Bulgakov’s “Master and Margarita” (post 4, end Part One): As the devil runs riot, “It was the beginning of a kind of nonsensical farce.” And the meaning of novels.

I have just come to the end of Part One of this two-part novel. Margarita is about to be introduced at the beginning of Part Two. It seems unlikely that the rest of the novel will continue the nonsensical farce with which the first half ends, but since the novel was not entirely coherent even before it descended into farce, I do not expect the second half to make common sense either.

This raises a question that comes up with a number of well-regarded literary novels: It doesn’t seem to make sense, but since the writing is of such high quality, should readers assume that it must make sense, and that if they don’t understand it, it is their fault? Or should readers give up the idea that a literary work should “make sense”? Maybe true works of genius are beyond common sense. Or should readers conclude that some highly regarded literary novels are well-written nonsense?

It was these thoughts that prompted my post of earlier today, in which I argued that novels are not written to support a thesis. Rather, they are written to tell stories, of and by, the author’s alternate personalities. Some of these personalities are real characters, others are idiosyncratic narrators, and they may not always agree.

The intrinsic meaning of a novel is: how the author’s mind works. Of course, readers are free to find any additional meaning they wish.