| Title | : | Diaboliad |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 0099529556 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9780099529552 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 174 |
| Publication | : | First published January 1, 1925 |
Diaboliad Reviews
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Considering dozens and dozens of reviews are posted for The Master and Margarita and my review of this little collection of Bulgakov tales published some twenty years ago is one of the first on Goodreads, it is fair to say many readers have committed an oversight. Unfortunate since these short works are masterpieces in their own right. If you love The Master and Margarita you will also love reading this book.
Eleven tales included here, two of which - Diaboliad and The Fatal Eggs - are long enough to qualify as novellas. For the purposes of this review and in the interest of brevity, I will focus on the title story of the collection.
Diaboliad is a forty-five page absurdist romp through the Russian state-supported bureaucracy, told in eleven chapters, each chapter complete with its own heading, which can give one the sense of reading a novel in miniature.
We follow our hero and main character, Comrade Korotkov, a gentle, quiet clerk who would like nothing more than to continue his predictable routine at Main Central Supply (suppliers of Match-making Materials, that is) - and you have to love Bulgakov's telling us the unit is not only `Central' but also `Main Central', adding a pinch more spice to the satirical stew . And such spicy satire is sprinkled on every page.
Here is an example of what happens a day after the unit's cashier returns to the office with a dead chicken as part of his general announcement that there is no money. Imagine not only having to deal with the boss of your nightmares, but also the boss's identical twin, identical with two exceptions - the twin has a long red beard and much different voice. However, you are totally in the dark, thinking the twins are one and the same boss with a long red beard that keeps mysteriously appearing and disappearing and a voice that keeps changing.
Such is the plight of Korotkov. But this is only the very beginning. Turns out, Korotkov has to deal with his own twin, a twin who might or might not be the creation of bureaucratic error. As Korotkov runs frantically from office to office in an attempt to save his job, his identify and recover his stolen documents, we realize our hero is in a kind of Alice in Wonderland world, but this being 1920s Soviet Russia, we have Korotkov in Stalinland. How far can things spin out of control?
Toward the end, in Chapter Nine, TYPEWRITER TERROR, we read what happens in one of the government offices: "The wall fell apart before Korotkov's very eyes, and tinkling their bells thirty typewriters on desks began to play a fox-trot. Swaying their hips, wiggling their shoulders voluptuously, tossing up their creamy legs in a white foam, the thirty women set off in a can-can and circled around the desks."
Now a comrade can take only so much, even a comrade who is gentle and quiet and merely wants to do his job as a clerk. Comrade Korotkov becomes progressively more frustrated and then progressively more angry, stomping his feet and yelling, and, toward the end of the novella, when given a prompting to become violent, Comrade Korotkov does indeed become violent, resulting in a fellow-worker's very bloody face and head. Such violence leads to the final chapter, A CINEMA STYLE CHASE AND THE ABYSS, a chase and abyss that must be read in Bulgakov's own words, even if those words are in English translation.
Russian author Mikhail Bulgakov, 1891 - 1940 -
Introduction & Notes, by Julie Curtis
--Diaboliad
--The Fatal Eggs
--No. 13, the Elpit-Workers' Commune
--A Chinese Tale
--The Adventures of Chichikov -
Those 4 devilish short stories read through with a devilish speed put a devilish smile on my face. At first sight I'm Not really sure what I've grasped out of them (two of the stories put my mind on wires and couldn't get them straight yet...) but I've put more attention into the first 'Diaboliad' and the last story 'The adventures of Chichikov'. I followed in a frenzy mindset the hero of the tale 'Diaboliad', especially that it echoed the concept of the 'double', which I enjoyed very much also in 'the double' by Saramago. Of course, the ending was predictable, but this didn't decrease the intensity of the story development. As for Chichikov, yes, it's a reminder to rejoice (again) in Gogol's works..
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The sheer scope of Bulgakov's imagination is stunning. What a whimsically dark and satirical collection! My mind reeled through the entire book, trying to find a firm patch of ground to land on. The elements of surrealism create an incredibly amorphous narrative. Bulgakov also works in elements of horror, science fiction, and comedy. There are moments, particularly in the title story Diaboliad where you're not sure whether to find funny or chill-inducing.
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Diaboliad or Life at the cooperative.
….sorry, we have run out of pay-checks but you will have your salary in matchsticks, or cheap wine, or even left-hand shoes – depending on what kind of cooperative you work in.
The Devil take it! And that is not just an expression.
Going into a frenzy, starting to test strike the very poor-quality matchsticks our protagonist-with-soon-no-name is covered in a cloud of Sulphur, not to mention the immediate harm done by flying sparks.
There is a distinct odor in the room, the smell of Hell.
But first, Purgatory … in which Comrade Korotkov falls from grace, looses his job and identity.
The general idea of Purgatory is “cleansing” and, as some claim, to prepare your soul for hitting the elevator button either up or down.
In this Purgatory there are a few inspirational elevator scenes and a lot of running down blind alleys, near-slips and carnal temptations.
Overall you would think that as Korotov is really taking on some effort, show the will to better himself and comply with what is expected of him, everything will turn out just fine.
The thing about nightmares is that you never know if they are real, this one neither…
A melodramatic and satirical farce, that Kafka connoisseurs will clearly appreciate.
5/5
No. 13
Once you give assets back to “The People”, they soon prove not able to handle it.
It only takes a spark … and the caretakers hoarded kerosene …
3/5
A Chinese Tale
How to prove worthy of a Soviet citizenship … and then you die.
4/5
The Adventures of Chichikov
Once upon a time lived a man who ceased an opportunity.
Thanks to endless rows of bureaucracy the opportunity grew larger, and as The Holy Scripture says; “For whoever has, to him more shall be given …”.
Thus encouraged, our man buys property, land, sets up businesses and factories in what is today known as a” carousel scheme”. Once your first successful “buy” is secured, you take up loans using that as a security. If no one is talking to each other, and there are ways of preventing this, you continue building your empire. A lot of bureaucracy is a help in this, and that is just what your 20-ties Soviet can provide on large scale.
Was all this just a dream? Maybe, but it could easily have happened.
5/5 -
"Usta ile Margarita"nın gelişini haber veren, tam Bulgakov'dan çıkması beklenecek bir bürokrasi taşlaması. Ama bana kalırsa uzamaması isabet olmuş. Bu uzun öykü haliyle bile çok yorucu bir okuma oldu benim için.
Bulgakov severlere tavsiye ederim.
İyi okumalar.
6.5/10 -
לסקירה בעיברית -
https://sivi-the-avid-reader.com/מחול... -
This collection of Mikhail Bulgakov’s early short stories, written between 1922 and 1923, highlights the pathos and comic surrealism of life in post-revolutionary Moscow.
The title story, “The Diaboliad”, concerns the hapless Korotkov, the chief clerk at the Main Central Depot of Match Materials (or MatchMat) who is paid in the “produce of production” — in other words, matches. The innocent reader may assume that this is an example of Russian absurdism, but according to Lesley Milne’s excellent book
Mikhail Bulgakov: A Critical Biography, Bulgakov was paid in matches during the last days of his employment at LITO, the Literary Department of the Central Political Enlightenment Committee in Moscow. This knowledge gives new meaning to the cover design of the Oneworld Classics edition:
Things become even more bizarre for Comrade Korotkov when, temporarily blinded in one eye after quality-testing the matches, he misreads a memo as:
“‘All typists and women generally will in due course be issued soldiers’ uniform drawers.’
‘That’s fantastic!’ Korotkov exclaimed in rapture, and gave a voluptuous shudder, imaging Lidochka in soldiers’ drawers.”The surrealism of the story is heightened by the location of MatchMat offices in the former sites of Die Alpenrose, a leading restaurant in pre-revolutionary Moscow, and a girls’ boarding school. This leads to incongruous dual signage, such as:
“a sign in silver on blue saying ‘Duty Form Mistress’ and one in pen on paper below: ‘Enquiries’.”
Signage as a symbol of class warfare also appears in another story, “No. 13: The Elpit Workers’ Commune Building”, the tale of what happened to an elegant apartment building when the wealthy and mysterious tenants were replaced by “unprecedented folk” who played “ominous” music on their gramophones:
“It’s a terrible thing when kingdoms are falling. And that every memory has begun to die away... It was then that, by the gates, next to the lantern (a fiery ‘No. 13’), a white plaque was stuck up with a strange inscription on it: ‘Workers’ Commune’.”
The odd one out in this collection is “A Chinese Story”, about a “coolie” who ends up fighting in the Russian Civil War because he doesn’t understand Russian. I thought this story was in extremely poor taste, until I read Lesley Milne’s analysis. She suggests that Bulgakov wrote this piece as an exercise in evoking an “estranged reality” for the battle scenes in his first novel,
The White Guard.Soviet absurdism returns in the last story, “The Adventures of Chichikov”, a parody of the Soviet government’s New Economic Plan. Chichikov is what the British would describe as a “wide boy”:
“First name? Pavel. Patronymic? Ivanovich. Surname? Chichikov. Profession? Character in Gogol. Work before the Revolution? Purchase of dead souls.”
The stories in Diaboliad show the beginnings of the wonderful magical realism which Mikhail Bulgakov realised in his most celebrated work,
The Master and Margarita. -
This book contains five different stories by Bulgakov:
Diaboliad
The Fatal Eggs
No. 13, the Elpit-Workers' Commune
A Chinese Tale
The Adventures of Chichikov
I did not read the final story, as I will wait until I've read Gogol's Dead Souls before I do that. The only story I didn't like very much was No. 13, the Elpit-Workers' Commune, which I failed to appreciate: it was chaotic and not particularly interesting.
The other stories, however, are great. Diaboliad is an absolutely hilarious story, a funny satire of Soviet life. It is clearly inspired by Dostoevsky's The Double, exploring a typical office clerk stuck in an insanely bureaucratic system who eventually, due to some hilariously stupid events, loses his mind. 'This is Gogol and Dostoevsky transposed from the city of St. Petersburg to the city of Moscow" (Introduction xiii).
The Fatal Eggs is also funny. Here, a professor discovers a new 'ray of life' (or so it seems), but here too "irresponsible party authorities" confiscate it from the brilliant and eccentric professor, only to bungle the whole thing up in a sovkhoz (State farm): a story with giant reptiles that threaten the whole of Moscow.
A Chinese Tale is a sad, sad story about a naive young Chinese man who finds himself joining the Red Army, but with no understanding of who he is fighting (for or against) and with no understanding of why. Short, but fairly powerful, and pretty sad.
All in all a great collection of stories, with a very helpful and good introduction written by Julie Curtis: credit to her for that. Really on point and good introductions that don't meander needlessly are hard to come by, at least in my experience. -
One of the things against which Bulgakov railed at the time he was writing these five stories—Diaboliad, The Fatal Eggs (really more of a novella), No. 13, the Elpit-Workers' Commune, A Chinese Tale, and The Adventures of Chichikov—was a campaign, begun around 1921, which proudly claimed that satire no longer had a role to play in Soviet literature. The idea was that satire had fulfilled a vital function in the 19th century in furthering progressive, anti-authoritarian thinking—but now, in Soviet culture, when the interests of the workers were identical to that of the State, satire had effectively become redundant because there were no more problems in need of satirical treatment. I think that Bulgakov singlehandedly shows, through these tales, that there is always a need for satire—especially if it is done as masterly as he did it.
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Mikhail Bulgakov (1891 - 1940) and the composer Dmitri Shostakovich (1906 - 1975) had met and briefly toyed with the idea of working together on a dramatic work. It was not to be, but their collaboration is a tantalizing "might have been". Indeed, the more I read of Bulgakov, the more he reminds me of Shostakovich. Not the composer of the symphonies perhaps, but the Shostakovich of the circus music, of the manic and dissonant galops, of the acerbic music theatre pieces. This is particularly true of Bulgakov's short stories, four of which are grouped in this attractive Oneworld Classics edition.
The title-piece is "Diaboliad", featuring the unassuming office clerk Korotkov who is sacked from his job at the "Main Central Depot of Match Materials" for a farcical error. The story describes his increasingly despairing and nightmarish quest through the Soviet civil service to seek the official responsible for his dismissal. There's no denying the narrative's brilliance, but this is no comfort reading - the surreal world depicted becomes as head-splitting as a hangover on cheap wine.
A similar atmosphere pervades "No. 13 - The Elpit Workers' Commune Building", a tale about an exclusive condominium which is expropriated by the new Communist regime and "A Chinese Tale", in which a Chinese immigrant discovers his talent as a machine-gunner...with tragic consequences.
The most lighthearted work in the collection is "The Adventures of Chichikov", a literary divertissement in which characters from Gogol's "Dead Soul" reappear in Communist Russia. This story displays Bulgakov's admiration for the classic Russian author - yet, even here, it's not difficult to decipher the political commentary simmering beneath the surface. One starts to feel that, whilst being no nostalgic sympathizer of the "ancien regime", Bulgakov had little faith in the utopian promises of Communism.
The works in this Oneword Classics edition are presented in a new translation by Hugh Aplin who has previously translated Chekhov, Dostoevsky and Turgenev amongst others. Aplin also provides notes on the text and thirty pages of very helpful "extra material" including a biography of Bulgakov and a brief introduction to his major works.
Highly recommended. -
Four stories. ‘Diaboliad’ is a farcical satire on bureaucratic absurdity, a surreal reworking of Dostoevsky’s
The Double that clouds the narrative’s clarity with too many oddities. ‘No. 13—The Elpit Workers’ Commune’ is even more strange, an over-the-top blackly comic story about a collapsing building and the ensuing casualties. The tone is extremely uneven and lacking in a narrative viewpoint or point of focus. ‘A Chinese Tale’ is a little too time-specific to have any contemporary value. ‘The Adventures of Chichikov’ is the redeemer: a brisk riff on Gogol’s
Dead Souls with some light metafictive flickers. Some editions contain the novella
The Fatal Eggs which is a brilliant SF dalliance and one of Bulgakov’s most successful satires. Shame this one didn’t. -
Δεν μπορώ να προσδιορίσω το γιατί ακριβώς, αλλά μου φαίνεται πως ετούτο το βιβλίο του Μπουλγκάκοφ δεν ήταν για ‘μένα σ’ αυτή την φάση. Πέρα από τα «Μοιραία Αυγά», που τα βρήκα εξαιρετικά, τα υπόλοιπα τέσσερα διηγήματα ήταν γραμμένα με μιαν εφιαλτική ακαθοριστία ή και βουτηγμένα πατόκορφα σε μιαν υπερβολή που με κούρασε, και δυσκολεύτηκα να εντοπίσω την σάτιρα και τον κοινωνικό-πολιτικό καυτηριασμό που περίμενα. Σε ορισμένα σημεία ήταν και τα δυο εμφανή, όπως στο «Νο 13. Το σπίτι Ελπίτ-Εργατκοινόβιο» όπου η έλλειψη πρόνοιας εκ μέρους του κράτους για την θέρμανση προκαλεί την καταστροφή, λίγο-πολύ, μιας ολόκληρης πόλης, όμως αλλού, όπως στην «Κινέζικη ιστορία», δεν τα κατάφερα να βρω αυτόν τον κοινό άξονα, έστω της παράλογης και βραδυκίνητης σοβιετικής γραφειοκρατίας που ενοποιεί τα υπόλοιπα διηγήματα, για να καταλάβω πώς συνδέεται αυτό με τα άλλα τέσσερα.
Πάντως, σε γενικές γραμμές βρήκα την ανθολογία όμορφα ιδιαίτερη, και η γραφή του Μπουλγκάκοφ μου άρεσε πολύ. Νομίζω πως θα μου είχε κάνει εντελώς αλλιώτικη εντύπωση εάν την είχα διαβάσει μεγαλύτερη και ωριμότερη, οπότε επιφυλάσσομαι για μια μελλοντική επαναληπτική ανάγνωση. -
Bulgakov bu uzun öyküsünde sıradan bir insanın başına gelen zincirleme aksaklıkları ve bunların sonuçlarını anlatıyor. Şiddetli bir Sovyet parodisi olmasının yanında günlük yaşamın boşluklarını ve saçmalıklarını da içeriyor. Yazarın kitaplarının neden uzun süre yasaklı kaldığını anlayabiliyorum. sovyet edebiyatı sevenlere öneririm.
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The Diaboliad - ★★★
Surreal and crazy but has moments of humor that I can appreciate.
The Elpit Workers' Commune Building - ★
Something just felt wrong with this story. I have a suspicion it maybe the translation. Or maybe it needed another edit. Rough and gritty but didn’t grab my attention much.
A Chinese Tale - ★
No.
The Adventures of Chichikov - ★★★★
Most enjoyable for this Gogol reader of Dead Souls. It’s like literary fanfiction from another one of your favorite Russians. Loved the ending in particular. -
Być może to moment, kiedy satyra na głupotę i zepsucie systemu przestaje na mnie działać (bo bluzgam lub popłakuję zamiast chichrać się pod nosem), a może Diaboliada ze wspaniałości ma tylko tytuł.
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There are times when I loathe the star system here. I know some people choose to ignore it entirely, but my OCD tells me that I have to fill it in, so I always do. But I have no idea what rating to give a book that is as inconsistent as this one is.
On the high end, The Fatal Eggs is fantastic. Both a deeply funny satire and a weird science fiction novella/short story (at a 100 pages it doesn't feel like short story in appropriate), it should be essential reading if you like Bulgakov. Maybe pick up this other collection -
The Fatal Eggs and Other Soviet Satire 1918-1963 - which also contains *something* by
Ilf and Petrov, so I doubt you'd go wrong picking that up in place of this.
"The Adventures of Chichikov" is a solid, amusing riff on Gogol's
Dead Souls which has a light meta thing going on which is appealing on a couple different levels (both that I like some meta in my fiction, and that I like to see it pop up in older stories as a foundation for a lot of the weirdness that would follow).
The title story - Diaboliad - is decent, and has some amusing settings and scenes, but the second half is jumbled and unnecessarily confusing. Bulgakov showed he can handle this level of complexity masterfully (yes, intended) with
The Master and Margarita, but the skill and craft displayed there is lacking in this earlier story.
The other two stories are disposable, and not really worth the time or effort to read them.
My edition contained about six other assorted works after this main set of stories - they were also a mixed bag, but they mostly were of sufficient quality to be worth the time to consume them.
I will say that, at a minimum, the collection has made me want to pick up the other Bulgakov stuff that I haven't read, and I will likely do so in the near future.
Again, the strength of the collection, and the rating I'm going with, is the masterful The Fatal Eggs - and, as you can find that elsewhere, maybe this edition specifically isn't necessary; that said, finding a book that contains The Fatal Eggs should be mandatory for any fans of Bulgakov. Go forth. -
نشيد الشيطان
ذات عوالم بولغاكوف والتي خبرتها في (المعلم ومارغريتا)، العالم الشيطاني الغريب والذي يقع فيه موظف روسي بسيط، تم فصله بسبب خطأ طباعي بسيط، وفي الطريق إلى تصحيح وضعه، يفقد وثائقه وتزداد غرائبية الأشياء التي يواجهها. -
This I picked when at a friend's home, out of the sheer need to read something, because I had forgotten mine at home. I finished the book the same evening, as well as The Fatal Egg , a story by the same author.
This was humorous, especially because trying to imagine all the mess made me laugh at times. It's very short but also very energetic, at all times something is happening and if you miss on it, you don't understand a thing!
I get the feeling I'll be reading some more from Bulgakov, because his style is purely dynamic and he masters character creation really well! -
Povestea unui funcționar dus la pierzanie de doi gemeni. Cadrul e specific lui Bulgakov: o lume lugubră cu personaje care apar și dispar (când, în fapt, totul e explicat prin prisma realului). Citind "Maestrul și Margareta", mă așteptam la ceva mai mult de la acest roman. Oricum, nimeni nu a excelat prin întreaga creație, iar Bulgakov e demn de a fi respectat pentru curajul de care a dat dovadă publicând aceste opere în contextul în care Rusia era guvernată de un pragmatic regim comunist.
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Bu kitabı ancaq rus sistemi davam edən ölkələrdə yaşayanlar anlaya bilər.
Bu arada Kafka da kitabın içində dolaşır, diqqətli olun... -
Bulqakov imzalı daha bir klassik əsər. Bürokratiya, Sovet Rusiyası, reallıqla fantaziya arasında gedib gələn dəlixanalıq novella. Çiçək.
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Orjinal edisyondan farklı olarak bu kitapta sadece "Diaboliad-Şeytani" isimli öykünün olduğunu önceden belirttikten sonra; kitap hakkında söyleyeceğim ilk şey, basım kalitesine gösterilen özenin diğer editöryel ayrıntılarda gösterilmediği.
Hikaye karakterimizin yaptığı bir yazım hatasıyla başlıyor. Rusça'nın alemeti farikası sonucu gerçekleşen bu hatayı, maalesef hakkıyla çevirememişler ve bu hatanın ne olduğunu anlamlandırabilmek adına daha güzel bir dipnot metni hazırlanabilineceğini veya daha iyi bi çeviri yapılabileceğini düşünüyorum. Bununla beraber son iki dipnot için metinde numara verilmiş olmasına rağmen herhangi bi metin yazılmasına gerek duyulmamış. Bu tarz ufak tefek şeyler okuma zevkimi baltaladı diyebilirim.
Şeytani ise sonu belirsiz Kafkaesk bi öykü olduğu için beğenmemem söz konusu bile olamaz. Bu tarz öyküler ne kadar saçma olursa o kadar eğleniyor ve bi o kadar da zevk alıyorum. Yaşasın absürdlük :) -
Niby trochę Kafka w wersji radzieckiej, a jednak ponownie nic specjalnego. Podobnie jak w Fatalnych Jajach czuć już niezwykły talent do słowa, ale to jest tylko wprawka do opus magnum Bułhakowa.
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The Diaboliad
Bulgakov's characters are an exaggeration of their real lives counterparts. I am sure a government in some deeply nested bureaucratic system has gotten fired for an insane reason. Bulgakov's recurring themes like ignorance, bureaucratic bullshit, nonsensical paradigms issued by government and heard mentality, make an appearance. And also there is a cat.
Bulgakov's satire is a social commentary. In its over the top expression, his frustration towards his country's social climate changes are obvious. In the black hole that is Soviet's bureaucratic system, the protagonist of "The Diaboliad" finds himself stuck and lost since he doesn't have any of his official documents. Since he doesn't have any, the protagonist makes superior claims of Prussian Royal ancestry leaving his audience aghast. The hilarity is in absurdity. The comedy is in the tragic disproportionate response to a silly mistake. The satire is cutting and is mostly obscure. Truly Bulgakov.
The Elpit workers' commune building
Is it the translation that made the narration choppy? Or was it Bulgakov's stream of thought that presented itself as a short story? Whatever it was the essence was there but the biting satire was missing. Set in obscure corner or a city, the happenstances that is set around the apartment complex is used as an allegory to the political changes happening at that time period. Bulgakov carefully references Latin phrases, Hungarian Rhapsody and Rasputin in a whimsical tone. An okay story with much political angst than any in this collection.
A Chinese Tale
Yeah...no.
A definite miss for this collection.
The adventures of Chichikov
A lot of reference to Nikolai Gogol which I missed. A story that will have to be read again once I read Gogol's Dead Souls. -
A clerk is at his wit's end when things start to tumble out of control right after he gets the sack.
This shit is insane but the best part is you will love it awfully much. That Bulgakov drives one crazy with his humour and sublime satire is only the beginning of the artistic journey and you are yet to discover much.
After M & M, I am on an orgy of sorts chasing Bulgakov stories, with seemingly no end, and just how bizarre yet perfectly orgasmic all of his works are. -
What did I just read?
That was.....bizzare -
I don't think this short collection contains Bulgakov's best works, but they're still enjoyable. The through-line for most of Diaboliad is cutting criticism of the Soviet state, with some stories being more successful than others in that regard. However, while the Soviet Union was well deserving of lambasting, my favorite Bulgakov works aren't focused on this subject. This meant that, to me, not much of this collection was of the quality that I know Bulgakov is capable of reaching. Below are my thoughts on each of Diaboliad's constituent five works.
Diaboliad is distinct from the other works in the collection in that it's incredibly surreal. A bureaucrat faces problems at work which rapidly devolve into a madcap odyssey through Moscow filled with doubles and inscrutable government machinations. It has echoes of Dostoevsky and Gogol, but the clearest comparison is to Kafka, especially The Trial. However, it goes on too long, with diminishing returns. I interpreted the story after a certain point as the dying dreams of its main character, though perhaps I'm reading too much into the line “Korotov went to sleep and did not wake up again” in the Carl Proffer translation.
The Fatal Eggs is an interesting Russian take on a mad scientist story/creature-feature, but its criticism of the Soviet government is even more interesting. The Fatal Eggs depicts the Soviet Republic as stupid and incompetent, feeding propaganda to a population that it keeps ignorant and does not truly care about. The story is a fine vehicle for this criticism, with its scientist protagonist surviving the horrors of the Russian Revolution and afterwards stumbling upon a ray that changes biological matter. The Soviet government confiscates the ray machine and recklessly gives it to an uneducated farmer in hopes of stimulating livestock production. Thanks to further government screw-ups, the results are disastrous. The Fatal Eggs is not as good as Bulgakov’s later work Heart of a Dog, but it’s a solid precursor.
No. 13, The Elpit-Rabkommun Building is, like The Fatal Eggs, a harsh criticism of life under Soviet rule, focusing on a former luxury apartment building now transformed into slums, only held together thanks to pre-Revolution competence. There are no heroes here, the times are too bad for heroics, but there are these few competent people working against the ignorant masses. The ignorant, acting in a sympathetic but idiotic manner, bring destruction down on everyone. “We are ignorant people. Ignorant people. We must be taught, fools that we are…” Is the Soviet Republic capable of teaching the ignorant, of making them the true equals of yesteryear’s competents? The story is pessimistic.
A Chinese Tale has not aged particularly well, with its protagonist an amalgam of Chinese stereotypes. Putting that aside, he provides an outsider’s perspective on Moscow, which doesn’t look anything like a worker’s paradise. That the Red Army gives a foreigner knowing little Russian a machine gun speaks to how hard up they were, and how little it cared about Marxist–Leninist ideology when push came to shove.
The Adventures of Chichikov was my favorite of the collection, but because it’s been a decade since I read Gogol’s Dead Souls I’m sure some of it went over my head. Still, I remember enough about Chichikov and Gogol’s other characters to have fun reading the story (and even if you’re completely ignorant, Chichikov the conman is such a great character you’ll probably be entertained regardless). There’s something amazing and joyful about a great writer paying homage to another great writer, and those feelings are magnified here where Gogol was such an inspiration to Bulgakov.
This strange collection of lesser Bulgakov works is perhaps most interesting in that there are traces here of the better books that Bulgakov would write later in his career, most notably The Master and Margarita. That and the clear criticism of the Soviet government that permeates almost all of the five stories, criticism so scathing that I don’t understand how Bulgakov’s career was only damaged and not completely destroyed. I would only recommend Diaboliad if you already know that you are a Bulgakov fan, and even then these works likely won’t knock your socks off. I give this one a 3/5, with The Adventures of Chichikov being the highlight.
