We’ve seen Harry Potter’s Daniel Radcliffe grow up before our eyes like magic and he’s being taken pretty seriously in the adult acting world too. He’s made no secret in the past of the fact that he’s an avid bibliophile and now he’s been telling the Oprah book club what his favourite novel is!
After reading Louis de Berniere’s trilogy on Latin America, Amazon suggested The Master and Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov as a book he might like so he bought it and now it’s his favourite novel of all time!
Bulgakov wrote the novel in secret from 1928 to his death in 1940 and it could be another 26 years before it was finally published in 1966! Here’s what Radcliffe had to say about it –
“It’s now my favourite novel—it’s just the greatest explosion of imagination, craziness, satire, humour, and heart.”
In fact he was so enraptured with it he travelled to Russia for his 21st birthday and visited the author’s apartment in Moscow. He went on to explain that the novel is so important that phrases from it have become every day Russian sayings such as ‘Manuscripts don’t burn’. This is not dissimilar to the British connection to 1984 and puts the book on good stead to be an important read.
Had the manuscript been found it’s very likely that Bulgakov would have been far too dead to finish it, but thankfully it stayed a secret long enough to see print.
Admin Edit – You know that thing where you hear something for the first time and then it’s everywhere? Well this book was mentioned twice in our ‘books to read before you die’ poll and now here I am writing about it again. Definitely one for my TBR pile!
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Only discovered this book a couple of years ago. An astounding creation for its time. Looking forward to re-reading it in a more analytical frame of mind. First time around I was mesmerised by the writing.
There’s more to the Bulgakov-Radcliffe connection –Radcliffe starred in the British TV series “A Young Doctor’s Diary”, based on a semi-autobiographical work by Bulgakov.
This has been in my massive TBR pile (more a TBR bookcase really) for a couple of years. Still there. 😛
Interesting, but I’d be happier if I could one of the admins to find out why the website is working for me. Even contacting the Contact Us link isn’t working.
Hi Ron, what’s the problem? Do you want to drop me an email [email protected] ~ Kath