We are now the Masters

(And Margarita) 🍸

Hello fools. Happy 1st of April.

A while ago, I went to my friend’s housewarming party. She has three housemates, and they all invited their friends, so we were MANY people there. Anyway, one of these people was a friend of her housemate, who had studied English literature at Oxford, and so, inevitably, I asked for her all-time favourite book.

She said Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita. I had never heard of it, and just kept it in my back-of-the-brain TBR list. A couple of weeks ago, I found it in a charity shop for 2.99, bought it, added it to our selection for our next book, and HERE WE ARE!!!! About to dive in.

Holy Moly, am I excited for this book.

(Back to April fools’ quickly: the quote at the start of this book is from Goethe’s Faust. The story of Faust (I feel) will be very linked to this book. Faust is a 2 part play that tells the story of a man, a scholar fed up with his life of books, who makes a deal with the devil. He exchanges his soul in exchange for riches, youth, power and pleasures. The deal is as follows: The devil will serve Faust on Earth, and once he dies, Faust will serve the Devil in Hell. Personally, I wouldn’t commit to a deal like that but anyways…

WITHOUT FURTHER ADO, here is the reading plan:

We will be reading this in 6 weeks (It seems like a good amount of time so we’re not rushing or fighting for our lives with it but steadily ploughing through the book :)

By the time we are finished reading this, we will be in mid-May, a month before official summer, and all will be (hopefully) very sunny, flowery, and wonderful, and FAR from the longest winter in the world. Bulgakov is going to tide us over from the horrors into good weather! Hoorah.

Look at how perfectly split this is I am so chuffed

BOOK one

Week 1 - April 1st to 8th

Chapters 1 to 6 inclusive (for me, pages 7 to 74)

Week 2 - April 8th to 15th

Chap 7 to 13 inclusive (for me, pages 75 to 150)

Week 3 - April 15th to 22nd

Chap 14 to 18 inclusive (for me, pages 151 to 214)

BOOK two

Week 4 - April 22nd to 29th

Chap 19 to 23 inclusive (for me, pages 217 to 275)

Week 5 - April 29th to 6th of May

Chap 24 to 26 inclusive (for me, pages 276 to 330)

Week 6 - May 6th to 13th

Chap 27 to end of epilogue (for me, pages 331 to 396)

Shoo Shoo! Read away! See you next week 🤪

xoxo