Morphine (New Directions Pearls)

September 15, 2013

Born in Kiev when it was part of the Russian Empire, Bulgakov was ultimately a writer of the Soviet era, dying in 1940. He trained as a physician but eventually abandoned medicine to become a novelist and playwright. Unfortunately, he came up against the Soviet political establishment, and his works were banned. Though at times he appealed successfully to Soviet leader Josef Stalin for protection, his masterpiece, The Master and Margarita, was not published until more than a quarter century after his death. Bulgakov was wounded as a physician at the front during World War I and became addicted to morphine, a habit he managed to break a few years later. He used that experience to compose this eponymous work, which graphically presents the fictive diary of Dr. Sergey Polyakov. Unlike Bulgakov, Polyakov perishes from his addiction, and the telling is harrowing. VERDICT Though this is a slight work, Bulgakov is one of the great writers of the Soviet era and deserves to be widely known. His training certainly allowed him to depict the horrors of addiction in detail. Highly recommended where there is interest in foreign literature.--Edward Cone, New York

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