** spoiler alert ** 
 I seem to be drawn to the Faustian story of selling one's soul to the devil - not sure what that implies about me. This is also the second story about Stalinist Russia for me in the course of a couple months (Animal Farm was the first). 
 **POTENTIAL SPOILERS** 
 In this story, the devil comes to Moscow with a few minions and wreaks havoc in the lives of many people. Trying to explain the plot or the (seemingly millions of) characters would be insane. There are a few parallel story lines in this book - two time periods that both feature Pontius Pilate, two writers who meet in an insane asylum, and two lifestyles that are characterized by extremes of suppression and hedonism. In a city that denies God and Satan, the devil has a grand time rooting out the hypocrisy in people who are really vile, but also causes some good people to suffer (though fortunately much is righted in the end). 
 The Master refers to an author who writes a book about Pilate and Christ that is unacceptable in 1930s Russia. Margarita, who has a seemingly perfect husband, nonetheless falls in love with the older, pure-hearted Master and is willing to risk even her soul to protect him. Fortunately, she is just the person Satan is looking for to help him host is gala ball - he needs a queen called Margarita and she's it. So, he saves the Master and ensures that the lovers will have each other forever. Don't think Satan is going soft, he just uses people to fulfill his needs at the time - the Master allows him to sort of make a deal with Christ to let Pilate off the hook of his long-standing tortured "existence". 
 It's irreverently and somewhat inappropriately funny - a few people literally lose their heads, others are punished for just being awful, silly or vain people. The minions - one a giant back cat, another an ugly guy in checkered pants and another a guy with a fang - weave in and out of the stories and instigate a lot of the craziness. They are sometimes a little tiresome or irritating, but I couldn't help but be entertained by their antics. 
 The underlying themes are of the most serious nature. The suppression of creativity and intelligence is a sad but true component of the Stalinist regime. The violence of the time is reflected by the devil and his minions as they essentially torture, abuse or misuse people. The oppression and disappearances of people - neighbors, co-workers, friends and families didn't know what happened to people - were seen in several ways in this book. Bulgakov experienced many of these things when living in Russia at the time - it was about 30 years between the time when the book was written and when it was finally published. 
 It's bold and crazy, but I loved it. I went back and forth between 4.5 and 5 - I'm ending up at 5/5 because I was so entertained but never lost sight of the fact that this was about a frightening and violent time.