It was by no means intentional on my part to read The Master and Margarita and The Last Temptation of Christ back to back but fate deemed it to be, and therefore I come to you with some curious similarities.
I suppose I found reading theses two books in succession so exciting because they seem to be about complete opposites (Jesus and the Devil, good and evil) but having read them together I realized they are more alike than opposite. Despite the obviously polarity of the main characters these books argue the same thing: it is not the experiences you have in life that matter, but your reaction to them.
Kazantzakis writes in his intro:
"This book is not a biography; it is the confession of every man who struggles. In publishing it I have fulfilled my duty, the duty of a person who struggled much, was much embittered in life and had many hopes. I am certain that every free man who reads this book, so filled as it is with love, will more than ever before, better than ever before, love Christ."
Kazantzakis took a story that is all too familiar to most of us and gave it just enough of a spin to piss off half of us and awaken the other half. And if you are part of the half that felt awoken by the novel you hopefully learned that it is not a particular moment(s) in your life that is most important but all the moments together that create your whole being—that create a final result.
In The Master and Margarita Woland is the true hero and “Yeshua is extraordinary only in his sensitivity and his naive belief in the goodness of man.” Woland, contrary to our usual understanding of the Devil not only believes in the goodness of man (we see this when he tests Margarita’s compassion with the criminals at the ball) but he himself embodies a goodness. He becomes even more powerful in that he also brings with him great strength and knowledge of the evils in the world—unlike naïve Jesus. Woland and Yeshua bring the same message, “compassion is preferable to revenge.” But Woland teaches this by directly involving himself in people’s lives instead of as “a defenseless human being who is beaten and hung on the cross.” The important difference here seems to be that Woland continues fighting with human nature’s lesser side, testing them through provocations, to make people compassionate instead of just expecting them to follow his lead, like Yeshua did on the cross.
In Last Temptation of Christ, Jesus is the hero that Woland is in The Master and Margarita. Kazantzakis writes his novel with an emphasis on a life of Jesus that is human and therefore relatable. Thus forcing the reader to see that his particular experiences aren’t the key issues but the ultimate decision it leads up to. Kazantzakis challenges our understanding of Jesus in the bible, without (I think) actually blaspheming: Judas is a hero, who turned in Jesus because he was asked, not as an act of betrayal; Jesus struggles with a burning desire to be with Mary Magdalene. Jesus doesn’t hear God’s voice clearly or at all most of the time which makes his ultimate decision not naiveté, divine direction or a simple belief in goodness, but as painstaking a decision as there ever was—to claim he is the Son of God and to die on the cross. Jesus leads by provocation—because he is as human as the rest of us.
Both Woland and Christ were created in these novels to make people live a life of goodness and compassion despite our more natural inclinations. And both do it by breaking the mold we have kept them in over the ages. They scream to us to do the right thing, to be the best person possible when it comes time to make a decision, no matter what life hands you.
And as a final note, if you couldn’t tell already, I sincerely loved both of these books.
