Case (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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fandomsecrets2014-01-25 03:42 pm
case) wrote in fandomsecrets2014-01-25 03:42 pm
[ SECRET POST #2580 ]
⌈ Secret Post #2580 ⌋
Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.
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Notes:
Secrets Left to Post: 04 pages, 082 secrets from Secret Submission Post #369.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.
Re: Irritating misinterpretations of characters in fandom and/or adaptations
(Anonymous) 2014-01-25 09:57 pm (UTC)(link)Are you referring to The Master and Margarita? Because I thought Yeshua Ha-Notsri was the Russian transliteration for 'Jesus the Nazarene'? I've never seen another interpretation for it. Given that the conversation at the Patriarch Ponds was about Berlioz wanting the poet to disprove Jesus' existence in his writing, followed immediately by the Devil showing up to point out that this might not be their best move, I thought we were supposed to come to the conclusion of Jesus.
I'm also not completely sure of the etymology, but I thought that the English 'Jesus' comes from the Greek 'Iesous', and that 'Yeshua' was possibly the original Hebrew from which that Greek derived, although I think that is contested some.
Agreed on Irene, though.
Re: Irritating misinterpretations of characters in fandom and/or adaptations
I think you are correct regarding the origins of the name "Yeshua", but it's a Bulgakov thing, not a Russian thing.
Bulgakov purposely changed Jesus' story and his name. He did the same thing to Woland, btw, and it is my opinion that Woland is not what people would call "the Devil" (although, again, the parallel is obviously there).
"The Master and Margarita" has this very strong "that's how it really happened" thing going throughout all the narrative. The changes are there for a reason - this reason being Bulgakov's desire to show the world as he perceived it, to convey to the reader the emotional, artistic truth rather than to employ the traditional narratives and archetypes for his own purposes. Yeshua is not Jesus, and Woland is not the Devil. Pontius Pilate, for that matter, is not the Pontius Pilate.
^my opinion, of course.
Re: Irritating misinterpretations of characters in fandom and/or adaptations
(Anonymous) 2014-01-25 10:45 pm (UTC)(link)Hmm. The shape of this is sort of slippery in my head, so I'm not sure how much sense this will make. But I think I sort of agree. Or at least, I think my interpretation trended in the same general direction, though I'm not sure if we ended up in exactly the same place.
I got the impression that a lot of what Bulgakov was doing was trying to tease out the differences between an objective truth and a subjective experience of a truth. The Yeshua and Pontius we see are from the Master's interpretation of them, and further from the Master's interpretation of the story from Pontius' POV rather than the usual Jesus and/or apostle POV. Given the context, the atheism of the Soviet Russia around it and the politicisation of atheism, I thought Bulgakov was trying to show that the objective truth is always viewed through a subjective lens, that a different POV of the same event will have a different interpretation of it, and that POV will be subsequently interpreted by a different person again, and that after a certain point it doesn't matter any more what the original truth was, what matters is what people are inspired to do by their subjective experience of it. Woland attacked a desperate faithless Moscow so desperate for something to believe in that they fell for phantom money and a magic act that half-destroyed them, and he rewarded those who came to him in earnest and who had faith in something, even if that something was a man rather than a god.
So ... it's not that Yeshua Ha-Notsri wasn't Jesus. He was. He might not have been the original Jesus, he might have been only one rather crazed man's interpretation of Jesus, but he was still a Jesus. He was Jesus in the Master's head, and Woland considered that good enough to count. Like that?
Woland himself utterly fascinates me, as well. He's very much ... He's not the standard modern interpretation of the Devil, no, but he bears some strong resemblance to the folklore version of the Devil who haunts a lot of medieval tales. I'm Irish, for example, and Woland seems very familiar. The Devil who exists not to lure people into sin, but to test and reward their virtues. The Devil who exists, a little bit, to be beaten. Oh, if you lose, or if you refuse to acknowledge what you are facing, you will pay for it, but Woland isn't there to destroy people, but to push them into destroying or saving themselves. Which is why Margarita's mercy earns her a second request, why Fagotto earns freedom after his price is paid.
Though, yes, this is all only my opinion as well. The Master and Margarita is good for prompting subjective responses, no? ;)
Re: Irritating misinterpretations of characters in fandom and/or adaptations
This is why I've always thought that the descriptions (explicit or implicit) of the daily life in the 1930s USSR played such a big role in the novel. They're there to show how everything is subject to emotional and aesthetic interpetation, how this life is (emotionally) misery and vulgarity, and how it is no different in nature from all the wild biblical stuff happening in the story - it is not an alternative, not a qualitatively different lifestyle, it is just an aesthetic/emotional choice, and a bad one, too.
Yeeep. Bulgakov was the kind of guy to make his works a royal mess of tropes, techniques, and plotlines. The talented devil.
Re: Irritating misinterpretations of characters in fandom and/or adaptations
(Anonymous) 2014-01-25 11:34 pm (UTC)(link)I loved Fagotto and Behemoth's little trip around Moscow, in particular. How they poked and prodded at all the little absurdities of a supposedly 'objective' existence. More than any of Woland's grand displays, it was their small acts of chaos that I think most exposed the fragility of the society around them. People do not exist passionlessly, no matter how much society might want them to, and sometimes passions explode given only the smallest of provocations. If you make your society too rigid, the smallest of disturbances can massively damage it.
And yes, Bulgakov is a talented sonuva. I only read the book recently, I think in the last couple of years, but I loved it so much.
Re: Irritating misinterpretations of characters in fandom and/or adaptations
Also, Margarita's wrecking havoc upon the flat of Latunsky the critic.
*fannish high five*
Have you read Heart of a Dog, btw? Or his other stuff?
Re: Irritating misinterpretations of characters in fandom and/or adaptations
(Anonymous) 2014-01-26 01:03 am (UTC)(link)I haven't read anything else by him, no. He's hard to get hold of, and I'm not the best at ordering stuff online yet.
I'll get around to it, never fear :)
Re: Irritating misinterpretations of characters in fandom and/or adaptations