Without the light of the moon Vakula has a difficult time finding his way around the village, which of course is a pivotal part of the devil’s dastardly plans.īut Vakula winds up entering the home of Oksana, the village hottie, which only infuriates the devil more, as the devil has a thing for Oksana. He’s looking to get revenge on Vakula, a local blacksmith and sometime artist who’s become famous for painting a large panel on a church wall that depicts the devil in an unflattering light. Here the big D appears one Christmas Eve in the sky above a Ukrainian village and steals the moon. Picturesque and often downright bizarre, it has some of the madcap surrealism of Mikhail Bulgakov’s MASTER AND MARGARITA, with which it shares a pivotal character: the devil.
THE NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS, which is not to be confused with other better-known accounts bearing that title, is apparently quite revered in its native land, where it’s regularly read to children on Christmas Eve. It’s taken nearly 200 years, but we finally have a good English translation of this classic Christmas tale by Russia’s legendary Nikolai Gogol.
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