections on the Master’s book seem just like a long, bleak return to Sunday school.