The Life of Monsieur de Molière: A Portrait by Mikhail Bulgakov by Mikhail Afanasevich Bulgakov (EPUB)

Description

This portrait of Moliere, by Mikhail Bulgakov, goes far beyond mere biography. The Russian master brings a kindred spirit vividly to life in this novelistic story of art and the struggle it demands.Mikhail Bulgakov’s The Life of Monsieur de Moliere is a fascinating portrait of the great French seventeenth-century satirist by one of the great Russian satirists of our own century. For Bulgakov, Moliere was an alter ego whose destiny seemed to parallel his own. As Bulgakov’s translator, Mirra Ginsburg, informs us: “There is much besides their craft that links these two men across the centuries. Both had a sharp satirical eye and an infinite capacity for capturing the absurd and the comic, the mean and the grotesque: both had to live and write under autocracies: both were fearless and uncompromising in speaking of what they saw, evoking storms with each new work: and shared what Bulgakov calls ’the incurable disease of passion for the theater.’”The life of Moliere, born Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, is a story of struggle and dedication, and Bulgakov tells it with warmth and compassion. Indeed, for all Bulgakov’s careful attention to historical detail, his vivid recreation of seventeenth-century France makes The Life of Monsieur de Moliereread more like a novel than a formal biography.Mikhail Bulgakov (1891-1949) is best known in the West for his monumental novel The Master and Margarita. His The Life of Monsieur de Moliere, completed in 1933, was not published until 1962. Mirra Ginsburg’s translation of this neglected masterpiece will find a welcome readership among devotees of the theater and of modern Russian literature.

User’s Reviews

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐Liked this one too as I had an interest in this author at the time.

⭐Mikhaïl Bulgakov’s novel is not a hagiography of Molière, but the work of a sympathizer.The author follows the journey (for a long time a calvary) of the playwright, who had courageously chosen to become an actor, a profession condemned by the first Estate in France, the clergy.When Molière began to produce his own plays with his theater company, the insults were flying all over the place. The clergy called him a demon in flesh and ‘men of letters’ a vulgar buffoon. But he was saved by his public, which filled profusely (not always, because there were obviously also failures) the coffers of his theater company.Bulgakov exposes Molière’s venomous fights with a sometimes comical censorship (the king, the clergy), with prejudiced critics and with jealous colleagues. But, the fable writer Jean de la Fontaine stood always on his side. Another sticking point was the copyright of his plays. The composer J. – B. Lully, for example, did receive a royal privilege for the copyright of all the pieces for which he had written music. This meant that he had the full copyright of many of Molière’s plays.In addition, there were Molière’s personal battles: his responsibility for his theater company (organization, financial management, actors, staff, sets and machinery), his illness (hypochondria) and his troubles with women, including an incest affair.The disputes continued even after his death. As an actor, Molière could not be buried, because before he died, he had not abjured his profession which was banned by the Church. No priest would accompany his body, and no cemetery would collect it. But in order to prevent that his body was thrown into the street, the king himself circumvented the clerical law by an astute maneuver.Obviously, Mikhaïl Bulgakov had much sympathy for Molière. The latter was in fact a mirror of his own difficulties: censorship by a secular king (the first secretary) and by a laical ‘clergy’ (the ideologues), financial and relationship problems and the inveterate jealousy of some of his colleagues.This wonderful novel should be read by all lovers of world class literature.

⭐I read this in the Russian so can’t guarantee anything about this translation.This is a biography, a novel and an experimental work all rolled into one. Bulgakov describes the life of one of the most famous and beloved French playwrights and indeed authors. He goes into the intrigue between him and his enemies, the controversies surrounding his satires, his times and personality. The end result is a magical picture of Moliere’s France with the splendour and opulence of the period (the reign of Louis XIV). All this is done in a way that reminds me that common ideas about writing (eg. show don’t tell) are just that: ideas. Bulgakov definitely tells more than he shows and the work ends up being a crossover genre piece rather than a straight novel. But this does not detract, in fact his intrusions into the text with respect to the evidence for certain periods in Moliere’s life work well.This may not be a masterpiece of world literature but it depicts Moliere in a very interesting way and it’s from a writer who felt a special connection with him because of Bulgakov’s own troubles with censorship and being ahead of his time. In fact, he refers to Moliere as a wolf of his time in the book, the same image he speaks of himself in one of his poems about how he was hounded; which makes this a splendid exposition of one literary wolf by another…

⭐Not a conventional bio at all, but a window into Bulgakov’s ideas about his ideal as an artist. It must have consoled him to relive Moliere’s woes and his (eventual) triumphs over the dolts who persecuted him. Intensely readable.

⭐A fairly decent biography of the actor/playwright Moliere. Perhaps he was his worst enemy, in that he should have known the limits to his own abilities and have read his audience better.The author’s first chapter almost lost me as he waxed and wained too poetic.

⭐A great Russian brilliantly writes about a great French. You just sit down, read and enjoy. about a great Fr

⭐A pleasurable read, I found this book to be interesting, insightful, and quite funny. One of Bulgakov’s better, lesser known works.

⭐Superbly written and very entertaining. I’ve read the master and margarita in different translations, and preferred the one by this translator, but will now work my way through all Bulgakov’s works with pleasure. Bought this on kindle but may buy the paperback as it’s a different reading experience not only in terms of actual reading but in terms of pacing as I tend to find that with a kindle I don’t speed up as I’m approaching the end if the book. Also I find it difficult to navigate around with the touchscreen kindle.

⭐Wonderful book by a truly great writer. Everything about this book is wonderful. One of the best Russian novels of all time and that’s saying something

⭐i am still wondering What was not to like in this book , it says a lot.Wonderful read, just add it to your list.

⭐This is a phenomenal book. Received only today, so not a long time ago but started reading two hours ago and I just love it! I should write a Review for the New Yorker when I have finished la Vie de Monsieur De Moliere, fits right in with my favorite co-readers.

⭐I’ve waited so long to get this work. Now I have it and am LOVING it! An extraordinary piece of work.

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