The battle of competing translations, a new publishing phenomenon which began with One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, now offers two rival American editions of Mikhail Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita. Mirra Ginsburg's (Grove Press) version is pointedly grotesque: she delights in the sharp, spinning, impressionistic phrase. Her …
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The battle of competing translations, a new publishing phenomenon which began with One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich, now offers two rival American editions of Mikhail Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita. Mirra Ginsburg's (Grove Press) version is pointedly grotesque: she delights in the sharp, spinning, impressionistic phrase. Her Bulgakov reminds one of the virtuoso effects encountered in Zamyatin and Babel, as yell as the early Pasternak's bizarre tale of Heine in Italy. Translator Michael Glenny, on the other hand, almost suggests Tolstoy. His (Harper & Row) version is simpler, softer, and more humane. The Bulgakov fantasy is less striking here, but less strident, too. Glenny: ""There was an oddness about that terrible day...It was the hour of the day when people feel too exhausted to breathe, when Moscow glows in a dry haze..."" Ginsburg: ""Oh, yes, we must take note of the first strange thing...At that hour, when it no longer seemed possible to breathe, when the sun was tumbling in a dry haze..."" In any case, The Master and Margarita, a product of intense labor from 1928 till Bulgakov's death in 1940, is a distinctive and fascinating work, undoubtedly a stylistic landmark in Soviet literature, both for its aesthetic subversion of ""socialist realism"" (like Zamyatin, Bulgakov apparently believed that true literature is created by visionaries and skeptics and madmen), and for the purity of its imagination. Essentially the anti-scientific, vaguely anti-Stalinist tale presents a resurrected Christ figure, a demonic, tricksy foreign professor, and a Party poet, the bewildered Ivan Homeless, plus a bevy of odd or romantic types, all engaged in socio-political exposures, historical debates, and supernatural turnabouts. A humorous, astonishing parable on power, duplicity, freedom, and love.
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The Master and Margarita
Paperback, 373 pages
English language
Published March 27, 1996 by Vintage International.
- ISBN:
- 978-0-679-76080-1Copied ISBN!
- OCLC Number:
- 154557264
The Master and Margarita
Epub
English language
Published Feb. 9, 2016 by Penguin Books.
- ISBN:
- 978-1-5247-0412-4Copied ISBN!
- OCLC Number:
- 966125593
The Master and Margarita
Paperback
English language
Published Feb. 9, 2017 by Penguin Books.
- ISBN:
- 978-0-14-118014-4Copied ISBN!
- OCLC Number:
- 1023018273
The Master and Margarita
Paperback, 371 pages
English language
Published Feb. 9, 2003 by Vintage.
- ISBN:
- 978-1-78487-193-2Copied ISBN!
- OCLC Number:
- 968342092
The Master and Margarita
eAudio
English language
Published Jan. 1, 2013 by Recorded Books.
- ISBN:
- 978-1-4703-4894-6Copied ISBN!
- OCLC Number:
- 937888644
The Master and Margarita
Hardcover
English language
Published Feb. 9, 2016 by Penguin Books.
- ISBN:
- 978-0-14-310827-6Copied ISBN!
- OCLC Number:
- 910412975
The Master and Margarita
Epub
English language
Published Feb. 9, 2015 by Rosetta Books.
- ISBN:
- 978-0-7953-4840-2Copied ISBN!
- OCLC Number:
- 957127589
Der Meister und Margarita
Paperback
German language
Published Feb. 9, 2012 by Books on Demand.
- ISBN:
- 978-3-8448-1029-5Copied ISBN!
- OCLC Number:
- 864523237
El maestro y Margarita
Paperback, 514 pages
Spanish language
Published Feb. 9, 2011 by Alianza Editorial, S.A..
- ISBN:
- 978-84-206-6488-0Copied ISBN!
Мастер и Маргарита
Hardcover, 413 pages
Russian language
Published May 31, 1999 by Terra, Izdatel'skij centr - Izdatel'stvo Azbu.
- ISBN:
- 978-5-7684-0317-1Copied ISBN!
- OCLC Number:
- 45258989
El Maestro y Margarita
Paperback
Spanish language
Published May 9, 2013 by Lectorum.
- ISBN:
- 978-1-4993-1914-9Copied ISBN!
- OCLC Number:
- 880200339
Мастер и Маргарита
Paperback
Russian language
Published Feb. 9, 2013 by JiaHu Books.
- ISBN:
- 978-1-909669-89-5Copied ISBN!
- OCLC Number:
- 885201438
The Master and Margarita
Epub
English language
Published Feb. 9, 1995 by Grove Press.
- ISBN:
- 978-0-8021-9051-2Copied ISBN!
Maestrul şi Margareta
Paperback
Romanian language
Published Feb. 9, 2014 by Polirom.
- ISBN:
- 978-973-46-4345-5Copied ISBN!
- OCLC Number:
- 997395296
Le Maître et Marguerite
Paperback
French language
Published Feb. 9, 2015 by Pavillons Poche | Robert Laffont.
- ISBN:
- 978-2-221-18996-2Copied ISBN!
- OCLC Number:
- 40574506
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