The book is divided into two parts. The first part is named same as the book itself – The Housemaster and Margaret, and the second part is named as –Margaret and the Master. Since the earliest phase of the Macedonian poetry discourse, there is a dichotomy: lyric expression – lyric-epic expression. In the theory of expression by Roman Jacobson, these both are defined as metaphorical and metonymical pole of the discourse. Venko Andonovski showed this true in the Macedonian poetry4F, and this book by Nina Bulgakova shows the same as functional when the poems from both ‘poles’ are “placed under one roof”. The metaphorical ones are placed in the first part of this book, and the metonymical ones are placed in the second part of the book, etc.
2. About a reading sub-possibility within the frames of the first reading possibility:
This is a reading possibility of this book if you haven’t re-read the Mikhail Bulgakov’s book, to address you to connect this poetry with some other poet or writer, maybe more immanent to you… Because, in spite of the fact that these verses are extremely confessional and personal, they don’t represent purely the monologue concept of the lyric subject, but in contrary, they affirm the dialogical philosophy, the logic of the openness, non-completeness of the discourse, and especially the Aspect of the Other. Bulgakova, out from the need for a continuous and inspiring dialogue, promotes the famous Buber’s thought: I become in touch with You, and while becoming Me, I speak You. The whole real life is a meeting5F. The Word is a drama in which participate three Personalities – says Bakhtin6F. Any conversation is full with translating and interpreting the words of Other. In it, at every step a quote stands or evoking what is already said7F. That kind of evocation we have in this book by Nina Bulgakova, so in that way she is ‘in touch’ with O. Wilde (Circle), P.M. Andreevski and T. Ujević (De(fi)nitia), W. Shakespeare (Watch), F. Nietzsche (Crucifixion), A. de Musset (Untied), J. Cocteau (Song of the Swan), M. Cvetaeva and R. Rilke (Luna(tics), Letter), B. Shclink (The Reader), Stendhal (Imprinting), S. Pushkin (Karma), L. Tolstoy (Railway), A. Baricco. This is a possibility, my dear readers, to make the touch with these verses through some other ways.
3. A second reading possibility, the more complicated one
(if you did re-read The Master and Daisy/Margaret by Mihail Bulgakov):
The dialogism, quoting, intertextuality, are – in front of all – immanent forms of speech, and secondary are forms of artistic expressions. In that context, the category “the word of Other” gains the fundamental meaning, including all of the forms of artistic and literary forms of dialogism. The Speech of Other is a speech within/above the speech, expression within/above the expression8F. The speech of the Other in these verses is the speech of Mikhail Bulgakov, or the speech of Daisy/Margaret from the Bulgakov’s book. In every woman lays daisy. And every man caries The Master within. – is emphasized in the auto-prologue in this book of poetry. They will awaken only if their paths interlace. Only in that kind of moment, the parts become a whole. In contrary, Daisy/Margaret will wonder with flowers in her hands, and The Master will stay in solitude in his basement, without knowing he is a Master at all (as Bulgakov spoke). Nina Bulgakova, although openly accents the relation that her poetry builds with the famous book by Bulgakov, still shows that one doesn’t necessary need to re-read this novel to be able to absorb and accept her poetry. But it wouldn’t really hurt, she sweetly accents! So, in this statement of hers, we can recognize the Bakhtin’s thought: The text lives only in touch with other texts. But, this touching of the texts allows Bulgakova to take a journey down to the core of her inner-self, that introvert quest for her real self-essence. In other words, it allows her the great journey down to the very and most spiritual center of her inner-being. And the initiation-like structure of this quest encloses her to the mythic ritual of Illumination which happens through the symbolic death and the symbolic resurrection. She feels that only through Bulgakov’s Daisy/Margaret she can achieve that. Actually, that Bulgakov’s Daisy/Margaret and the poet are the same, as she claims many times in her book of poetry:
Daisy/Margaret I am
and i wander through the city.
(Imprinting)
I – Daisy/Margaret,
and blinded,
so blinded,
with my fingers will read
your master-piece
(The Saddest Hat in the World)
Daisy/Margaret I am
and I ride on words.
(Suite)
Daisy/Margaret I am
and I have the power.
(Arc (Triumphal))
I, Daisy/Margaret
and
You, The Master
of the word
(Iris)
Me,
Daisy/Margaret,
the dead tree
and the fruitless tree
with a glance to engreen
I can.
(Blooming)
#b
4. See Катица Ќулавкова. „Демонот тишина“ in Тетратки. – Скопје: Менора, 1997.
5. See Венко Андоновски. „Песна зад песните“ in Дешифрирања. – Скопје: Штрк, 2000.
6. See Martin Buber: Ja i ti. – Beograd: 1977.
7. See Михаил Бахтин: „Проблем текста“ in Књижевност. – Београд: 1978, br.1.
8. See Mihail Bahtin: „Iz predistorije romaneskne reči“ in O romanu. – Beograd: 1989.
9. See Mihail Bahtin: „Ekspozicija problema tuđeg govora“ in Marksizam i filozofija jezika. – Beograd: 1980.