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Life Got You Down? Time to Read The Master and Margarita

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Re: Life Got You Down? Time to Read The Master and Margarita

#151

Post by dalore »

robk wrote: post #49
barrkel wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's nothing actionable, except for longer term investments like where to live and how to plan your spending vs saving. Brexit is horribly fascinating in this respect, as the outcome controls whether I'll need do leave. Definitely true for tribal politics though.

I doubt anyone will be made to leave. Suffer through paperwork sure.

People aren't being made to leave but a lot of them are leaving because it's too much hassle to stay. They have to pay money to get a visa to stay and so they are saying they will leave instead as too much hassle. This is the general viewpoint of EU workers in general.

Great you say, more jobs for the English. But now the businesses have to pay a higher wager and/or increase their costs which are passed down to us. Now we have to pay more, but we aren't getting any extra money and due to austerity it's even worse.

Re: Life Got You Down? Time to Read The Master and Margarita

#152

Post by dhimes »

habosa wrote: post #3
peatmoss wrote: post #2

The Master and Margarita is indeed a fantastic read, but there’s a dark subtext. For example, the supernatural happenings and bumps in the night from the neighboring apartment are likely Bulgakov making commentary on the purges. Bulgakov layered things. On the surface, lightheartedness. Underneath, a very bleak and tortured soul.

I read a version with enough footnotes to help me understand that underneath a funny and beautiful book is an attempt to use satire to say something serious about the regime that Bulgakov lived under. Part of what makes this book so great is how it is effective at this goal but also just fantastic literature. I'm a heavy reader but bad at reviews. All I can say is read this one. One of the best books I've ever read a…

So, this is a bit of a shameless plug, but also relevant. My wife won an award for her fictionalized/fantasy account of the writing of TMaM, and it illuminates the context for the work. You might enjoy it.

http://centerforfiction.org/awards/the-first-novel-prize/201...

Re: Life Got You Down? Time to Read The Master and Margarita

#153

Post by billfruit »

80801 wrote: post #70
Insanity wrote: post #60

Since I don't understand Russian, is there any English translation that you'd recommend over another? I've only ventured slightly into Russian litarature (English translations thereof) with "The death of Ivan Ilych" and "the dream of a rediculous man". I consider the former to be one of the best books I have read this year, and would like to give TMaM a try but always have trouble deciding on a translation.

Richard Pevear & Larissa Volokhonsky. Since they get so much praise, anything russian I have read was translated by them.

They have many critics also who refuse to buy into the Pevear-Volokhknsky hype, even considering their translations as 'disastrous':

https://www.firstthings.com/blogs/firstthoughts/2013/01/the-...

Re: Life Got You Down? Time to Read The Master and Margarita

#154

Post by pvg »

felipeerias wrote: post #73
peatmoss wrote: post #2

The Master and Margarita is indeed a fantastic read, but there’s a dark subtext. For example, the supernatural happenings and bumps in the night from the neighboring apartment are likely Bulgakov making commentary on the purges. Bulgakov layered things. On the surface, lightheartedness. Underneath, a very bleak and tortured soul.

There is a point where most the inhabitants of a shared flat vanish one after the other as if by magic, leaving only one of them behind. Luckily, the footnotes point out the tiny clues in the text that tell the whole story: that tenant had denounced all of his flatmates to the secret police so he could keep the whole place for himself.

They're not really 'tiny clues' - this thread makes it sound like this stuff is some set of subtle veiled hints and allusions. It's certainly possible to miss if one is unfamiliar with the historical context and it's worth getting a well-annotated edition but it's hardly the intent of the author - there are lots of places where it's quite explicit and overt. The book itself could not be published when it was written and when it was originally published, many of the more obvious references to repression were edited out.

Re: Life Got You Down? Time to Read The Master and Margarita

#155

Post by beaconstudios »

Y_Y wrote: post #69
aleyan wrote: post #6

Life got you down? Take a piece of advice from another of Bulgakov's (author of Master and Margarita) novels and stop reading the news. There is nothing actionable in the news; next to no utility. News is simply a time sink that depress your spirit. So take the good doctor's words from Heart of a Dog: "If you care about your digestion, my advice is [sic] never read soviet newspapers before dinner" and generalize it t…

As an honest question, how well does this apply to Hackernews? I know that BBC News is bad for my health and does nothing for my career. Holistically I'm not sure about hn.

HN is so dour and moody at times, many positive articles' top comment is someone expressing cynicism or dragging creators down. Jokes and levity are mostly banned (though looking at reddit I can understand why). The insightful/thoughtful conversations you can have are good, but the atmosphere is not the best 9/10 times.

Re: Life Got You Down? Time to Read The Master and Margarita

#157

Post by beaconstudios »

herghost wrote: post #82
aleyan wrote: post #6

Life got you down? Take a piece of advice from another of Bulgakov's (author of Master and Margarita) novels and stop reading the news. There is nothing actionable in the news; next to no utility. News is simply a time sink that depress your spirit. So take the good doctor's words from Heart of a Dog: "If you care about your digestion, my advice is [sic] never read soviet newspapers before dinner" and generalize it t…

I agree, but struggle slightly: In the past I've cut out the news and felt much better fairly quickly. However, it gets to a point where there's something that happens that I should be aware of - like the annual budget speech, or something related to my industry that's hit a headline. I guess I need a means of separating the 99% outrage-inducing, unactionable mainstay from the 1% of things that I genuinely need to kn…

it's a hard problem. I keep on HN because I want to keep an eye out for technology that interests me, and to check out people's cool side projects. But then that's maybe 1/20 posts and in other posts I end up just getting drawn in and dragged down by petty emotions and conflict. If there were a way to filter the latest posts down to just things I'm interested in and get that in a newsletter I might do it, but then how do I accurately describe what I'm interested in without seeing it first? I think it just requires the self-discipline to ignore and move past posts you know won't bring any benefit.

Re: Life Got You Down? Time to Read The Master and Margarita

#158

Post by onewhonknocks »

petecooper wrote: post #63

Thanks for this. Life has got me down a bit at the moment, and I wasn't aware of this book -- so thank you for the pointer.

I'm just a random, anonymous, internet person, but I hope that you feel better Pete. Remember that the way you feel now is just a snapshot in time, and that things will almost certainly get better from here.

Re: Life Got You Down? Time to Read The Master and Margarita

#159

Post by dsfyu404ed »

qubax wrote: post #108
Y_Y wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As an honest question, how well does this apply to Hackernews? I know that BBC News is bad for my health and does nothing for my career. Holistically I'm not sure about hn.

The problem with hacker news and social media in general is that "real" news is targeting it for clicks and views. Bloomberg, nytimes, washingtonpost and almost everyone else have social media teams dedicated to spreading their articles on social media. If anyone else was doing it, we'd call it spam. Even worse, hackernews gives these organizations favorable treatment and privileges where they can get away with it. C…

>That's why those platforms are so toxic. It's overrun with news media employees and spammed content.

4Chan isn't exactly overrun with spammers and it's the same toxic cespool that Reddit is (granted Reddit has better manners and at least pretends to emulate civil conversation). I don't think the news sites spamming their articles is more than a minor contributing factor.

Re: Life Got You Down? Time to Read The Master and Margarita

#160

Post by alchemism »

dmitripopov wrote: post #96

I always wonder why non-Russian speakers perceive books like "The Master and Margarita" as "fun". I guess the reason is that the spirit of the novel gets lost in translation. In Russian all humorous elements sum up as a dark depressing feeling towards the end of the novel. That what makes it a Russian classic.

English-native speakers have a strong affinity for irony in humor, so any sharp combination of that with bleak hopelessness is 'black humor,' aka 'gallows humor,' and will be quite popular with those who enjoy that flavor in their laughter.
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