Schalken the Painter by J. Sheridan Le Fanu

Lady with a Candle

I first learned of Schalken the painter while reading Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu's terrifying supernatural tale Green Tea, in which a scene is vividly described as resembling one of Schalken's portraits.

I guessed well the nature, though not even vaguely the particulars of the revelations I was about to receive, from that fixed face of suffering that so oddly flushed stood out, like a portrait of Schalken's, before its background of darkness.

Intrigued, I began to research this dutch painter. I found that his name is spelled alternately Godfried Schalcken or Gottfried Schalken and Le Fanu calls him Godfrey Schalken.

Godfrey Schalken was born in the Netherlands in 1643 at Dordrecht where he studied under Samuel van Hoogstraten before going to Leyden to study at the studio of Gerard Douw(Gerritt Dou 1613-1675), a famous pupil of Rembrandt. Like his master Douw, Schalken specialized in small candlelit scenes, a popular technique among the painters of the Fijnschilders(fine painting) school, known for their highly polished and intricately detailed style.

Much to my delight, I discovered that Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu had written a story about Godfrey Schalken entitled Strange Event in the Life of Schalken the Painter, one of a collection of supernatural tales published as the Purcell Papers, being ostensibly the papers of one Francis Purcell, a parish priest in the south of Ireland, and a curious and industrious collector of old local traditions.

The story of Schalken the Painter is one these old local traditions. It begins with Purcell's recollection of a visit to his friend Captain Vandael, whose father had served King William in the Low Countries.

I had often been struck, while visiting Vandael, by a remarkable picture, in which, though no connoisseur myself, I could not fail to discern some very strong peculiarities, particularly in the distribution of light and shade, as also a certain oddity in the design itself, which interested my curiosity.

‘There are some pictures,’ said I to my friend, ‘which impress one, I know not how, with a conviction that they represent not the mere ideal shapes and combinations which have floated through the imagination of the artist, but scenes, faces, and situations which have actually existed. When I look upon that picture, something assures me that I behold the representation of a reality.’

Captain Vandael responds:

‘Your fancy has not deceived you, my good friend, for that picture is the record, and I believe a faithful one, of a remarkable and mysterious occurrence. It was painted by Schalken, and contains, in the face of the female figure, which occupies the most prominent place in the design, an accurate portrait of Rose Velderkaust, the niece of Gerard Douw, the first and, I believe, the only love of Godfrey Schalken. My father knew the painter well, and from Schalken himself he learned the story of the mysterious drama, one scene of which the picture has embodied. This painting, which is accounted a fine specimen of Schalken’s style, was bequeathed to my father by the artist’s will, and, as you have observed, is a very striking and interesting production.’

Vandael proceeds to tell Purcell the terrible story behind the painting, the tragic story of Godfrey Schalken's ill fated love for his master Gerard Douw's niece, Rose Velderkaust.

Girl with a Candle

The characters in the story are Godfrey Schalken(Godfried Schalcken), Gerard Douw(Gerritt Dou), Rose Velderkaust, and Mynher Vanderhauseny of Rotterdam, a wealthy, but not quite human gentleman from Rotterdam who bears a striking resemblance to a carving in the Church of Saint Lawrence in Rotterdam. The story itself is the traditional dutch legend of Schalken the painter. It is the story of how Godfrey Schalken became so notoriously disagreeable.

There are few forms upon which the mantle of mystery and romance could seem to hang more ungracefully than upon that of the uncouth and clownish Schalken—the Dutch boor—the rude and dogged, but most cunning worker in oils, whose pieces delight the initiated of the present day almost as much as his manners disgusted the refined of his own; and yet this man, so rude, so dogged, so slovenly, I had almost said so savage, in mien and manner, during his after successes, had been selected by the capricious goddess, in his early life, to figure as the hero of a romance by no means devoid of interest or of mystery.

Who can tell how meet he may have been in his young days to play the part of the lover or of the hero—who can say that in early life he had been the same harsh, unlicked, and rugged boor that, in his maturer age, he proved—or how far the neglected rudeness which afterwards marked his air, and garb, and manners, may not have been the growth of that reckless apathy not unfrequently produced by bitter misfortunes and disappointments in early life?

Like a Dutch master, Le Fanu uses words to paint in vivid detail the scenes and characters in Schalken the Painter with the same dimly lit effect of mystery and romance that so distinguishes Schalken's paintings. Art history, legend, and great storytelling converge exquisitely in this fantastic tale.

This tale is traditionary, and the reader will easily perceive, by our studiously omitting to heighten many points of the narrative, when a little additional colouring might have added effect to the recital, that we have desired to lay before him, not a figment of the brain, but a curious tradition connected with, and belonging to, the biography of a famous artist.

After the death of his master Gerard Douw in 1675, Schalken returned to Dordrecht until 1691 when he settled in The Hague. He visited England from 1692-1697 where he painted many portraits, including a famous portrait of William III.

Schalken was as famous for the quality of his candlelit portraits as he was infamous for his uncouth manners and bad temper, which mortified the english. Consequently He was not very well received socially in England and returned to The Hague where he lived and painted until his death in 1706.



This self portrait by Schalken provides an ideal example of the uncouth manners and vulgar sense of humour for which he was so renowned. Look at his right hand. Your eyes do not deceive you...and yes that gesture did mean the same thing then. I can almost hear the gasps of the stuffy english aristocrats.

The painting mentioned in the story does not exist. It is an amalgamation of themes in many of Schalken's paintings including the ones on this page.

The Purcell Papers were published in three volumes in 1880. A complete edition has never been reprinted and the first edition is rare and extremely costly. Arkham House published a one volume selection of the stories, but this is not complete and does not include Schalken the Painter. Facsimile reprints of the complete three volume text can be ordered from print on demand publishers. Fortunately the entire text is available for download or online reading at these links.


Works by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu at The University of Adelaide Library

Works by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu on Gutenberg

Poems of a Penisist by Mutsuo Takahashi

Recently a friend sent me a link to Jeffrey Angle's interview with the poet Mutsuo Takahashi in which Takahashi recounts his memories of an evening he spent with his friend Yukio Mishima about two months before Mishima attempted to incite a military coup in 1970, afterwards committing ritual suicide with a young man named Morita Masakazu on the grounds of the Japanese Defense Forces. I had never heard of Mutsuo Takahashi and was immediately intrigued.

In the interview, Takahashi speaks of meeting Mishima and his friend Morita for a few drinks and afterwards accompanying them to a sauna. He recalls details of their conversation which in retrospect foreshadowed what Mishima was planning to do. It's a fascinating interview to anyone interested in Mishima's life and his dramatic and violent death.

Mentioned in the interview was a volume of poems by Mutsuo Takahashi entitled Poems of a Penisist. Already intrigued enough by the interview, I made a note of the poet's name and the compelling title. The book proved to be somewhat hard to find. A few months later I was quite surpised when I found a copy listed for sale online by my local used bookstore.

The following day I headed for the used bookstore, wondering if the little old lady who runs the place, a retired librarian, was going to give me a funny look when I asked her about the book. On arriving at the bookstore, I managed to ask for the book without giggling and the little old lady smiled and located the book for me without batting an eyelash. I must pause here to pay tribute to our librarians, so often the unsung champions of free speech.

Upon returning home, I opened the book and, much to my delight, discovered some of the most beautiful homoerotic poetry I've ever read, more like Walt Whitman than Yukio Mishima in it's honest celebration of the male body. In Mutsuo Takahashi's poems sex between men is treated as a holy sacrament. His poems are sacred liturgies unfettered by any hint of self loathing or guilt. He has given us a pure and beautiful expression of his sexuality and his profound love. For this Mutsuo Takahashi deserves a place in the canon of homosexual saints.

Photo of Takahashi Mutsuo by Hosoe Eikoh, 1970.


From Poems of a Penisist

Sleeping Wrestler

You are a murderer
No you are not, but really a wrestler
Either way it's just the same
For from the ring of your entangled body
Clean as leather, lustful as a lily
Will nail me down
On your stout neck like a column, like a pillar of tendons
The thoughtful forehead
(In fact, it's thinking nothing)
When the forehead slowly moves and closes the heavy eyelids
Inside, a dark forest awakens
A forest of red parrots
Seven almonds and grape leaves
At the end of the forest a vine
Covers the house where two boys
Lie in each others arms: I'm one of them, you the other
In the house, melancholy and terrible anxiety
Outside the keyhole, a sunset
Dyed with the blood of the beautiful bullfighter Escamillo
Scorched by the sunset, headlong, headfirst
Falling, falling, a gymnast
If you're going to open your eyes, nows the time, wrestler


The God Statue I Love

Your body is made of lily and sex
Piles of strong-smelling, night-illuminating lilies
Upon them your pageboy has spread the ointment of nard
For the lower half of your body you wear a bullfighter's tight
costume
The elegant joints of your big fingers press on the brocaded
arabesques
Beneath the costume, between the two overpowering thighs
Wrapped in highly fragrant clouds
Sleeps a beautiful lion cub, I think
The gentle beast is made of particularly splendid lilies
The suspenders press into your dark chest
The night sky framed by the lions silky hair
Hooked to the chain of stars a medal shines like the moon
One arm, gathering the flow of muscles, like a river
Leisurely hangs towards the center of the earth
The hand grips a whip
The leather lash of the whip snake-coils on the ground
You will suddenly jerk it up and imprint a swift welt on the
air
From the wound brilliant blood will spurt
I will put your standing figure
On the horse's fluffed buttocks, in the shining sky at dawn
On your shoulders
I shall put the wrestler's head as thoughtful as a forest
(I clipped it from the pictures in a sports magazine)


In the name of
Man, member,
And the holy fluid

Amen

The tragic life of Simeon Solomon

A generation before Oscar Wilde's famous trial and imprisonment, another brilliant career was tragically cut short by the homophobia and intolerance of victorian english society.

On February 11th, 1873, two men were arrested for attempted sodomy in a public lavatory in Stratford Place Mews, off Oxford Street, in London. One of the men was Simeon Solomon, a promising young artist, then 33 years old, whose work had been exhibited at the Royal Academy. The other man was a 60 year old stableman named George Roberts. Both men were sentenced to 18 month's hard labor, the same sentence that destroyed Oscar Wilde 20 years later. Simeon Solomon served only 2 weeks of his sentence before being released on bail. Thanks to the help of Meyer Solomon, a wealthy cousin, his sentence was reduced to police supervision and a £100 fine a month later. George Roberts served his entire 18 month sentence.

Although he was released from jail, Solomon was ostracized by proper english society and his promising career abruptly ended, almost as if he had died. He fled to France after his release, but in 1874 he was arrested again in Paris and sentenced to 3 months in prison.

Simeon Solomon was thus thrust into obscurity just as he was achieving fame as an artist.

Love In Autumn 1866

Born on October 9th, 1840, he was the youngest of eight children from a respectable middle class Jewish family. His father was a prominent east end merchant named Michael Meyer Solomon. His mother, Catherine Levy Solomon, was an artist and nurtured an interest in the arts in her children. An older Brother, Abraham (1823-1862), and an older sister, Rebecca (1832-1886), were also artists.

Young Simeon showed precocious talent and his brother Abraham began teaching him painting around 1850. In 1852 he entered Carey's Art Academy. His sister Rebecca had her first exhibition at the Royal Academy the same year. Four years later Simeon would have his own exhibition at the Royal Academy.

Bacchus 1867

His early works are mostly religious scenes or depictions of Orthodox Jewish rituals. Solomon begins to show subtle traces of his sexuality in some of these works.

As a student Solomon was influenced by the Pre-Raphaelite painters. The work of Dante Gabriel Rossetti in particular was a strong influence on the young student. Around 1858, Solomon met Rossetti, who introduced him to other members of the Pre-Raphaelite circle, such as the painter Edward Burne-Jones, the poet Algernon Charles Swinburne, and the critic Walter Pater.

Love Dreaming By The Sea 1871

Solomon was embraced by these prophets of aestheticism and became a disciple of art for art's sake. He moved out of his brother's studio around this time and the theme of his work shifted from religious subjects to classical mythology. Solomon's expression of his sexuality in his work increases dramatically at this stage. Sexually ambiguous androgenous youths, showing the influence of Burne-Jones, start to fill his canvases, expressing a homosexual aesthetic more openly and bravely than any artist had ever dared before. His work receives some harsh reviews, but is championed by Swinburne, Pater, and others within the Aesthetic Movement leading to more exhibitions of his work.

In the late 1860's, Solomon begins traveling to Italy to study classical painting. In 1867 he is accompanied on one of these trips by his lover, Oscar Browning, who would later become headmaster of Eton. The couple visit Rome and Genoa again in 1870, but their second trip is cut short, probably due to legal problems resulting from their same sex relationship. On their return to England the relationship apparently ends. Solomon starts to drink heavily around this time.

An Angel aka Love 1887

While in Italy, Solomon began composing a poem in defense of same sex love called A Vision of Love Revealed In Sleep. It was completed and published after his return to England. Imagery in the poem corresponds to iconography in many of Solomon's works in which he depicts love as an angelic young man.

Although praised by critic John Addington Symonds, the poem was otherwise universally condemned and was never republished. However Solomon continued to paint and exhibit and his fame grew until the tragic events of 1873-74 abruptly ended his public career.

Love And Lust date unknown

After his downfall, Solomon was abandoned by most of his friends and patrons. A loyal few attempted to continue their friendship with him, including Walter Pater and his cousin, Meyer, who gave him some commissions during this period. Little is known about his life after the arrests.

In 1885, Solomon moved into the St. Giles Workhouse, a sort of homeless shelter, where he continued to work and live for the last 20 years of his life. He was reduced to begging and selling matchsticks on the street. Unable to afford paint and canvas, he usually worked with pastels and charcoal on salvaged scraps of cardboard and paper. Yet he created some of his most beautiful work in this late period.

Angel Boy 1895

On August 14th, 1905, Simeon Solomon collapsed and died at the St. Giles Workhouse. The cause of death was listed as heart failure due to complications of bronchitus and alcoholism. He was buried in Willesden Jewish Cemetery.

Almost immediately after his death, Solomon's work began to receive recognition for the first time in decades. There were two memorial exhibitions of his work in 1906, one at the Royal Academy and one at the Baillie Gallery. In 1908 Julia Ellworth Ford wrote a book about him entitled Simeon Solomon: An Appreciation. However Solomon was soon forgotten again and faded into obscurity until research in gender studies renewed interest in his work in the 1990's, nearly a century later.

Untitled 1905

An online Simeon Solomon Research Archive has been created by art historian Roberto C. Ferrari as a repository of information about the artist. You will find it on my links of interest list.

Also a wonderful book called Love Revealed: Simeon Solomon And The Pre-Raphaelites has recently been published.

The photograph of Simeon Solomon is by David Wilkies c.1870.

Melmoth The Wanderer by Charles Robert Maturin

Charles Robert Maturin ( b. Sept 25, 1782 - d. Oct 30, 1824) was an Irish Protestant clergyman ordained by the Church Of Ireland. After attending Trinity college in Dublin, has was ordained curate of Loghrea in 1803. He married the acclaimed singer Henrietta Kingsbury, sister of Sarah Kingsbury, whose daughter Lady Jane Wilde was the famous Irish nationalist poet known by the
pseudonym Speranza and was the mother of Oscar Wilde. Maturin was therefore the great uncle of Oscar Wilde by marriage.

Maturin's early works were commercial and critical failures but were noticed by Sir Walter Scott who recommended Maturin's work to Lord Byron. Thanks to the support of these two literary giants, Maturin's play, Bertram, was a success, running 22 nights on Drury Lane.

The play caused considerable scandle and was denounced by Samuel Coleridge as "melancholy proof of the depravation of the public mind". Although Maturin had been writing under the pseudonym Dennis Jasper Murphy, he had dropped the nom de plume to collect the profits from Bertram. When the Church Of Ireland discovered the identity of the plays author, he was forever barred from advancement as a cleric.

Unable to support his family on his meagre salary as a curate and having spent the profits from the play to help his unemployed father and a bankrupt relative, Maturin was forced to make his living by writing.

After writing a couple of unsuccessful plays, Maturin switched back to novels. In 1820 he published his masterpiece, Melmoth the Wanderer.

The story is based on the medieval myth of The Wandering Jew, in which a man who taunts Christ while he is carrying the cross to Golgotha is cursed by Jesus to walk the earth until the day of last judgement.

The central character of the novel is Melmoth himself, the ultimate byronic-satanic antihero. He has made a pact with the devil. In exchange for 300 years of immortality, he must surrender his soul and be damned forever unless he can find someone who is willing to take his place before his 300 years have expired.

As his deadline approaches, Melmoth searches the earth for someone desperate enough to give up their soul. He seeks out the utterly hopeless in the throes of despair and poverty, in the cells of the madhouse, and the dungeons of the inquisition.

Maturin uses various documents such as letters and memoirs to relate the stories of those who encounter Melmoth in what becomes an indictment of mans inhumanity to man and the tyranny and intolerance of the church and of society in general. Melmoth's long experience with mankind's cruelty has made him world weary, cynical, and nihilistic.

Maturin's prose waxes sublime and eloquent in his condemnation of humanity. Melmoth is the voice of those outcast from society and damned by god.

Maturin has been much condemned as anti-catholic and anti-religious. Perhaps the victims of persecution by organized religion throughout history to the present day would consider his characterization of the church as an evil institution justified. Maturin himself would suffer for his courageous criticism of religious intolerance until his early death at the age of 42, amidst rumours of suicide.

Melmoth The Wanderer has been criticized for it's complicated plot and for Maturin's often long winded and pedantic style. Some have even butchered Melmoth in an attempt to make it "more readable". Persevering through the multiple subplots of Melmoth pays rich rewards. Maturin's writing style builds suspense and atmosphere to a unique level of intensity.

Melmoth is considered one of the great archetypal characters of all time. Honore de Balzac called Melmoth "the most disaffected character in literature" and even wrote a short sequel titled Melmoth Reconciled.

Oscar Wilde himself apparently related to the outcast from his relative's novel. He used the alias and nom de plume Sebastian Melmoth during his Parisian exile in the last tragic years of his life after his release from Reading Gaol.

Zanoni by Edward Bulwer-Lytton

Edward Bulwer-Lytton (1803-1873) has become obscure, although at the height of his fame as an author in the nineteenth century he was second only to Dickens, who was a close friend, in publication. In addition to writing prolifically, he was a member of parliament and secretary of state of the colonies, and was also a friend and protege of Benjamin Disraeli. He was a founding member of the English Rosicrucian Society and and is supposed to have initiated Eliphas Levi during a mysterious visit to his estate in England.

His anachronistic victorian prose have made him largely unread and even the subject of ridicule in our time. San Jose State University holds a contest for the worst beginning to a novel, called the Bulwer-Lytton Fiction Contest, inspired by the much maligned opening line-“It was a dark and stormy night...” , from his novel Paul Clifford.

Bulwer-Lytton coined many phrases which are still familiar today, such as; “the great unwashed”, “pursuit of the almighty dollar”, and “The pen is mightier than the sword”. His name is forgotten, but his words have endured.

I've recently read Edward Bulwer-Lytton's occult transformational novel Zanoni- A Rosicrucian Tale. This book might include a warning label such as "may cause disturbing hallucinations". An occult initiation in novel form, this book incorporates an exercise which can cause a personality split in which the fear and desire of the id and ego(to use Jungian terms) become manifest as a malevolent being called The Dweller On The Threshold. To cross the "threshold" it is necessary to annihilate the ego and overcome fear. Talk about a literary device, this monster can jump out of the book to menace you in...reality! The process for summoning the dweller on the threshold is explained in Rudolf Steiner’s textbook for initiates, Knowledge Of The Higher Worlds. The biblical parallel to this phenomenom is the temptation of Jesus in the book of Matthew. Sometimes called a fire trial, this exercise has been used as a test of courage and character since ancient times. Some form of this test exists in many mystic traditions. It is described in Buddhist and Sufi literature. A similar test was used by the ancient cults of Eleusis and Isis and by the legendary cult of assassins.

Once released this fiendish spectre haunts the rest of the novel causing individual tragedy and death and influencing events as an underlying evil principal at work in the reign of terror of Robespierre. The dweller uses fear and hatred to control the mob and Robespierre himself. Thus evil is portrayed as an active force using men unawares to create the hell on earth that was the reign of terror.

The novels hero is Zanoni, an immortal 4000 year old sage . He voluntarily gives his life in an attempt to save his wife and child. His christ like self sacrifice brings an end to the reign of terror. In this way love triumphs over evil.

This novel illustrates brilliantly the way in which the principals of good and evil struggle for dominance in each individual and how these internal struggles within each individual influence events in society collectively. Where men are not motivated by noble purpose, evil finds an opportunity to bring violence and chaos into the world.

This theme of evil as an active principal in society causing violence and war is also explored in Alfred Kubin’s disturbing novel The Other Side and in Gustav Meyrink’s novel Walpurgisnacht in which the mob of Prague rise in revolt to the beat of a drum made of human skin.

If the students and faculty of San Jose State University could stop giggling at the unfamiliar literary style of another century and get over their own egoism, they might discover some valuable truths in the work of Bulwer-Lytton.

Vathek by William Beckford

William Thomas Beckford was born in 1760. His father was a member of parliament, a former Lord Mayor of London, and a very wealthy man. William was instructed by tutors at home, and was later a pupil of Mozart. He excelled in painting, composing music, languages, and writing.

On the death of his father, Beckford became one of the wealthiest men in europe. Beckford was a great patron of the arts and collector. Today museums around the world are filled with paintings, furniture, and objects d'art from his collection.

Beckford learned arabic as a young man and became fascinated by the culture of the Islamic world. He conceived a fantasic novel about a caliph named Vathek.

Vathek is a hedonistic voluptuary with an insatiable appetite. His ambitious and completely amoral mother Carathis spends her time at the top of a great tower burning sacrifices to the forces of darkness in hopes of satisfying her
uncontrollable lust for power and wealth.

Carathis strikes a deal with a supernatural being called the Gaiour. In exchange for committing atrocious crimes in honor of the Gaiour, Vathek will be granted the throne and treasure of the kings who ruled the world before Adam.

Carathis rouses her son from his constant feasting to tell him of the Gaiour's generous offer. They fulfill the first requirement of the deal by sacrificing the one hundred most beautiful boys in the kingdom to the Gaiour.

Carathis then packs her son off to Istakhar(the ruins of Persopolis) where the subterranean palace of the pre-adamite kings is located to claim his throne and treasure, reminding him to commit as many crimes as possible along the way to appease the hideous Gaiour and to remember the Gaiour's warning not to accept anyones hospitality on the journey.

What follows is a marvelous story of amazingly evil crimes committed by Vathek and his mother in a world populated by supernatural beings. The novel is beautifully and poetically written and filled with often very accurate references to Islamic history, customs, and mythology.

Beckford intended to combine the novel with episodes in which several characters who await their punishment at a place of eternal damnation, called the palace of subterranean fire, tell the others of the sins that brought them there.

The novel Vathek and The Episodes Of Vathek would never be printed together as Beckford originally intended.

A scandal caused by gossip of an alledged homosexual love affair between William Beckford and the young William Courtenay, the future ninth Earl of Devon, sent Beckford into exile after marrying Lady Margaret Gordon.

Soon after his self imposed exile the man to whom Beckford had entrusted the translation of Vathek, it was originally written in french, published Vathek prematurely without Beckford's permission.

Then the death of the charming Lady Margaret while giving birth to their second daughter contributed even further to Beckford's melancholy.

The first episode tells the story of a homosexual love affair between two young princes. We will never know to what extent the rumoured relationship with Courtenay inspired this story. Beckford later attempted to heterosexualize the first episode by making one of the princes a woman disguised as a boy.

Beckfords immense wealth and power did protect him somewhat from the scandal. He returned to england and commissioned the architect James Wyatt to build an enormous gothic palace called Fonthill Abbey to house his huge collection of art. Central to the abbeys design is a tower over one hundred feet tall, reminiscent perhaps of Carathis great tower.

High praise from Lord Byron, who wrote a poem called The Giaour with references to Vathek, made the novel a bestseller in the early nineteenth century and inspired the popular wave of orientalism that encouraged study of Islamic culture in the west and led to the translation of works like The 1001 Arabian Nights.

The original first episode of Vathek and some of the other episodes including an incestuous relationship between a prince and princess have miraculously survived to our time among Beckford's papers.

Recently an edition published by Broadview Literary Texts and edited by Kenneth Graham has finally united Vathek with the episodes in a form as close as possible to Beckford's original intention.

It took over two hundred years for this literary and historical treasure to see the light of day. Don't miss an opportunity to experience this beautifully written and wonderfully decadent story which includes extensive footnotes on the mythological and historical details referred to in the story.

The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov

The Master and Margarita is one of the most unusual books ever written. Because of the fantastic nature of the story it has been labeled magical realism. But the story is so original and bizarre it really defies any such catagorization.

This book is frequently recommended by one friend to another by word of mouth. I was told about it by a friend who had been told about it by a friend and I in turn have told several friends. This story is so unique and liberating that it inspires enthusiasm to tell others. It is so compelling that everyone who starts it is hooked and cannot put it down until the end. Often people even reread the book immediately.

The title of the first chapter of the book gives us the moral of the story, Never talk to strangers. Bulgakov lived and wrote in Moscow during Stalin's reign and this warning very aptly describes the atmosphere of suspicion in the U.S.S.R. in those days.

The story begins with two men sitting on a park bench on a hot summer day in a park called Patriarchs Pond (a real place close to where Bulgakov lived in the 1920's). The park, usually crowded at this time of day, is strangely deserted. The men on the bench are Mikhail Berloiz, editor of an important literary journal and chairman of the board of one of the largest literary associations in Moscow called MASSOLIT, and a young poet named Ivan Nikolayevich who writes under the pen name of Homeless.

Berloiz feels frightened for no apparent reason and his heart skips a beat, then suddenly an apparition of an incredibly lean man over seven feet tall wearing a jockey cap on a tiny head and a checked jacket much too short for him appears before him as if woven of air. The apparition vanishes and Berloiz assumes it was an hallucination due to heat stroke.

The two men begin a conversation. Berloiz has commissioned Homeless to write a long antireligious poem about Jesus Christ. Berloiz wants Homeless to rewrite the poem because he says it makes it sound as if Jesus existed. Berloiz insists Jesus never existed and provides impressive historical and intellectual proofs to that effect.

A mysterious stranger appears, sits on the next bench, and enters the conversation uninvited. The stranger is tall, clean shaven, and appears to be in his forties. He wears a grey suit, grey shoes, and a gray beret worn at a jaunty angle over his ear. He has platinum crowns on one side of his mouth and gold crowns on the other side. His right eye is black and his left eye is green. One eyebrow is higher than the other, he has a twisted grin, and he carries a cane with a black handle in the form of a poodles head.

The stranger begins to debate with the two men insisting that Jesus Christ had existed. Even talking as if he had known Jesus personally. He offers them a cigarette asking what brand they would like. When he opens his cigarette case it contains their brand as if by magic. The two men are suspicious, taking the stranger for an informant. They demand to see his papers.

The stranger offers to show them his papers and tells them he is a polyglot and specialist in black magic. He says he has come to Moscow to decipher the manuscripts of the tenth century necromancer Herbert D' Aurillac for the state library.

The stranger predicts that Berloiz's head will soon be cut off by "a russian woman, a member of the young communist league." He says that Berloiz will not be able to keep his appointment for a meeting at MASSOLIT that evening because " Annuska has already bought the sunflower oil, and not only bought it but spilled it too. So that the meeting will not take place."

As chapter one ends the stranger says in regard to the issue of Jesus," There is no need for points of view...he simply existed, that is all." Then he says in a low voice: "Everything is very simple: In the early morning of the fourteenth day of the spring month of Nisan, wearing a white cloak with a blood red lining and walking with the shuffling gate of a cavalryman..."

Chapter 2 begins a second narrative relating a first hand account of the trial and crucifixion of Yeshua (Jesus) from Pilates perspective. It begins:

"In the early morning of the fourteenth day of the spring month of Nisan, wearing a white cloak with a blood red lining and walking with the shuffling gate a calvaryman, the procurator of Judea, Pontius Pilate, came out into the covered colannade between the two wings of the palace of Herod the Great."

Later we learn that the mysterious stranger is traveling under the name Professor Woland and that he is none other than his majesty Satan himself. He is accompanied by two henchmen. One is the tall lean man in the checked jacket. He says his name is "..let's say Koroviev." The other is a tomcat as big as a man named Behemoth who is a crack shot with a beretta pistol.

The trio proceed to cause all kinds of mayhem in Moscow. Professor Woland performs a magic show where among other "tricks" a man is decapitated. Woland and his minions move into an "evil apartment" (a real apartment where Bulgakov lived) where all kind of strange phenomenom take place and people keep disappearing without a trace.

Later we are introduced to the Master (based on Bulgakov himself), who is writing the story of Pontius Pilate. The Master meets a beautiful, intelligent, and good woman named Margarita (based on Bulgakov's third wife). Margarita and the Master fall in love. When the Master tries to burn the manuscript he has been working on, Margarita rescues it from the fireplace and glances at the first page. It begins with the already familiar words: "In the early morning of the spring month of Nisan, wearing a white cloak with a blood red lining and walking with the shuffling gate of a calvaryman..."

The Master and Margarita are separated. Margarita desperately tries to find the Master. She runs into another of Professor Wolands bizarre sidekicks called Azazello who gives her a jar of his special cream. Margarita goes home, strips naked, and rubs it all over her body. The cream enables her to fly and renders her invisible. Margarita flys out the window and gleefully flys around Moscow playing practical jokes on people who are behaving badly and deserve a kick in the behind. This chapter is great fun and is very liberating. Everyone who reads this book says they want a jar of Azazello's cream.

Margarita then flys towards the river per Azazello's instructions. There a flying car awaits to chaffeur her to Satans Ball where all the great composers of history perform for all the great villians of history.

This is very fun story to read. Bulgakov's characters turn the Moscow bureaucracy upside down and dispatch petty officials unceremoniously, avenging every bad experience you've ever had at a government office or perhaps calling your telephone company. The story is absurd and over the top, Yet it is an amazingly accurate depiction of life in the soviet regime or in any modern bureaucracy. This brilliant illustration of the absurdity of modern societies and the systems that govern them speaks of Bulgakov's genius and the importance of this novel as a masterpiece of world literature.

Several translations are available. The translation by Diana Burgin and Katherine Tiernan O' Conner is the most accurate and complete. Earlier translations were based on the censored 1967 soviet edition. The Burgin/O'Conner translation has the complete text and the benefit of thirty years of Bulgakov scholarship.

Middlebury college has created a wonderful website with all kinds of background information on the characters and locales in the novel. I recommend using this site as a reference when reading the book. However it is not necessary as everyone relates to this story without any background information.

This book has a cult following and the "evil apartment" in Moscow where Bulgakov lived has become a shrine for fans and even satanists in Moscow.

Read this book. You'll be glad you did, and remember to "never talk to strangers".




The illustration of Berloiz, Homeless, and Professor Woland on the park bench above is by Charlie Stone. See more of his wonderful illustrations at the Middlebury website.

Visit The Master and Margarita website at Middlebury College:
http://cr.middlebury.edu/public/russian/Bulgakov/public_html/index.html