PinkieBrown's Updates

PinkieBrown is on page 228 of 592 of La Débâcle

Sat, 21 Jun 2025 04:15:28 -0700

PinkieBrown is on page 228 of 592 of La Débâcle.

PinkieBrown is on page 228 of 592 of La Débâcle

Sat, 21 Jun 2025 04:14:59 -0700

PinkieBrown is on page 228 of 592 of La Débâcle.

PinkieBrown is currently reading 'La Débâcle'

Wed, 16 Apr 2025 12:26:11 -0700

PinkieBrown is currently reading La Débâcle by Émile Zola

PinkieBrown added 'Song of Solomon'

Sun, 13 Apr 2025 22:03:58 -0700

PinkieBrown gave 3 stars to Song of Solomon (Paperback) by Toni Morrison

PinkieBrown is currently reading 'Song of Solomon'

Tue, 28 Jan 2025 14:25:26 -0800

PinkieBrown is currently reading Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison

PinkieBrown added 'Selected Stories'

Sat, 06 Jan 2024 01:02:27 -0800

PinkieBrown gave 3 stars to Selected Stories (Paperback) by Katherine Mansfield

PinkieBrown is currently reading 'Use of Weapons'

Sat, 06 Jan 2024 01:02:24 -0800

PinkieBrown is currently reading Use of Weapons by Iain M. Banks

PinkieBrown finished reading 'Selected Stories'

Sat, 06 Jan 2024 01:01:56 -0800

PinkieBrown finished reading Selected Stories by Katherine Mansfield

PinkieBrown added 'Daniel Deronda'

Fri, 05 Jan 2024 23:35:34 -0800

PinkieBrown gave 3 stars to Daniel Deronda (Paperback) by George Eliot
bookshelves: classics-collection, classics-project

PinkieBrown added 'The Master and Margarita'

Fri, 05 Jan 2024 23:35:11 -0800

PinkieBrown gave 4 stars to The Master and Margarita (Mass Market Paperback) by Mikhail Bulgakov
bookshelves: first-five-pages
Ironic of the aim of the devil is to convince people of his existence but ends up only confusing them whether what he perpetrated is real or otherwise; doubly so because he seems too lazy to do anything himself lying on a bed whilst others flit about on his behalf. Past the outrageous performance at the theatre this objective seems straight forward, terrifying, maddening but it fractures into a set of pranks that drag on. The actual story of the Master and Margarita serves as a diversion when it might have been intended to deliver the narrative to a coherent end.

This is a piece packed with cultural reference that is removed to a distance by time and unfamiliarity with the closed off world of communism but the tenor of Moscow life sweeps through even though it’s a door you view events from outside rather than ushering you in; the suspicion bring that the cloistered world of literature as allowed by the regime might only be known to few such as Bulgakov. Easy to read but difficult to get into only because there’s little to grasp and the ghoulish antics are a repetitious joke.

I particularly have a negative reaction to apocrypha around bible stories giving a different point of view with names substituted for the familiar ones with the sick feeling this grants authority to the original version. The few chapters around the crucifixion add a tone to the book and provide a link to Sympathy for the Devil and its very resonant.