Heart of a Dog
by Mikhail Bulgakov
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When a respected surgeon decides to transplant human body parts into a stray dog, he creates a monster - drunken, profligate, aggressive and selfish. It seems the worst aspects of the donor have been transplanted as well. As his previously well-regulated home descends into riotous chaos, the doctor realises he will have to try to reverse the operation; but the dog isn't so keen... Wild, uproarious and deliriously comic, Bulgakov's short novel is at once a comment on the problems of 1920s show more Russia and a lasting satire on human nature. show lessTags
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Bookwomble Both feature dogs endowed with human intelligence, though they seem to inhabit different ends of the moral spectrum.
Member Reviews
It'd be fun to compare this to Kafka's Metamorphosis! Prague vs. Moscow. Bulgakov's book is riotous satire. Probably most of it went flying right by me. But for a picture of Soviet urban life in 1925, this book is fresh and vivid. Perhaps the fact that the antagonist was a transformed dog gave Bulgakov license to express bold criticism that otherwise would have been too dangerous.
Grand fun and great political satire, whatever the logic behind it!
Grand fun and great political satire, whatever the logic behind it!
My favourite kind of satire is not laugh-out-loud funny; it's unsettling, and disturbing, and beautifully weird. Bulgakov brings it, with this short and vicious fable about a dog who is implanted with the genitals and pituitary gland of a deceased convict, transforming him into a bestial hybrid. It's like reading an early-Soviet Chris Morris script – in fact, what this book made me think of more than anything was this creepy sketch from Blue Jam. Bulgakov seems to offer a similarly discomfiting blend of verbal dexterity, incisiveness, shock value, and utter disregard for the negative repercussions of his work, which in Bulgakov's case could have been of the most severe kind.
I wonder if I would have got as much out of this if I hadn't show more read it soon after finishing a big history of the Russian Revolution, whose hypocrisies are so unerringly skewered here. The extravagantly detailed and gory scene in which the dog is operated on brings home the nature of the Soviet ‘experiment’ (which its leaders really did see in explicitly scientific terms) in a visceral new way. And the characters are no simple allegories; the doctor, Preobrazhensky (perhaps partly modelled on Pavlov), may in some way symbolise the Bolshevik leaders in that scene, but at other times he is a sympathetic model of liberal Tsarist Russia. Writing after waves of Red Terror and White Terror had bled the countryside, Bulgakov gives his learned protagonist a pointed speech on the subject of ‘kindness to animals’, which is, he says,
‘The only possible way to deal with a living creature. Terror's useless for dealing with an animal, whatever level of development it might be at. I've always said that, I still say it and I always will. They're wrong to think that terror will do them any good. No sir, no sir, it won't, no matter what colour it is: white, red or even brown!’
The man-hound himself, Sharikov, with his barking voice and rough hair, is an unforgettable creation – the joke being that his appalling manners and rock-bottom intelligence win him an enthusiastic welcome in the Party. He ends up as head of a sub-department and possible member of the Cheka secret police. (His name, Sharikov, comes from the stereotypical Russian dog's name ‘Sharik’; it thus means something like Roverson or McFido.)
Ultimately, the gruesome experiment does not work, and Preobrazhensky's reflection on it all again takes on the most direct political connotations.
‘Science does not yet know any way of turning animals into human beings. This was my attempt, but an unsuccessful one, as you can see. He spoke for a while and then began to revert to his original primitive condition.’
As a comment on the uprising of a people – He spoke for a while and then began to revert to his original primitive condition – I found this breathtaking in its curt derision. The target, of course, is not the people themselves, but their mendacious leaders. No wonder the Soviets banned the book on sight in 1925, and it wasn't actually published, anywhere, until 1987 (just ten years before that Blue Jam sketch was broadcast!).
There are several translations of this available, and not being a Russian reader, I compared a few of them before I ordered my copy. Unfortunately, I got confused by all the different Amazon "Look Inside" tabs I had open at the same time, and ordered the wrong one. I ended up with Andrew Bromfield's version published by Penguin, which, OK, is perfectly serviceable. Here's an example of it, from the first few pages, moving from the dog's internal monologue to a description of a nearby typist:
Wasn't getting in his way, was I? Not going to eat the entire National Economic Council into ruin if I have a rummage in the rubbish tip, am I? Rotten stingy swine! Just take a look at that fat ugly mug of his some time: wider across than it is long. A real brazen-faced thief. […] The dry blizzard witch rattled the gates and swiped her broomstick across the young woman's ear. Tossed her skirt up to her knees, exposing the cream stockings and a narrow strip of badly laundered underwear, choked off her words and smothered the dog in snow.
The only part of this that doesn't work is the ‘dry blizzard witch’, clearly a little personification in the original Russian which just seems confusing in this translation. Otherwise it reads OK, and as it was done in 2007 it should at least benefit from more recent scholarship than the other two I looked at. Vintage publish the Michael Glenny version from 1968, which I prefer in many ways (this is actually the one I meant to buy):
What harm was I doing him, anyway? I'm not robbing the National Economic Council's food supply if I go foraging in their dustbins, am I? Greedy pig! Just take a look at his ugly mug – it's almost fatter than he is. Hard-faced crook. […] The terrible snowstorm howled around the doorway, buffeting the girl's ears. It blew her skirt up to her knees, showing her fawn stockings and a little strip of badly washed lace underwear, drowned her words and covered the dog in snow.
‘Fatter than he is’ seems wrong, based on the other two, but dropping the witch business and just talking about a ‘terrible snowstorm’ makes for a much more natural-sounding English style. Meanwhile in the US, the most common translation seems to be the Mirra Ginsburg one published by Grove Press, which in my opinion is rather poor.
What harm did I do him? Would the People's Economic Soviet get any poorer if I rooted in the garbage heap? The greedy brute! Take a look at that mug of his sometimes—it's wider than it's long. A crook with a brass jowl. […] The wind, that raging witch, rattled the gate and boxed the young lady on the ear with its broom. It blew up her skirt above her knees, baring the cream-colored stockings and a narrow strip of the poorly laundered lace panties. It drowned out her words and swept across the dog.
‘The wind, that raging witch’ is a decent solution to the personification problem. But to my ear, this has several other problems. ‘Sometimes’ should surely read ‘sometime’; ‘up’ should be placed after ‘her skirt’, not before; and ‘a crook with a brass jowl’ is just dreadful.
Anyway, your mileage may vary. But whichever translation you pick, find a way to get your canines into this, pronto. show less
I wonder if I would have got as much out of this if I hadn't show more read it soon after finishing a big history of the Russian Revolution, whose hypocrisies are so unerringly skewered here. The extravagantly detailed and gory scene in which the dog is operated on brings home the nature of the Soviet ‘experiment’ (which its leaders really did see in explicitly scientific terms) in a visceral new way. And the characters are no simple allegories; the doctor, Preobrazhensky (perhaps partly modelled on Pavlov), may in some way symbolise the Bolshevik leaders in that scene, but at other times he is a sympathetic model of liberal Tsarist Russia. Writing after waves of Red Terror and White Terror had bled the countryside, Bulgakov gives his learned protagonist a pointed speech on the subject of ‘kindness to animals’, which is, he says,
‘The only possible way to deal with a living creature. Terror's useless for dealing with an animal, whatever level of development it might be at. I've always said that, I still say it and I always will. They're wrong to think that terror will do them any good. No sir, no sir, it won't, no matter what colour it is: white, red or even brown!’
The man-hound himself, Sharikov, with his barking voice and rough hair, is an unforgettable creation – the joke being that his appalling manners and rock-bottom intelligence win him an enthusiastic welcome in the Party. He ends up as head of a sub-department and possible member of the Cheka secret police. (His name, Sharikov, comes from the stereotypical Russian dog's name ‘Sharik’; it thus means something like Roverson or McFido.)
Ultimately, the gruesome experiment does not work, and Preobrazhensky's reflection on it all again takes on the most direct political connotations.
‘Science does not yet know any way of turning animals into human beings. This was my attempt, but an unsuccessful one, as you can see. He spoke for a while and then began to revert to his original primitive condition.’
As a comment on the uprising of a people – He spoke for a while and then began to revert to his original primitive condition – I found this breathtaking in its curt derision. The target, of course, is not the people themselves, but their mendacious leaders. No wonder the Soviets banned the book on sight in 1925, and it wasn't actually published, anywhere, until 1987 (just ten years before that Blue Jam sketch was broadcast!).
There are several translations of this available, and not being a Russian reader, I compared a few of them before I ordered my copy. Unfortunately, I got confused by all the different Amazon "Look Inside" tabs I had open at the same time, and ordered the wrong one. I ended up with Andrew Bromfield's version published by Penguin, which, OK, is perfectly serviceable. Here's an example of it, from the first few pages, moving from the dog's internal monologue to a description of a nearby typist:
Wasn't getting in his way, was I? Not going to eat the entire National Economic Council into ruin if I have a rummage in the rubbish tip, am I? Rotten stingy swine! Just take a look at that fat ugly mug of his some time: wider across than it is long. A real brazen-faced thief. […] The dry blizzard witch rattled the gates and swiped her broomstick across the young woman's ear. Tossed her skirt up to her knees, exposing the cream stockings and a narrow strip of badly laundered underwear, choked off her words and smothered the dog in snow.
The only part of this that doesn't work is the ‘dry blizzard witch’, clearly a little personification in the original Russian which just seems confusing in this translation. Otherwise it reads OK, and as it was done in 2007 it should at least benefit from more recent scholarship than the other two I looked at. Vintage publish the Michael Glenny version from 1968, which I prefer in many ways (this is actually the one I meant to buy):
What harm was I doing him, anyway? I'm not robbing the National Economic Council's food supply if I go foraging in their dustbins, am I? Greedy pig! Just take a look at his ugly mug – it's almost fatter than he is. Hard-faced crook. […] The terrible snowstorm howled around the doorway, buffeting the girl's ears. It blew her skirt up to her knees, showing her fawn stockings and a little strip of badly washed lace underwear, drowned her words and covered the dog in snow.
‘Fatter than he is’ seems wrong, based on the other two, but dropping the witch business and just talking about a ‘terrible snowstorm’ makes for a much more natural-sounding English style. Meanwhile in the US, the most common translation seems to be the Mirra Ginsburg one published by Grove Press, which in my opinion is rather poor.
What harm did I do him? Would the People's Economic Soviet get any poorer if I rooted in the garbage heap? The greedy brute! Take a look at that mug of his sometimes—it's wider than it's long. A crook with a brass jowl. […] The wind, that raging witch, rattled the gate and boxed the young lady on the ear with its broom. It blew up her skirt above her knees, baring the cream-colored stockings and a narrow strip of the poorly laundered lace panties. It drowned out her words and swept across the dog.
‘The wind, that raging witch’ is a decent solution to the personification problem. But to my ear, this has several other problems. ‘Sometimes’ should surely read ‘sometime’; ‘up’ should be placed after ‘her skirt’, not before; and ‘a crook with a brass jowl’ is just dreadful.
Anyway, your mileage may vary. But whichever translation you pick, find a way to get your canines into this, pronto. show less
Rating: 4*of five
The Publisher Says: A new edition of Bulgakov’s fantastical precursor to The Master and Margarita, part of Melville House’s reissue of the Bulgakov backlist in Michael Glenny’s celebrated translations.
A key work of early modernism, this is the superbly comic story of a Soviet scientist and a scroungy Moscow mongrel named Sharik. Attempting a medical first, the scientist transplants the glands of a petty criminal into the dog and, with that, turns a distinctly worryingly human animal loose on the city. The new, lecherous, vulgar, Engels-spouting Sharik soon finds his niche in governmental bureaucracy as the official in charge of purging the city of cats.
A Frankenstein fable that’s as funny as it is terrifying, show more The Heart of a Dog has also been read as a fierce parable of the Russian Revolution. It was rejected for publication by the censors in 1925, and circulated in samizdat for years until Michael Glenny translated it into English in 1968—long before it was allowed to be officially published in the Soviet Union. That happened only in 1987, although till this day the book remains one of Mikhail Bulgakov’s most controversial novels in his native country.
My Review: Anyone who's ever read The Master and Margarita already knows that Bulgakov is a rebel, an anarchist, and damn good and funny with it. His thoughts were, based on the novels I've read, contrarian in the extreme as well as profoundly sensitive to practical concerns:
And the simple truth about revolution that probably contributed heavily to the book's suppression in the Soviet era:
He saw the terror around him, saw the results, and distilled a response into a short phrase. That's writing that's a joy to read.
But we can't leave revolutionary-era Moscow without hearing from the eponymous heart-haver. Early in the book, we're told the sad tale of an unwanted dog whose people-savvy beats that of most of the humans I've ever met:
All hail Michael Glenny, of blessed memory since dying in 1990. Without him, Bulgakov's banned and suppressed works might remain out of the English-speaker's reach. show less
The Publisher Says: A new edition of Bulgakov’s fantastical precursor to The Master and Margarita, part of Melville House’s reissue of the Bulgakov backlist in Michael Glenny’s celebrated translations.
A key work of early modernism, this is the superbly comic story of a Soviet scientist and a scroungy Moscow mongrel named Sharik. Attempting a medical first, the scientist transplants the glands of a petty criminal into the dog and, with that, turns a distinctly worryingly human animal loose on the city. The new, lecherous, vulgar, Engels-spouting Sharik soon finds his niche in governmental bureaucracy as the official in charge of purging the city of cats.
A Frankenstein fable that’s as funny as it is terrifying, show more The Heart of a Dog has also been read as a fierce parable of the Russian Revolution. It was rejected for publication by the censors in 1925, and circulated in samizdat for years until Michael Glenny translated it into English in 1968—long before it was allowed to be officially published in the Soviet Union. That happened only in 1987, although till this day the book remains one of Mikhail Bulgakov’s most controversial novels in his native country.
My Review: Anyone who's ever read The Master and Margarita already knows that Bulgakov is a rebel, an anarchist, and damn good and funny with it. His thoughts were, based on the novels I've read, contrarian in the extreme as well as profoundly sensitive to practical concerns:
“The rule apparently is – once a social revolution takes place there’s no need to stoke the boiler. But I ask you: why, when this whole business started, should everybody suddenly start clumping up and down the marble staircase in dirty galoshes and felt boots? Why must we now keep our galoshes under lock and key? And put a soldier on guard over them to prevent them from being stolen? Why has the carpet been removed from the front staircase? Did Marx forbid people to keep their staircases carpeted? Did Karl Marx say anywhere that the front door of No. 2 Kalabukhov House in Prechistenka Street must be boarded up so that people have to go round and come in by the back door? What good does it do anybody? Why can’t the proletarians leave their galoshes downstairs instead of dirtying the staircase?’
‘But the proletarians don’t have any galoshes, Philip Philipovich,’ stammered the doctor.”
And the simple truth about revolution that probably contributed heavily to the book's suppression in the Soviet era:
“People who think you can use terror are quite wrong. No, no, terror is useless, whatever its colour – white, red or even brown! Terror completely paralyses the nervous system.”
He saw the terror around him, saw the results, and distilled a response into a short phrase. That's writing that's a joy to read.
But we can't leave revolutionary-era Moscow without hearing from the eponymous heart-haver. Early in the book, we're told the sad tale of an unwanted dog whose people-savvy beats that of most of the humans I've ever met:
Eyes mean a lot. Like a barometer. They tell you everything-they tell you who has a heart of stone, who would poke the toe of his boot in your ribs as soon as look at you-and who’s afraid of you. The cowards – they’re the ones whose ankles I like to snap at. If they’re scared, I go for them. Serve them right..grrr..bow-wow…”
All hail Michael Glenny, of blessed memory since dying in 1990. Without him, Bulgakov's banned and suppressed works might remain out of the English-speaker's reach. show less
A satirical, sometimes hysterical, take on Soviet life in general, and medical experimentation in particular, in 1925 Moscow.
Professor Preobrazhensky has been implanting monkey glands into aging clients who seek "rejuvenation", but his aims go beyond improving the sex lives of middle-aged Party officials or their unhappy wives. We are meant to think he’s bent on improving the whole human race with his radical techniques. When he rescues a starving, injured street dog and treats him to the good life, we are privy to brief glimpses of things from the dog Sharik's point of view. Ultimately, Sharik becomes the subject of a very ambitious experiment, in which human testicles and a human pituitary gland are implanted in the dog. The result show more is beyond anything even the Professor might have expected: a dog slowly but indubitably turning into a man---a very unpleasant man with characteristics of the arrogant, crass and hedonistic drunkard he "inherited" these traits from. (Allusions to Stalin may be inferred or implied.) We get a lot of the bureaucratic folderol and idiocy of low level Party wannabes, and a side-splitting cat-chasing episode which brings about total chaos in the form of broken crockery, ruptured plumbing and way too much attention drawn to the Professor and his "monster", who disappears only to return as one of those Party functionaries himself, with a job and a title and a license to kill…cats. A heated discussion between the Professor and his assistant ensues---WHAT is to be done? The creature is insufferable, and now he’s officially entitled to occupancy of a nice chunk of the Professor’s hard-fought-for 7-room flat. Well, if this is your sort of romp, you’ll have to read it to learn how it all comes out. It won’t take over-long, and you’ll probably figure it out for yourself. show less
Professor Preobrazhensky has been implanting monkey glands into aging clients who seek "rejuvenation", but his aims go beyond improving the sex lives of middle-aged Party officials or their unhappy wives. We are meant to think he’s bent on improving the whole human race with his radical techniques. When he rescues a starving, injured street dog and treats him to the good life, we are privy to brief glimpses of things from the dog Sharik's point of view. Ultimately, Sharik becomes the subject of a very ambitious experiment, in which human testicles and a human pituitary gland are implanted in the dog. The result show more is beyond anything even the Professor might have expected: a dog slowly but indubitably turning into a man---a very unpleasant man with characteristics of the arrogant, crass and hedonistic drunkard he "inherited" these traits from. (Allusions to Stalin may be inferred or implied.) We get a lot of the bureaucratic folderol and idiocy of low level Party wannabes, and a side-splitting cat-chasing episode which brings about total chaos in the form of broken crockery, ruptured plumbing and way too much attention drawn to the Professor and his "monster", who disappears only to return as one of those Party functionaries himself, with a job and a title and a license to kill…cats. A heated discussion between the Professor and his assistant ensues---WHAT is to be done? The creature is insufferable, and now he’s officially entitled to occupancy of a nice chunk of the Professor’s hard-fought-for 7-room flat. Well, if this is your sort of romp, you’ll have to read it to learn how it all comes out. It won’t take over-long, and you’ll probably figure it out for yourself. show less
A strange tale about a starving Moscow street dog metamorphized into something resembling a human, at least in the essential respects of human biology. Unruly to begin with, the dog soon develops into a creature displaying an amplified capacity for uncouth and selfish behaviors. This, we are led to believe, is the result of the human glands that were sewn into him having, which were taken from a drunkard. But a question asked here (and there are many interpretations of this work) is: would the dog have been different if the glands had been taken from a 'Spinoza' level human being?
Despite the professor’s best efforts to cultivate him into a decent Bourgoise citizen, the former dog takes on the ethics of a working class Proletarian, show more fueled by Bolshevik ideals, seemingly bound by no aesthetic, and basically intent on survival in a bureaucracy-driven world. All of this provides fuel for interpretations of this work as a satire of Bolshevism, set against the old-world order and affectations of the Bourgeoisie. "They're dogs, anyway," the book seems to cry. If that be the case, then perhaps the Bourgeoisie are all cats. . . whom the transformed creature continued to hate savagely.
While the dilemma of the professor's household in dealing with his creation is comical and revealing, this reader confesses to having no dog in the hunt. . . Fun and gracefully short. show less
Despite the professor’s best efforts to cultivate him into a decent Bourgoise citizen, the former dog takes on the ethics of a working class Proletarian, show more fueled by Bolshevik ideals, seemingly bound by no aesthetic, and basically intent on survival in a bureaucracy-driven world. All of this provides fuel for interpretations of this work as a satire of Bolshevism, set against the old-world order and affectations of the Bourgeoisie. "They're dogs, anyway," the book seems to cry. If that be the case, then perhaps the Bourgeoisie are all cats. . . whom the transformed creature continued to hate savagely.
While the dilemma of the professor's household in dealing with his creation is comical and revealing, this reader confesses to having no dog in the hunt. . . Fun and gracefully short. show less
I'm liking Bulgakov more and more with each book. Oddly enough I sympathized with Sharik the dog turned man as a victim of circumstances, but his animalistic base tendencies seemed to shield him from really the worst of it. The satire here is vicious, no one, the socialist revolutionaries, the intelligentsia, the soviet government, makes it out unscathed. I think what we're left with is a world and way of thinking too ridiculous to be taken seriously...but the very absurdity of it all (and the historical context attached to it) gives the book and story a haunting and disturbing resonance in regards to ideologies, leaderships, and how absurdity can auger damnation.
In “Heart of a Dog” Bulgakov displays both fantastic imagination and biting political satire, and as this book was also written in post-revolutionary Russia but suppressed and not published until decades later, it reminds me of his masterpiece “The Master and the Margarita”, albeit much shorter.
The novella grabs you at the outset by being narrated from a stray dog’s perspective. He’s taken in and given shelter by a nice doctor, only to discover that the doctor has ulterior motives. The dog sees a collection of patients being brought in for very odd treatments, such as monkey ovary transplants. The doctor is tampering with nature, and soon begins an experiment on the dog which forms the basis for the rest of the story.
There show more is a lyricism and playfulness in Bulgakov’s writing which is a joy to read, as in this passage: “Ducking her head, the young lady threw herself into attack, broke through the gates, and out into the street; the blizzard began to spin and spin her around, push her this way and that, till she became a column of swirling snow and disappeared.” Examples abound. While doing the operation on the dog, the doctor is described as a “satiated vampire”; later the dog is described to be swearing “tenderly and melodiously, his tongue twisting over the obscenities”.
Aside from the humor, what is the message of this story? Bulgakov is reacting to two elements of the modern world (c. 1925) that he was aghast over. The first is communism, or “divide everything” as he puts it in the book, the taking of socialism to such an extreme that people like doctors who truly are of more value to society are levelized with the rest of humanity, and in that way devalued. This was certainly seen in Russia, as well as decades later in China during the Cultural Revolution with disastrous results. He also pokes fun at communism as removing the distinction between the sexes; on a couple of tongue-in-cheek occasions he has women mistaken for men.
The other movement he reacts to is eugenics, the belief that a better human race could be created by controlling the breeding of “undesirables”. Sound insane? Lest we forget, this was a worldwide movement at this time, including a strong base in America. It was taken to an extreme by the Nazis in the middle of the century and went from controlling breeding to outright extermination of “lesser” peoples.
If you think about it, these movements are diametric opposites: the first, communism, espousing that every person’s contribution to society is equal, and that all possessions should be divided up; the second, eugenics, that the race is so varied that “undesirables” should be weeded out of the gene pool, and that a better human race could be created scientifically.
In “Heart of a Dog” Bulgakov illustrates that both sides are wrong: the first robs those who would advance humanity and creates a mob; the second tampers with nature. He mocks both, saying to just leave well enough alone. How right he was.
Quotes:
On not tampering with nature:
“Certainly it might be possible to graft the hypophysis of Spinoza or some such devil, and turn a dog into a highly advanced human. But what in hell for? Tell me, please, why is it necessary to manufacture Spinozas artificially when any peasant woman can produce them at any time? … Doctor the human race takes care of this by itself, and every year, in the course of its evolution, it creates dozens of outstanding geniuses who adorn the earth, stubbornly selecting them out of the mass of scum.”
On communism, capturing the argument ‘for’:
“One man spreads himself out in seven rooms and has forty pairs of pants, and another hangs around garbage dumps, looking for something to eat.”
And ‘against’:
“You are a creature just in the process of formation, with a feeble intellect. All your actions are the actions of an animal. Yet you permit yourself to speak with utterly insufferable impudence in the presence of two people with a university education – to offer advice on a cosmic scale and of equally cosmic stupidity on how to divide everything…” show less
The novella grabs you at the outset by being narrated from a stray dog’s perspective. He’s taken in and given shelter by a nice doctor, only to discover that the doctor has ulterior motives. The dog sees a collection of patients being brought in for very odd treatments, such as monkey ovary transplants. The doctor is tampering with nature, and soon begins an experiment on the dog which forms the basis for the rest of the story.
There show more is a lyricism and playfulness in Bulgakov’s writing which is a joy to read, as in this passage: “Ducking her head, the young lady threw herself into attack, broke through the gates, and out into the street; the blizzard began to spin and spin her around, push her this way and that, till she became a column of swirling snow and disappeared.” Examples abound. While doing the operation on the dog, the doctor is described as a “satiated vampire”; later the dog is described to be swearing “tenderly and melodiously, his tongue twisting over the obscenities”.
Aside from the humor, what is the message of this story? Bulgakov is reacting to two elements of the modern world (c. 1925) that he was aghast over. The first is communism, or “divide everything” as he puts it in the book, the taking of socialism to such an extreme that people like doctors who truly are of more value to society are levelized with the rest of humanity, and in that way devalued. This was certainly seen in Russia, as well as decades later in China during the Cultural Revolution with disastrous results. He also pokes fun at communism as removing the distinction between the sexes; on a couple of tongue-in-cheek occasions he has women mistaken for men.
The other movement he reacts to is eugenics, the belief that a better human race could be created by controlling the breeding of “undesirables”. Sound insane? Lest we forget, this was a worldwide movement at this time, including a strong base in America. It was taken to an extreme by the Nazis in the middle of the century and went from controlling breeding to outright extermination of “lesser” peoples.
If you think about it, these movements are diametric opposites: the first, communism, espousing that every person’s contribution to society is equal, and that all possessions should be divided up; the second, eugenics, that the race is so varied that “undesirables” should be weeded out of the gene pool, and that a better human race could be created scientifically.
In “Heart of a Dog” Bulgakov illustrates that both sides are wrong: the first robs those who would advance humanity and creates a mob; the second tampers with nature. He mocks both, saying to just leave well enough alone. How right he was.
Quotes:
On not tampering with nature:
“Certainly it might be possible to graft the hypophysis of Spinoza or some such devil, and turn a dog into a highly advanced human. But what in hell for? Tell me, please, why is it necessary to manufacture Spinozas artificially when any peasant woman can produce them at any time? … Doctor the human race takes care of this by itself, and every year, in the course of its evolution, it creates dozens of outstanding geniuses who adorn the earth, stubbornly selecting them out of the mass of scum.”
On communism, capturing the argument ‘for’:
“One man spreads himself out in seven rooms and has forty pairs of pants, and another hangs around garbage dumps, looking for something to eat.”
And ‘against’:
“You are a creature just in the process of formation, with a feeble intellect. All your actions are the actions of an animal. Yet you permit yourself to speak with utterly insufferable impudence in the presence of two people with a university education – to offer advice on a cosmic scale and of equally cosmic stupidity on how to divide everything…” show less
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Mikhail Afanasevich Bulgakov was a Russian playwright, novelist, and short-story writer best known for his use of humor and satire. He was born in Kiev, Ukraine, on May 15, 1891, and graduated from the Medical School of Kiev University in 1916. He served as a field doctor during World War I. Bulgakov's association with the Moscow Art Theater began show more in 1926 with the production of his play The Days of the Turbins, which was based on his novel The White Guard. His work was popular, but since it ridiculed the Soviet establishment, was frequently censored. His satiric novel The Heart of a Dog was not published openly in the U.S.S.R. until 1987. Bulgakov's plays including Pushkin and Moliere dealt with artistic freedom. His last novel, The Master and Margarita, was not published until 1966-67 and in censored form. Bulgakov died in Moscow on March 10, 1940. (Bowker Author Biography) A practicing physician like Anton Chekhov, Mikhail Afanasevich Bulgakov became a popular writer and playwright in the comparatively easier political climate of the Soviet Union during the 1920s. The civil war and its internecine horrors became one of his major themes as did the new Soviet society. His early prose is often satiric, with strong elements of the fantastic and grotesque, but it also contains the themes of guilt and personal responsibility that become so crucial in his later work. Bulgakov wrote a number of important plays that provoked bitter attacks in the press, and he was shut out of the theater and literature in 1929. Only a direct appeal to Stalin allowed Bulgakov to resume a professional career. Even then, however, some publishing houses and theaters rejected some of his important works, such as the novel Life of Monsieur de Moliere (1933). Bulgakov's masterpiece written over a number of years and only published decades after his death is the novel Master and Margarita (1966-67). Combining two principal plot lines-Satan's visit to contemporary Moscow and the trial and execution of Jesus in biblical Judaea-the work may be read on many levels, from the purely satiric to the allegorical. It has been acclaimed as one of the most important achievements of twentieth-century Russian fiction. Today, Bulgakov is celebrated for both his plays and his novels. Several of his plays are public favorites and standard fare in Russian theaters. Bulgakov died in Moscow on March 10, 1940. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
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Awards and Honors
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Belongs to Publisher Series
Centopaginemillelire (22)
Newton Compton Live (23)
Harvill (24)
Grote ABC (133)
Volk und Welt Spektrum (237)
Salamanderpockets (382)
Gallimard, Folio (309)
Work Relationships
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Has the adaptation
Common Knowledge
- Canonical title*
- Cuore di cane
- Original title
- Собачье сердце
- Alternate titles
- A Dog's Heart; The Heart of a Dog
- Original publication date
- 1968 (English) (English); 1987 (Russian) (Russian); 1925
- People/Characters
- Filip Filippovich Preobrazhensky; Ivan Arnoldovich Bromenthal; Zina; Darya Petrovna; Poligraf Poligrafovich Sharikov; Schwonder
- Important places
- Oekraïne; Ukraine; USSR
- Related movies
- Cuore di cane (1976 | IMDb); Sobachye serdtse (1988 | IMDb)
- First words
- Whoo-oo-oo-oo-hooh-hoo-oo! Oh, look at me, I am perishing in this gateway.
- Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)"Toward the sacred banks of the Nile..."
- Blurbers
- Frayn, Michael; Battersby, Eileen; Jones, Nigel
- Original language
- Russian
*Some information comes from Common Knowledge in other languages. Click "Edit" for more information.
Classifications
- Genres
- Fiction and Literature, General Fiction, Science Fiction
- DDC/MDS
- 891.7342 — Literature & rhetoric Asian Literature East Indo-European and Celtic literatures Russian and East Slavic languages Russian fiction USSR 1917–1991 Early 20th century 1917–1945
- LCC
- PG3476 .B78 .S613 — Language and Literature Slavic languages and literatures. Baltic languages. Albanian language Slavic. Baltic. Albanian Russian literature Individual authors and works 1917-1960
- BISAC
Statistics
- Members
- 3,747
- Popularity
- 4,242
- Reviews
- 77
- Rating
- (3.91)
- Languages
- 22 — Catalan, Chinese, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, French, German, Hebrew, Hungarian, Icelandic, Italian, Japanese, Lithuanian, Norwegian (Bokmål), Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Spanish, Turkish
- Media
- Paper, Audiobook, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 147
- ASINs
- 53