I think...

...therefore I am. But seriously. Eight chapters of the triplets literature I've ever read. Maybe. I don't know. Though now I've discovered two new operas and a novel. But I want to hit on the operas. This book has actually been turned into a number of musicals and operatic productions. So of course I went and took a listen. I also listened to the opera mentioned within the novel, Eugene Onegin. The first song is so jarring. It's a duet and a quartet within the same song. So it ends being crazy piece of work that's just all over the place and your ear has no idea where to rest. My mind is the same way as I read the novel. I have no idea where to rest. What to actually focus on. Where to set my attention. But I've definitely picked out this theme of attacking the intellectuals. The absurdity taking place between Ivan and the psychiatric ward. Also the fact that Satan is attacked the intellectually elite of the MASSOLIT. He's ripping them apart. I think I'm seeing a lot of satire in that respect by Bulgakov's and Ginsburg's choice of vocabulary. A specific example is their description of speaking voices. They use operatic terminology. Tenor. Basso. Contralto. This may have meant something totally different to them in use. But I see it as an attack and an illumination of the absurdities of the period.