http://kaggsysbookishramblings.wordpress.com/2014/11/29/dodging-bureaucracy-in-p... ( )

http://kaggsysbookishramblings.wordpress.com/2013/03/04/recent-reads-three-books... ( )

(Note, I read the title novella and the first set of stories, but skipped most of the "Feuilletons").

I was excited to find a Bulgakov book that I hadn't yet read appear in translation. But the excitement did not extend to the actual reading, which explained why these are not very common. The title novella Notes on the Cuff is about a doctor/writer (much like Bulgakov), focusing on a series of incidents during the civil war, and not nearly as good as A Dead Man's Memoir (aka Black Snow), which itself was not so great. A number of other stories are in a similar vein. The second part of the book is "Feuilletons" which describe Moscow, other cities, in somewhat satirical terms. I only dipped into these and found them less interesting than the first half.

I would have been better of reading Master & Margarita a third time. ( )

These stories were all written before Bulgakov started work on his masterpiece “The Master and the Margarita”, but unlike the novel, were published at the time. It’s an interesting mix; Bulgakov is despondent for having seen the horrors of revolutionary war, cynical of dogma and the bureaucracy of communism, and yet strangely optimistic and hopeful in his sketches of Moscow.

The works are a little uneven; the title story “Notes on the Cuff” (1920-1921) noticeably suffers in cohesiveness for having been censored. However, “The Red Crown” (1922) is very good, about the guilt a man feels for not saving his 19-year-old brother for having gone off and died in the Army. This is guilt which borders on insanity, and the tale is artistically told. “The Night of the Third” (1922) is also well done, about a particular act of violence in the night as the different factions successively gained control over a small town.

“Red Stone Moscow” (1922), “Moscow, City of Churches” (1923), and “Moscow Scenes” (1923) all paint nice pictures of Bolshevik Moscow, and it seems that despite it all, Bulgakov remained an optimist. “The City of Kiev” (1923) depicts the beautiful city on the Dneiper which had changed hands fourteen times during the revolution, Bulgakov attesting to having personally witnessed ten of those.

Not a perfect set of short stories by any means and not fantastical like his novels, but I enjoyed it nonetheless.

Quotes:
On bureaucracy in communist Russia, from “Notes on the Cuff”, I smiled over it:
“I am opposed to the death sentence. But if Madame Kritskaya is taken to be shot, I will go along to watch. The same for the young lady in the sealskin hat. And Lidochka, the clerk’s assistant.”

“In 1921 things were not quite the same as in 1924. To be more precise, it was impossible to just pack up and go wherever you wanted! Apparently, those who were charge of civilian travel reasoned something like this:
‘If everyone started traveling, then where would we be?’”

On communism, from “The Night of the Third”:
“But it’s like this: I am against the death penalty. Yes. Against. Karl Marx, I admit, I haven’t read, and I don’t even quite understand what connection he has with all this mess, but these two we’ve got to kill, like rabid dogs. They’re scum. Vile pogrom organizers and thieves.”

On genius, from “The Capital in a Notebook”:
“’Meyerhold is a genius,’ howled the Futurist. I don’t doubt it. Very possibly. Let him be a genius. I don’t care. But it should not be forgotten that geniuses are loners, and I am of the masses. I am of the audience. The theater is for me. I want to go to a theater I can understand.”

On guilt, from “The Red Crown”:
“I have no hope. Futilely, in burning anguish, I wait in the twilight for the dream to come – that old familiar room and the peaceful light from those radiant eyes. But all of that is gone forever.
The burden does not ease. And at night I wait submissively for the familiar horseman with the sightless eyes to come and say hoarsely: ‘I can’t leave the troop.’
Yes, I am hopeless. He will drive me to my grave.”

On Moscow, from “Moscow, City of Churches”:
“And, sitting at home on the fifth floor, in a room overflowing with secondhand books, I dream of how in the summer I will climb the Sparrow Hills to the spot where Napoleon stood, and I will see how the city’s churches gleam on seven hills, how Moscow breathes and glistens. Moscow is the mother.”

On religion, from “The City of Kiev”:
“The situation is this. The Old church despises the Living and the Autocephalous, the Living Church despises the Old and the Autocephalous, and the Autocephalous church despises the Old and the Living.
How the good work of all three churches, the hearts of whose priests are fed with evil, will end, I can say with the greatest confidence: with believers defecting en masse from all three churches and plunging into the abyss of starkest atheism. And the only ones to blame will be the priests themselves, who will have thoroughly discredited not only themselves but also the very idea of faith.”

On sadness, from “Notes on the Cuff”, haven’t we all been there…
“Despair. Above my head a foot-cloth and a black mouse is gnawing at my heart…”

Lastly this one, from “The Night of the Third”, I liked the ‘feel’ of it as a close to the violence which had come earlier, making it all seem meaningless in the grand scheme of things:
“In an hour the town was sleeping. Doctor Bakaleinikov was sleeping. The streets, boarded doorways, and closed gates were silent. There wasn’t a single person on the streets. And the distance was silent as well. Not a sound came from the river, from Slobodka with its anxious yellow fires, or from the bridge with its pale chain of streetlights. And the black ribbon which had crossed the city disappeared in the darkness on the other side. The sky hung like a velvet bedcurtain with diamond fragments, Venus, miraculously stuck back together, glittered over Slobodka, almost reddish, and there lay the white shoulder belt – the slivery Milky Way.” ( )

(Note, I read the title novella and the first set of stories, but skipped most of the "Feuilletons").

I was excited to find a Bulgakov book that I hadn't yet read appear in translation. But the excitement did not extend to the actual reading, which explained why these are not very common. The title novella Notes on the Cuff is about a doctor/writer (much like Bulgakov), focusing on a series of incidents during the civil war, and not nearly as good as A Dead Man's Memoir (aka Black Snow), which itself was not so great. A number of other stories are in a similar vein. The second part of the book is "Feuilletons" which describe Moscow, other cities, in somewhat satirical terms. I only dipped into these and found them less interesting than the first half.

I would have been better of reading Master & Margarita a third time. ( )