Apologies if this is a really dumb question, but I’m reading this book for the second time and love it much more than I did the first time around. I’m just wondering about the Master. I know he’s a self-insert for Bulgakov, but does the Master have his own self-insert in the Pilate novel? I can’t help but see parallels between the Master’s novel & the Master’s experience of the Master and Margarita itself, not least that the traditional “villain” becomes the main character in both, and the way Bulgakov, the Master, and Yeshua are all martyr-like figures. I have to admit I don’t know nearly enough about Bulgakov, the Soviet Union, or the Bible, so I’m having a hard time making sense of my thoughts.
Most of the analysis I can find about it talk about Pilate almost purely as an allegory for the Soviet Union, diving into the politics of the time, rather than about the religious/literary aspects that jumped out at me personally. The politics is super important for sure, but in a book that says so much about belief, truth, and reality, I just feel like there’s got to be more to it than that. So yeah, do you think the Master has a (or maybe more than one?) self-insert in his novel, or am I barking up the wrong tree with this Inception-like theory?
by xserpx