Morphine by Mikhail Bulgakov
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Chasing the Dream

Life goes on in the middle of war, even in the middle of revolution. There are births and natural deaths, and unfortunate marriages, and people keep doing their jobs. And people also go mad. Some commit suicide without even noticing that a revolution is underway. The Tsar is dead. Long live the Tsar. Or whatever the new man in charge is called.

Or perhaps the suicide is a figure for the ancien regime (or its replacement). Power is, after all, an addictive drug, the dosage of which always has to be increased to achieve an equilibrium. Morphine leads to more morphine, leads to cocaine, leads to oblivion. Unchecked by any external forces, power expands until it kills those who wield it. They corrupt themselves from the inside.

The history of revolution is not dissimilar to that of addiction - fragmentary records which do not begin to express the circumstances or sufferings of either. The narratives of both are equally evasive, rationalising, and self-serving. From the first shot, the first injection, the ultimate trajectory is fixed but unrecognised by those involved. They chase the dream.

Meanwhile others are perfectly happy. How odd existence is when dominated by dreams - induced by either drugs or power. More is never enough.

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