Book reviews: The Master and Margarita | Stoner | City of Heavenly Fire

Title: The Master and Margarita
Author: Mikhail Bulgakov
Original title: Мастер и Маргарита
Genre: Classic
Series: --
Publisher: Everyman's Library
Format: Hardback
Pages: 446
Finished: 29/11/2018
Summary: When the devil arrives in 1930's Moscow, consorting with a retinue of odd associates—including a talking black cat, an assassin, and a beautiful naked witch—his antics wreak havoc among the literary elite of the world capital of atheism. Meanwhile, the Master, author of an unpublished novel about Jesus and Pontius Pilate, languishes in despair in a pyschiatric hospital, while his devoted lover, Margarita, decides to sell her soul to save him.

My thoughts: A big thanks to PewDiePie, aka Felix Kjellberg, for recommending this novel in one of his videos. I picked it up a day or so after his review and swallowed it up during the two following weeks. So what is “The Master and Margarita”? And why had I never heard of it before?
Well, “The Master and Margarita” was first created in the late 1920’s. Its author, Mikhail Bulgakov, war born in 1891 in then Russian Kiev. He later moved to Moscow, where he worked as an author and playwright, and eventually married a woman. He participated as a medical doctor in World War I, during which he was injured and resolved to a year long morphine addiction upon the war’s end. Bulgakov first started writing “The Master and Margarita” in 1928, but burned the manuscript in 1930, simply because he could not imagine a future for such satiric work in the Russian 30’s. However, he obviously changed his mind, and spent the next decade rewriting the novel several times. The last version was never fully completed by Mikhail, as he passed away in 1940. So… what happened to the book? Well, it remained hidden in the shadows until 1966, when his widow decided to publish it. Alas, what was released to the public was a censored version with about 12% of the original content removed. However, the manuscript made its way to France, where an uncensored version was released in 1967. Today, the uncensored “The Master and Margarita” can be found translated to multiple languages.

This novel gives us a peek at the life of Mikhail Bulgakov himself. Much of it takes place at or near Patriarch’s Ponds, near which Bulgakov lived in an apartment. Today, there’s a monument in the part, erected to the honor of this Russian author. We also see traces of Bulgakov’s personal history in that of the Master; one of the main characters of the book.

So what did I think? Well, I wouldn’t have written all this (twice, thanks to bloggers fucking stinky arse) if I hadn’t adored this books. It’s quirky, unique to a ridiculous extent, satiric, historically educational, funny, and sometimes sad. I had a few issues, resulting in a slightly lower than 5/5 grade. One problem was the racism and sexism. Yes, I know, it was written in the 30’s; that was the norm back then. However, it can ruin a really good book. Luckily, I was mostly able to look past it. Another thing was simply practical; there were a lot of characters and a lot of Russian names thrown around. Once I had most of them memorized, those characters stopped appearing until the last few chapters, at which point I’d forgotten them all again. I guess my poor memory is at fault. Nevertheless, it lowered the reading experience slightly. Other than that, I really fell in love with some of the characters, like Woland, Koroviev, Ivan Nikolayich, and Behemoth. The writing style was pleasant and the story interesting. All in all, a classic that I wholeheartedly recommend!

Rating: 4/5

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Title: Stoner
Author: John Williams
Original title: Stoner
Genre: Classic
Series: --
Publisher: Vintage
Format: Paperback
Pages: 288
Finished: 16/12/2018
Summary: William Stoner is born at the end of the nineteenth century into a dirt-poor Missouri farming family. Sent to the state university to study agronomy, he instead falls in love with English literature and embraces a scholar’s life, so different from the hardscrabble existence he has known. And yet as the years pass, Stoner encounters a succession of disappointments: marriage into a “proper” family estranges him from his parents; his career is stymied; his wife and daughter turn coldly away from him; a transforming experience of new love ends under threat of scandal. Driven ever deeper within himself, Stoner rediscovers the stoic silence of his forebears and confronts an essential solitude.

My thoughts: Also at the recommendation of Pewds, for which I am muchos gratefulos. “Stoner” is in many ways different from “The Master and Margarita”, yet also very good. I loved “Stoner” so much. The connection I felt to William Stoner was a rare one, and as I got deeper and deeper into his story, I understood that I had come to care for this unextraordinary, everyday character much more than I’d anticipated. John Williams did an amazing job with this novel; its simple yet beautiful language, its lovable and spiteful characters, its atmosphere and simplicity. Perhaps it is just that which made this novel great; the way in which it’s small and plain. Stoner’s life is one which many have lived, yet not at all. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t bawl my eyes out for the last 15 pages, to the extent that I could barely read the text. I think I recommend this book more than “The Master and Margarita”. This is great in a different way. Not extravagant or magical. It’s just so true in what it is.

Rating: 5/5

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Title: City of Heavenly Fire
Author: Cassandra Clare
Original title: City of Heavenly Fire
Genre: Fantasy, YA
Series: The Mortal Instruments #6
Publisher: McElderry Books
Format: Hardcover
Pages: 725
Finished: 01/01/2019
Summary: SPOILER ALERT Darkness has descended on the Shadowhunter world. Chaos and destruction overwhelm the Nephilim as Clary, Jace, Simon, and their friends band together to fight the greatest evil they have ever faced: Clary’s own brother. Sebastian Morgenstern is on the move, systematically turning Shadowhunter against Shadowhunter. Bearing the Infernal Cup, he transforms Shadowhunters into creatures of nightmare, tearing apart families and lovers as the ranks of his Endarkened army swell. Nothing in this world can defeat Sebastian—but if they journey to the realm of demons, they just might have a chance…

My thoughts: Small Spoiler Alert The Mortal Instruments… So I’m finally done? I guess I am. The last time I finished a novel from this series was in summer of 2013, which was when I plowed through the first 5 books of TMI and the TID trilogy. I’ve had this book, “City of Heavenly Fire” in my possession since its release in 2014, and I’ve started reading it at least twice. It wasn’t until mid December (last month) that I decided the time had come. I had to finish the series.

It’s not really strange that I never finished it. 2014 was my last good reading year, and books over 500 pages were not attractive at that point. Moreover, it had been a year since I last read a book about Shadowhunters; I might have distanced myself from the hype. The rest of the years since have just been a long line of reading dips for me, so no, it’s not at all strange that I never got to complete the journey. Now, however, I have.

It took me about 500 pages to get into this book. No kidding. I had the whole plot of the series, the characters, the motivations, all fresh in my mind, as if I’d read the whole series just last week. That wasn’t the problem. The problem was… it was not as good as I remembered Cassandra Clare being. Then, back in 2014, I found that with every book I read by Clare, she just got better and better, all the way to “Clockwork Princess”, the best book I’ve read with Clare’s name on it. “City of Heavenly Fire” was released after the TID trilogy, so I expected a lot from it. What I found was that Clare seemed to have lost grip of the characters I used to love. What I remembered to be personalities built on actions, ways of speaking, little things that made the characters who they are, turned into blatant, indiscreet comments on the characters. Instead of showing that a person is reckless, the character would outright say “I’m doing this reckless thing because one of my three character traits is recklessness”. It would also be commented on a lot in between dialogues (so in the thoughts of narrators throughout the book, which shifts), so characters would think stuff along the lines of “ah, yes, I am watching this other character doing a silly thing, and I recall in my memory all the other times this character has done silly things to support the silly actions of this silly character”. Writing like this is fine when it doesn’t happen like two or three times per page.

Another thing was the exposition, which was sometimes clumsily done. I might be nitpicking, but this really bothered me at some points. Sometimes when a new scene was introduced, we would have part of it described outside of dialogue, maybe in a string of thoughts from the narrative or simply in a description of the scene. However, Clare sometimes opts to reveal new scenes through dialogue, and… it’s not always done very smoothly. A conversation in a new scene could look a bit like this:

A: “Oh what a bummer that we can’t go outside this house. B, remind me of why we can’t go outside?”

B: “Hm, maybe it’s because we’ve been trapped by an evil outer force who has all the windows and doors locked and guarded?”

A: “Right, I’d totally momentarily forgotten this important plot point so that we could weave some exposition into this dialogue!”

Idk if I conveyed it in an understandable way here, but that’s something I noticed happened a fair amount of times.

Nevertheless! “City of Heavenly Fire” has its good parts as well. For one, it really picked itself up the last 200 pages or so, and although I felt like the “final battle” was kinda anticlimactic, I just wanted to swallow up those last 200 pages at once! I couldn’t, though, because I had to finish it in 2019 in order to be able to count it to my 2019 reading goal lol. Admittedly, before those last 200 pages, I was starting to feel like I’d be done with the Shadowhunter universe after this behemoth, but now I’m not so sure. I also have to appreciate how easy Clare’s writing and plot is to get into. The quick jumping between narratives and scenes keeps the storyline quick and relatively interesting. The book is definitely bigger than it had to be (I feel like a fair share could’ve been left out without any greater loss), but I didn’t feel like I’d read a 700+ pages book once I’d finished it.

All in all, it was an entertaining read and I’m so glad to have finally finished the series. Believe it or not, it’s a big step for me. This last book didn’t have a great impact on me, but it was still worth the read. I don’t think this’ll be the last I read by Cassandra Clare (might take awhile for me to pick up the “The Dark Artifices” trilogy tho, cause them books be damned pricy).

Rating: 3,25/5