The Heart of a Dog (original 1925; edition 1997)

This is really funny. Not quite on the level of Master and Margarita, but still pretty good.

A Soviet-era doctor, a cross between Pavlov, Lysenko, and Frankenstein, takes in a stray dog and transplants some 'vital human organs' into him. Much to his surprise, the dog begins to transform into a human being. The dog turns out to be a perfect scoundrel, tears up the furniture, swears a lot, hates manners, and promptly joins the animal control section of the local Communist Party, where he kills cats.

There is some deeper satire here about the whole Soviet apparatus, and their attempts to transform humanity, and all that. But this is really funny. I can imagine the original Russian is even better.

Master and Margarita is still my favorite Bulgakov, but this is fine, too. ( )

Couldn't get into it. It's no M&M. ( )

I always find satires the most enjoyable when it’s simply fun to read, rather or not I know what the underlying subject is. The novella, “The Heart of a Dog”, is humorous, a bit outrageous, made me look up what a pituitary gland is (don’t ask me to explain it), and of course, gave a glance into the complexities of then Russian life. Completed in 1925, it was not published in the Soviet Union until 1987, due to censorship.

‘Heart’ is an easy, fast read, if not for the educational pauses of my choosing, as I picked up bits of nuances of the Russian life then. Here are some samples:
- That horsemeat in sausages is acceptable, sold by the Moscow State Food Store.
- That ‘Dustmen’ is the lowest form of proletarian life.
- A lover keeps a typist in silk stockings but “he won’t just want to make the usual sort of love to her, he’ll make her do it the French way”. (Hmm, what is that exactly?)
- That Co-op is a ‘filthy store’, unfit for the gentleman that the Professor is.
- That the Professor is despised for using 7 rooms for himself (not entirely true since the cook and the housekeeper also lives there, and his business is operated from there as well), during a time when Moscow did not have sufficient housing.
- ‘Comrades’ has entered into daily salutation, which is rejected by the Professor, who prefers ‘Mister’, which in return, is rejected by the ‘Comrades’, which Sharikov barked, “I’m not mister – all the ‘misters’ are in Paris!”
- Communism means the equal division of property where Sharikov has an ‘entitlement of thirty-seven square feet’ in the apartment.

With communism, males and females are touted as equals, even though they never really are (and one can easily argue they still aren’t). Mr. Bulgakov blended in touches of this:
- From the Dog, Sharik, “You’ve a good lunch under your belt, haven’t you, you’re a world-famous figure thanks to male sex glands.”
- In a conversation between the Professor and the 4 members of the House Committee: “’Firstly, we’re not gentlemen, ‘ the youngest of them, with a face like a peach, said finally. ‘Secondly,’ Philip Philipovich interrupted him, ‘are you a man or a woman?’ The four were silent again and their mouths dropped open. This time the shock-haired young man pulled himself together. ‘What difference does it make, comrade?’ he asked proudly. ‘I’m a woman,’ confessed the peach-like youth, who was wearing a leather jerkin, and blushed heavily.”

Lastly, with the transplants of the human testes (and the pituitary gland) into Sharik, I’ll forever have a new image in my mind, the next time I hear the derogatory “Grow a pair” or “ball-busting” type of slams.

P.S. Note Mr. Bulgakov’s explicit use of ‘dog’ vs. ‘man’ and ‘Sharik’ vs. ‘Sharikov’ when he wants the reader to think of the character in the form of a dog vs. a man in the book.

Some quotes:

I simply laughed at this ‘you’re such an idiot’ speech from the Professor to Sharikov:
“But she slapped me across the mouth,’ whined Sharikov, ‘She can’t go doing that to me!”
“She slapped you because you pinched her on the bosom, ’shouted Bormenthal, knocking over a glass. ‘You stand there and…”
“You belong to the lowest possible stage of development,’ Philip Philipovich shouted him down. ‘You are still in the formative stage. You are intellectually weak, all your actions are purely bestial. Yet you allow yourself in the presence of two university-educated men to offer advice, with quite intolerable familiarity, on a cosmic scale and of quite cosmic stupidity, on the redistribution of wealth… and at the same time you eat toothpaste…”

This resonated with me, as it mirrors the concept of ‘problem solving’ that an engineers do. What problem are we trying to solve? In this case, it’s simply wrong to mess with nature.
“I quite agree with you. This, doctor, is what happens, when a researcher, instead of keeping in step with nature, tries to force the pace and lift the veil. Result – Sharikov……..”
“I would perform the most difficult feat of my whole career by transplanting Spinoza’s, or anyone else’s pituitary and turning a dog into a highly intelligent being. But what in heaven’s name for? That’s the point. Will you kindly tell me why one has to manufacture artificial Spinozas when some pleasant woman may produce a real one any day of the week?”
“Theoretically the experiment was interesting…… But what is its practical value?” ( )

Magical Bulgakov:

http://kaggsysbookishramblings.wordpress.com/2013/02/14/an-old-favourite-a-dogs-...

The Aplin translation is definitely best! ( )

It's hard to appreciate now how controversial and prescient this book must have been in 1920s Russia. I say this because this novel is apparently well-regarded and I sure as heck don't appreciate it.

The prose, at least in Mirra Ginsburg's 1960s translation, is stilted and unfunny. The plot and themes are obvious and (in 2012) dated and decidedly stale. Communism - what a lark!

It's true that, unlike so much classic Russian literature, this novel has the virtue of ending in less than 200 pages. It is an easy read. It manages to mimic the inner monologue of a dog in a not-unreadable way. And like much golden age sci-fi, the characters function well if you treat them as stand-ins for particular ideologies rather than as fully developed human-beings. The doctor-protagonist manages to articulate a coherent argument against remaking man. I suppose that it's possible that no one in 1920s Russia had developed or articulated these thoughts before Bulgakov. (But it seems unlikely.)

Fundamentally its arguments against communism are largely the same ones any 20-year-old neo-con could articulate: "Sharing? Equality? Bah - it'll never work because people are louts!" ( )