The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov

Read: June, 2004

The devil has arrived in Moscow, and he's there to wreak havoc. Meanwhile, a writer obsesses over Pontius Pilate while a young woman obsesses over him.

I read Master and Margarita for a course I was taking in university, and it was one of my favourite books of the whole year. I found the obsession with Pontius Pilate to be rather contagious. I was taking another course on the New Testament, so I was able to get it out of my system by writing a rather lengthy essay on him.

This was all a couple years ago, so my memory of the book is a little hazy, but I remember finding it very funny and interesting, mixed in with that depressingly lethargic outlook on life, society, and government so common to Russian writing.

Night Watch #2: The Day Watch by Sergei Lukyanenko

Read: 19 December, 2010

During a battle with a powerful witch, Day Watch witch Alisa is drained of all her power. She is sent to a children's summer camp to work as a councillor while she recovers and, there, falls in love with a young man. Everything seems to be going well until her powers start to return and she realizes that her lover is a witch with the Night Watch!

In Night Watch, we got to see how the Others on the side of the light operate. Now, we get a glimpse into their enemy organization, the Day Watch.

This was a great addition to the series! I really enjoyed how the Dark Others were presented. They aren't evil, per se, they are just approaching life and relationships differently. In fact, I think that many people would agree with their individualistic philosophy. Lukyanenko did a great job of making the two sides distinct, with thoughts and motives that are diametrically opposed, while at the same time making them eerily similar. I think it's a mark of a master writer to be able to convincingly write about a feud between two enemies while convincing the reader that both are entirely justified.

As with Night Watch, the book is composed of several short stories that don't seem to have a whole lot to do with each other. But by the end, it becomes apparent that each has actually been building up towards a particular climax, that every seemingly unrelated event has actually been part of the leaders' strategies. Again, it's truly impressive how Lukyanenko is able to pull this off without it ever feeling contrived. The climactic reveals are truly revealing, and not in a cheaty way.

The setting is wonderful. It's a magical world laid over our own modern day one, and this is done very creatively. But most impressive is how very Russian the magic system is! There is little natural limit to what the witches can do, something that would be a recipe for Mary Sues in the hands of most other authors. But here, the use of magic is restricted by a complex hierarchical bureaucracy. It's like something straight out of Brazil!

And, as a fan of Russian music, I've been having a great time trying to match up the translated lyrics with the original songs.

Night Watch #1: The Night Watch by Sergei Lukyanenko

Read: 12 May, 2009

Anton Gorodetski is an Other, a person with magical abilities. In his world, Others come in two types: those who belong to the Light and those who belong to the Dark. These two sides are in a sort of cold war against each other, each polices the other and ensures that neither breaks the terms of their uneasy truce.

Night Watch is arranged in three parts, each an independent story in which Anton must solve a mystery and encounter the Dark Ones. The great twist of the third story is, of course, that the events of all three are actually all related, part of a great plot, and Anton must make an impossible choice that could either save the world or destroy it.

The novel is unmistakably Russian. The magic system, not to mention the model of the truce between the two factions of Others, is ruled primarily by bureaucracy. The sense of humour, too, is fundamentally Russian - as are the character personalities, the descriptions, and even Anton's final decision at the climax of the novel. All are so adorably Russian.

The bureaucracy makes the magic system interesting. While the magic system itself could allow for limitless power (something generally considered a no-no in the Fantasy genre), the bureaucracy keeps the amount of power any one individual can hold in check. It's a very unique (and uniquely Russian) solution to a common problem in Fantasy stories.

I found Night Watch to be a delightful novel. It was funny, it was interesting, it was suspenseful, clever, and so very very Russian (can I say this enough?). I highly recommend it for fans of the Fantasy genre (especially the subgenre of Urban Fantasy), as well as any Russia-aficionados.

A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess

Read: 20 February, 2009

In this infamous classic, young Alex is an ultra-violent teen who revels in rape, robbery, and in beating up members of the older generations. When a robbery goes sour and Alex is betrayed by his closest droogs, he finds himself in jail with a very long sentence for murder. But there is still hope for our young narrator. Alex is given the opportunity to test a new system that promises to end all crime by turning the most depraved devils into perfect angels. But the prison chaplain has his reservations. Is it right for the government to keep the peace by creating clockwork oranges?

POSITIVE: The language play is amazing. I have the benefit of knowing a little Russian, but this is by no means necessary. Alex's switches between Nadsat and his "gentleman's goloss" add a great deal of layering to the novel. Burgess is also able to preach without bogging down the story. Finally, the humour is fantastic and, at times, very clever.

NEGATIVE: All that violence can be hard to read and Burgess's writing style makes it all the more vivid. I spent much of the novel in a cringe. Had it not been for the distancing provided by Nadsat, I might not have been able to make it through. Even so, the violence does serve a purpose to the story and cannot be said to be gratuitous.

Overall, I would say that this is a very readable novel and would be most appropriate for scholars and teens. Those with more sensitive dispositions may wish to stay away!

Kashtanka by Anton Chekhov

This is a children's book illustrated by Gennady Spirin. The ISBN is 0-15-200539-0. The reason I mention this is that I want to talk about the presentation of the book - something that is obviously very important in a children's book.

Spirin's illustrations are absolutely beautiful. The are detailed and have a great amount of depth and character. Unfortunately, they are also very dark. This wouldn't be a bad thing except that the pages are very glossy, meaning that I had to struggle and essentially read in the dark just so that I could see them at all. It was such a shame and obviously a huge downside if this book is to be shared with kids.

The other big issue I took with the presentation of the book is that the text boxes looked too simplistic. There was no relationship between the illustrations at the text. Rather, half the page would just be white with text or, at best, there would be a thin and undecorated yellow border.

The story itself was so-so. As far as Russian classical authors go, I might be least familiar with with Chekhov. Because of this, it's rather difficult to judge what the story might have been like in the original language. That being said, I think it would have taken more than just changing the choice of wording to save the story. It was just very superficial. For example, when Kashtanka's masters find her again, the man who had taken her in is never mentioned again - despite the fact that he had spent a lot of energy to train her, may well have grown to like her, and would be left without an act once the dog left. In that sense, the story is very much incomplete.

I wouldn't bother buying this book.