большой полиглот revisited

[marta-mb.livejournal.com]

A few days ago I asked here about this famous phrase from "Master and Margarita": Я большой полиглот и знаю большое количество языков. This sentence is right grammatically but it sounds wrong, and it's because of:
a) redundant adjective большой
b) pleonastic second part: you should just say either Я полиглот or Я знаю много языков
c) большое количество - this phrase sounds bad in all cases. (Another example of the same bad style is to say "я имею" instead of "у меня есть".)

The question is why Bulgakov inserted this apparently weird phrase in the otherwise ideally polished text? If we look closely at what the second character, Korovyev, is saying throughout the novel, we'll notice that the same redundancy is recurrent in his colloquys with the negative characters. For example:
- Так... - растерянно сказал Варенуха, - мерси. Будьте добры передать мосье Воланду, что выступление его сегодня в третьем отделении.
- Слушаю. Как же. Непременно. Срочно. Всеобязательно. Передам. (...) Прошу принять мои наилучшие, наигорячейшие приветы и пожелания! Успехов! Удач! Полного счастья! Всего!

Isn't that wonderful? The reason for this is to make the people who are used to this sort of empty language become the target of it themselves.

Comments

[wire-shock.livejournal.com]

A few remarks:

большой полиглот, c.f. он большой знаток чего-либо, большой оригинал = a very unusual person, etc. (see "Ревизор", where Khlestakov speaks about Pushkin and calls him "большой оригинал")

I wouldn't say that the phrase "я имею" is exactly bad style. In some cases it's preferable (in formal language), there also are some set phrases where it must be used: "это не имеет отношения к делу" or "я не имею счастья быть знакомым с вами" (the latter is obsolete, though).

I very strongly doubt that Bulgakov's text is ideally polished, too. Bulgakov, and before him Dostoyevski and Gogol, are famous for their "un-polished", "rough", wordy styles with lots of pleonasms. However, they differ a lot from each other as well, so in Bulgakov's texts such redundancies are not everywhere indeed, he uses the contrast between such passages and the more "normal" ones.
But the word polished is still not really appropriate when talking about Bulgakov. imHo.

[marta-mb.livejournal.com]

Perhaps this applies to his earlier writings (though I cannot state with assurance). But the language of Master and Margarita is definitely very refined as far as I can judge. And I cannot see any pleonasms at all. Perhaps you'll direct me to any? And any examples of un-polishness and roughness?

I am interested indeed as I am working my way through the Russian text right now.

[lovimoment.livejournal.com]

Unpolished is probably most accurate. M&M was published posthumously from notes Bulgakov's wife had stashed in a drawer. That's why there are approximately four different endings out there, with multiple middles as well.

[marta-mb.livejournal.com]

Sorry, but are there any examples of unpolished style?

[lovimoment.livejournal.com]

These examples people are quoting are not "unpolished." But if you read the text carefully, you can see a few contradictions and details that don't make sense. (Some editors fix those...you need copy that is faithfully translated and heavily annotated.)

[marta-mb.livejournal.com]

Well, I know of only two contradictions so far, but they could be purposeful.
The one is about Master and Margarita's disappearance at the end, the second is about the visitors who fly out of the flat (first it says that they fly out of the window, then Annushka sees them running down stairs).
So don't mix up the earlier editions and the final version.

[lovimoment.livejournal.com]

There is no final version. Bulgakov died before it was finished.

[jojoza.livejournal.com]

Voland is a foreigner there =) So he speaks like a foreigner.

[jojoza.livejournal.com]

- Так... - растерянно сказал Варенуха, - мерси. Будьте добры передать мосье Воланду, что выступление его сегодня в третьем отделении.
- Слушаю. Как же. Непременно. Срочно. Всеобязательно. Передам. (...) Прошу принять мои наилучшие, наигорячейшие приветы и пожелания! Успехов! Удач! Полного счастья! Всего!

Have you ever heard about emotions and expression of emotions through speech?

[marta-mb.livejournal.com]

don't understand your point.

[paparazzzzi.livejournal.com]

The text of 'Master and Margarita' is kinda ironical here and there. Read it carefully and just try to feel a difference between the styles of various characters speeches.

[freiburg234.livejournal.com]

It seems evident that Voland uses "большой" in this context to express a particular emotion, such as (cynical) pride/contempt, rather than simply denote a sober fact.

I would suspect that the point here is less related to "Voland the foreigner" than to "Voland the individual". In this regard, we are all alike, meaning everyone has speech habits that are as individual as a fingerprint.