The Master and Margarita
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- $15.99
Publisher Description
The Master and Margarita follows the Devil and his retinue as they systematically wreak havoc in Moscow. Caught up in the chaos are two lovers: the Master, a writer broken by criticisms of his novel about Pontius Pilate, and Margarita, for whom the Devil has his own plans. Initially banned by the very bureaucracy it criticised, Bulgakov’s satirical novel comes to life in this new adaptation. Mixing absurdity and erudition, it depicts fantastical events with a macabre humour, contrasting mischief and murder with humility and love.
Appraisals
“Whether you are a total newcomer or one of the many devotees of Bulgakov’s fable, Klimowski and Schejbal give it a vibrant new life, reinterpreted for the first time through the graphic novel’s magical alchemy of words and pictures.” – Paul Gravett
“Klimowski remains one of the great illustrators of our time and this book takes him to new territory… Here he seems to be a preternatural master of the graphic novel form. Klimowski and Schejbal’s book is a rare work that manages to be both its own thing and a wonderful introduction to Bulgakov’s masterpiece.” – The Times
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Klimowski and Schejbal make a bold but confused attempt to adapt Bulgakov's classic novel by embracing its surreal qualities and alternating between the two artists' styles for its parallel narratives. The Devil arrives in Stalin-era Moscow, wreaking havoc on the city's hypocritical intelligentsia, and Klimowski renders these sections in a dense, moody style with thick linework. The Devil and his motley crew of assistants upend the establishment through a series of deadly performances, nasty pranks, and bizarre rituals. He also aids the despondent title characters, a writer nicknamed the Master by his lover, Margarita. Schejbal adapts the Master's scandalous novel-within-the-novel about Pontius Pilate with an intense burst of paints. Both artists try to match the lyrical richness of Bulgakov's prose with their exaggerated visceral stylizations, but the results run incoherent. Characters are introduced without much context, and Bulgakov's satirical jabs are often lost in translation. The mechanical lettering font deadens the dialogue, especially given the artists' highly expressionistic approach. While ambitious, this dueling visualization of Bulgakov's thematically complex novel just doesn't quite coalesce.
