The Master and Margarita

Mikhail Bulgakov

One might, perhaps, ask Ivan Nikolayevich why he assumed that the professor would be precisely near the Moskva River and not anywhere else. But the trouble is that there was no one to ask this. The foul alley was totally deserted.

The citizen had nabbed the tom at a moment when the beast was proceeding with a stealthy air (and what can you do if this is the manner natural to toms? It's not that they are criminal, but that they are afraid of stronger creatures--dogs or men--who might inflict some harm or wrong upon them. And this is easily done, but, I assure you, there is little honor to be claimed from such an act, yes, very little!), and so, the tom was, for some reason of his own, proceeding with a stealthy air into a clump of weeds.

This book was not at all what I expected it to be. It's Faust, but really really wacky. As much as I love the Faust story, I was not too impressed by The Master and Margarita, which is saying a lot. This seemed a case of authorial self-indulgence as bad as any I've seen. I know authorial self-indulgence, I'm an expert at it. Bulgakov has his moments, but for the most part, this was not a read to put at the top of your list.