books:

	Black Snow (Vintage Classics) Mikhail Bulgakov Random House UK, 2005 - 176 pages average customer review:based on 8 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

It is the most fluent and polished of all Bulgakov novels, though unfinished; judging by the reviews of the english speakers, the translation apparently lost that virtue.

About its being 'critical of Stanislavsky'. This is simply not the point, although I can understand the English reader, who tries to find some known landmarks. Of course Bulgakov ironizing on behalf of the actors, their ethiquette and life in the theatre, but this just serves to depict the theatre charm.
As the description of the golden horse on the empty scene which Maksudov sees when he first enters the building of the Independent Theatre.

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Immensely enjoyable read.

I stumbled across Mikhail Bulgakov completely by accident. I was reading up on Stanislavsky, the reknowned Russian acting teacher, and came across this little book as part of my research.
What followed was surely a possessed spell where I couldn't put it down. While truly biased, as being an actor, by the behind the scenes aspect of the mythological Moscow Art Theatre, I was more overcome by just how appetizing Bulgakov's prose truly is.
Bulgakov's absolute disregard for typical structure and wordflow are what makes him so readable. He truly captures the essence of lonliness and the absurdity any creative feels when they are mining the depths of imagination and the dread that follows with it's exposure.
While it may help to have a foot in the lore of Stanislavsky and the Art Theatre, I DO believe this work can stand on it's own. The only regret, I felt, was when it ended. It's quite abrupt and left me wanting an entire 'second half'.
But, then, as they say in theatre. 'Leave them wanting more.'
A great intro to futher reading of Bulgakov, if, like me, your just stumbling upon him.

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You need to have felt the USSR regime to understand this...

Bulgakov is certainly one of the best Russian writers, and 'The Theatre Novel' is certainly among his best works. Unfortunately, it's been translated in English as 'Black Snow', which changes the idea of the book quite a great deal - 'Black Snow' is the title of the novel written by Maxudov (the main character), but in this case Bulgakov doesn't mean that we are reading THAT novel. It is quite misleading; Maxudov's 'Black Snow' is NOT 'The Theatre (or Theatral) Novel'.

The novel itself is quite hard to understand; I believe it could be best understood by those who have a good deal of knowledge about the situation Bulgakov is describing. I cannot say I have that, therefore it is not as easy to read this novel as it is to read other works by Bulgakov. However, the novel is definitely a masterpiece - the descriptions, for example, are overwhelmingly vivid and warm, which stands out even more considering that most modern (and pre-modern) novels do not depict that warmth and depth of feeling. The strikingly accurate descriptions of human emotions seem to be a thing that can most often be found in good Russian literature (Bulgakov, Dostoevsky, Chekhov...), and that's why you need Bulgakov to use almost half-a-page to list different kinds of people, for example...

The plot of the novel is quite hard to follow - which only illustrates how much of a genius Bulgakov is, as he manages to brilliantly reveal the confusion Maxudov experiences and the absurdity of his world. The feeling of uncertainty never leaves Maxudov. Nor does it leave the reader...

I'd have given this book 5 stars if Bulgakov hadn't also written 'The Master And Margarita'. 'The Theatre Novel' is a great book, but it simply cannot be as great as that one...

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A review by Philip Spires

Black Snow is a novel by Mikhail Bulgakov. This apparent platitude is full of contradiction. The book is perhaps better described as an autobiographical episode, with Bulgakov renamed as the book's central character, Maxudov. It's also a satire in which the characters are precise, exact and often vicious caricatures of Bulgakov's colleagues and acquaintances in the between-the-wars Moscow Arts Theatre, including the legendary Stanislawsky. In some ways, Black Snow is a history of Bulgakov's greatest success, the novel The White Guard, which the theatre company adapted for the stage under the title The Days of the Turbins. The play ran for close to a thousand performances, including one staged for an audience of a single person, one Josef Stalin who, perhaps luckily for Bulgakov, liked it.

Black Snow is also a sideways look at the creative process, itself. Maxudov is a journalist with The Shipping Times and hates the monotony and predictability of his work. Privately he creates a new world by writing a novel in which the author can imagine transcending the mundane. But the product of this and all creation is useless unless it is shared. Only then can it exist. Only then can the author's relief from the self he cannot live with be realised. But when no-one publishes the novel, when no-one shows the slightest interest in it, the author is left only with the isolation that inspired the book, but now this is an amplified isolation and more devastating for it. So he attempts suicide. But he is such an incompetent that he fails. It's the same middle class Russian incompetence that Chekhov celebrated in Uncle Vanya where no-one seems able to aim a shot.

But then this unpublished book is seen by others, for whom it seems to mean something quite different from the author's intention. Instead of a novel, they see it as a play. They ask for a re-write, complete with changes of both plot and setting. Effectively, the only way the work can have its own life, its own existence, is for it to become something that denies the author's own intentions and thus nullifies the reason for writing it. And so Maxudov goes along with things and thus in effect he is back again doing what he does for The Shipping Times, in that he is writing things that others want.

And here is where Black Snow becomes a parody of what was happening later in Bulgakov's own career. He wanted to write a play about censorship and control. This, obviously, was impossible in Stalin's Soviet Union, so he set the play in France, basing it upon the historical reality of Moliere. After four years of tying to prepare the play for performance what finally emerged was a costume drama from which all allusions to censorship had been removed or watered down. So Bulgakov's intended comment on Soviet society was lost. And the play flopped.

So the satirical caricatures are truly vicious. We have an impresario who is incapable of remembering the playwright's name. We have the opinionated arty intellectual, full of biting criticism and dismissive posturing until he realises he is speaking to the author and then he does an instant, blushing volte-face. We have a character that is so sure about every detail of organisation and experience that they are almost always wrong.

Ultimately, Black Snow is about a creative process where a writer can create whatever is imaginable. But then in communicating it, the receivers change it, transform it into what they want it to be. The writer makes the snow black, the recipients read it as black but change it to white and then probably argue whether it has already turned to rain. Black Snow is an enigmatic, super-real and surreal satire.

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one for completists only...

This short novel is a fictional caricature of the author's own experiences putting on a play in 20s Moscow and specifically an attack on Stanislavksy, with whom Bulgakov had somewhat of a love/hate relationship.

Amusing in parts, the humour would have meant a lot more to a contemporary audience and, as a result, the book rails to resonate with a modern English-speaking reader.

All that being said, if you enjoyed his classic book The Master And Margarita then this is an interesting companion volume.

Approach with caution.

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reviews: page 1, 2

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