![]() What we see in Chapter 1 is Berlioz’s easy assurance as he explains the correct Party line. But we don’t see that until Chapter 5, based mainly at ‘Griboedov’s’ – as so often, a relic from pre-Revolutionary times that oozes exclusivity. He is the man in charge of ‘Massolit’, the imaginary body overseeing literary production which soon comes to represent all the nonsense – the privileges, the back-biting, the petty rivalries, even the queues – of Soviet bureaucracy in general. The streets and landmarks of Moscow he presents in Chapter 1 are immediately recognisable – as are the workings of the mind of a seasoned apparatchik, Berlioz. It’s the last of these that Bulgakov begins with. I read this novel years ago, and all I could remember about it was the Devil, a big black talking cat and a lot of Soviet-style bureaucracy. ![]() There’s a lot of persuasion in this book – everybody is selling something to somebody – and I’ll come back to that. ![]() ![]() It’s quirky, clever, merciless in its satirical treatment of life in the Soviet Union under Stalinist rule… and, even in translation, Bulkakov is able to persuade you that you’re in the hands of a writer at the top of his game. ![]() …which cover roughly the first half of Part 1. ![]()
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