VIDA DEL SEÑOR DE MOLINERE (original 1933; edition 2007)

The weakest part of many biographies is the opening. After all, Shakespeare and Lincoln were not actually distinguished by their birth -- or even the first few years of their lives. But you know that this book will be different when it opens with Bulgakov addressing Moliere's midwife, across three centuries, warning her to be careful with the premature infant in her arms and explaining how well he will be remembered all around the world for centuries to come -- more so than Louis XIV even, according to Bulgakov.

The opening announces that this is a biography that will read like a novel. In fact, it is a hybrid with extensive imagined dialogue and scenes, but telling the story from birth to death with relatively little left out along the way -- like a conventional biography. In some places it was hilarious (although not quite up to Moliere's level), in other places moving, and everywhere interesting.

In some ways you see more kinship between Bulgakov and Moliere in Bulgakov's play of the same subject than you do in this biography, which tells of all the censorship that Moliere faced but also of all of his court-sanctioned successes as well. Which given that this book itself wasn't published for decades after Bulgakov's life suggests the analogy between them is an imperfect one.

Bottom line, very readable, enjoyable and highly recommended. ( )

a treat ( )