The Fatal Eggs

Only Bulgakov can get from satire of Soviet bureaucracy to GIANT MONSTERS EATING THE COUNTRYSIDE in a short story and have it make perfect sense. Please, nobody tell the SyFy network about this or they'll buy the film rights in 10 seconds.

I found [b:The Fatal Eggs|47323|The Fatal Eggs|Mikhail Bulgakov|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1328848460l/47323._SY75_.jpg|46365] in a local library's delightful 'Bestsellers of 1924!' display. Bulgakov first published this darkly funny little sci-fi fable in 1924, although it's set in the near-future of 1928. The plot is straightforward: an irascible scientist named Persikov (who I imagined resembling Professor Calculus in the Tintin series) make an incredible discovery. His strange new kind of ray makes living organisms grow super-rapidly, soon filling his lab with huge frogs. Inevitably word of this spreads, with chaotic and ultimately disastrous results. As the USSR is suffering from a chicken show more shortage, the authorities appropriate Persikov's equipment and set it up to irradiate a lot of imported eggs. Due to an unfortunate mix-up, the eggs are actually from snakes and when the giant serpents hatch they immediately start eating people. Although this isn't directly Persikov's fault, he is murdered by an angry mob over it.

Prior to encountering it in the library I hadn't heard of [b:The Fatal Eggs|47323|The Fatal Eggs|Mikhail Bulgakov|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1328848460l/47323._SY75_.jpg|46365], but it immediately reminded me of a novel published 8 years later: Karel Čapek's [b:War with the Newts|816440|War with the Newts|Karel Čapek|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1328766079l/816440._SY75_.jpg|1469484]. Both warn about the dangers of bureaucracies exploiting scientific discoveries, using very effective bleak comedy. [b:The Fatal Eggs|47323|The Fatal Eggs|Mikhail Bulgakov|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1328848460l/47323._SY75_.jpg|46365] even seems to prefigure creature feature b-movies. I wonder if it has ever been adapted in such a way? It's a sharp and fun novella.

I also enjoyed the short biography of Bulgakov included at the end, as he's a fascinating figure in Soviet literature. I hadn't realised that he wrote so many plays, most of which were never staged. Stalin liked and supported his work, yet Bulgakov was so stifled by Soviet censorship that he repeatedly asked to be allowed to emigrate. These requests were refused and he died in 1940 without ever having left the USSR. His masterpiece, [b:The Master and Margarita|117833|The Master and Margarita|Mikhail Bulgakov|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1327867963l/117833._SY75_.jpg|876183], was only published in full more than thirty years after his death. show less

Overjoyed to find this book at Eighth Day Books on my bookstore tour of Wichita when I was home for Christmas. I thought I'd put every Bulgakov book on my to-read list, but I'd never heard of this one. It felt very apt to have found it at Eight Day.

This book is perfection and I could not have not bought it. I mean, it's a novella, it's Bulgakov, it is a lovely edition with French flaps and a beautiful frog on the cover. And it's science fiction - that particular mad scientist type of science fiction like the terribly delightful A Dog's Heart.

This book, of course, can be read as a critique of the perils of Soviet communism, but I think it is all to easy to imagine the central tragedy unfolding under any government with a lack of respect show more for science. Of course, the tragedy seems inevitable under Soviet communism.

A scientist discovers a ray. Not a death ray this time, no! But a ray of life! A ray that speeds the replication and growth of life. When a sudden plague kills off every chicken in the Republic, do they ask the scientist (Persikov) to study how to use the ray to restore the chicken population? Of course not! Instead, a party bureaucrat (Faight) writes a proposal to seize the ray and save the country, and the party leadership green-lights it. Faight, of course, has no scientific or animal husbandry experiment, only party loyalty and a good reputation from the war. What could possibly go wrong?

Everything, of course. And it does so in spectacularly gory B-movie fashion. Even as horrifying as it is, somehow, it's still so fun. A wonderful discovery. show less

“I wonder if that great writer of realistic fiction would have used allegory and disguise at all, had it not been for the censorship?“ – These words were found in the Foreword to describe writers such as Mikhail Bulgakov whose creativity blossomed under political restrictions. We, the readers, are treated to clever gems, big and small, such as this short story.

In “The Fatal Eggs”, the eccentric zoologist, Professor Vladimir Ipatyevich Persikov (name played off Lenin) discovers the red Ray of Life. Meanwhile, an unknown disease has decimated the chicken population in the entire country, the “Fowl Plague” (much more creative than the Avian Flu I might add). The little-tested Ray of Life is confiscated by the government to show more accelerate the re-population of the chicken industry. Due to a mix-up, catastrophe befalls the whole of Moscow and neighboring countryside.

It’s pretty easy to dismiss “The Fatal Eggs”. It’s a straight forward mini-not-quite-horror that one might say ripped off “War of the Worlds” (Bulgakov is a fan of H.G. Wells). But it’s so funny(!), even when the horror starts. And like a good Bulgakov read, clues of the Stalin regime sneak into the pages – the Moscow housing shortage in the 1920’s, the fear of Western criticism, saving face tactics, the mockery of “comrade”, etc. With nuggets such as “Plenipotentiary Head of Trade Departments of Foreign Representative Bodies in the Soviet Republic”, it’s hard to not smile.

Despite the humor, Bulgakov keeps it real, and the ending made me sad. After Bulgakov presented this story at a literary event in 1924, he wrote in this diary: “Is it a satire? Or a provocative gesture? ... I'm afraid that I might be hauled off ... for all these heroic feats.” I’m glad he wasn’t; his masterpiece is yet to come.

One Quote:

On the portrait of an intimidating genius:
“Judging by his eyes, he was struck first of all by the cabinet with twelve shelves which extended to the ceiling and was jam-packed with books. Then, of course, by the chambers, in which as in Hell, there glimmered the crimson ray, swollen in the lenses. And in the semi-darkness, in the revolving chair, by the sharp needle of the ray that thrust out from the reflector, Persikov himself was odd and majestic enough.” show less

Back in 2006, we read The Master and Margarita by Bulgakov in our book group and I loved it. This novel about the devil coming to a town of non-believers in 1930s Russia and spreading mischief paralleled against the a writer in mental hospital who has written a Pilate’s eye view of Jesus is a delicious satire on Stalinism and the repression of religion and art. It wasn’t an easy book to get into – I’d previously tried to read it and failed, but this time it did click with me and I loved it. The Master and Margarita, not published in his lifetime, is arguably Bulgakov’s masterpiece, but when I came across a new translation by Roger Cockrell of one of his earlier novellas written in the mid-1920s, I had to give that a go. The show more Fatal Eggs was originally published in the West in a collection of novellas called Diaboliad.

Bulgakov was a fan of HG Wells, and this novella owes much to Wells’s The Island of Dr Moreau amongst others, which involved a mad scientist doing experiments on animals.

Set in 1928 – just into the future at the time of writing, Bulgakov’s Professor Persikov is a classic mad scientist. The ageing academic is consumed by his passion for zoology, and amphibians in particular. He is a difficult man, and makes the lives of those around him hell, including his assistant Pankrat, and all the students he teaches in Moscow whom he persistently fails in their exams. One day he makes an accidental discovery after having left a microscope on; when he returns the combination of light and lenses has created a red ray which focused on the amoeba under the scope has accelerated their growth immensely. He builds a larger apparatus, and tries it out with similar success on his beloved frogs.

At the same time as Persikov’s discovery, and unbeknown to him, a fatal disease is rampaging its way through Russia’s poutry stock, and all chickens have had to be destroyed. Persikov’s invention by this time has come to the attention of journalists and the secret police – who step in to confiscate his large machines, planning to use them to speedgrow new chickens – but there’s a mix-up with the eggs, and as you might guess, things are going to go badly wrong!

Mad professors, bungling secret agents and mob rule make a heady mix for some broad comedy and swipes at all things red and Russian – nothing escapes his satiric pen, although I’m no expert in the October revolution and what came after it. The ending of this novella is somewhat weak, using a conveniently Wellsian construct that I won’t divulge to save spoiling the plot for anyone else that wants to read it – however, getting there is rather fun, and I’m keen to read more of his other works.

The extra material was also very well worth reading (Oneworld edition 2011). In the introduction we meet Bulgakov, and find out about his influences and some of the references in this novella. After the story, we get the translators notes which include explanations of the puns in the text, and lastly a thirty page biography and survey of Bulgakov’s work. Bulgakov died young at 48 in 1940, and it was thanks to his third wife’s efforts after his death that we got to read his works in the West, although it took until the early 1970s for the first uncensored translations to appear. show less

Admittedly this book was slow to boil (saying something for a barely hundred page novel) but by the end it grabbed me. The translation of this edition was a bit too stylized for my liking, at times too acutely 'British' for my American trained sensibilities. But the story itself was, in the end, great. Science fiction blended with black political satire, how can you go wrong?

Toute réalité comporte, il est vrai, une bonne dose d'irrationnel, à y regarder de plus près ; cependant, tout est une question de degré. Dès l'instant où un certain nombre de critères élémentaires sont remis en question, dès lors que le bon sens et la raison sont mis en hibernation artificielle, l'engrenage diabolique est enclenché. Quand, sur simple décision administrative, on peut payer des travailleurs avec des allumettes qui ne s'allument pas, escamoter sans explication un chef de service chevronné pour le remplacer par un rustre omnipotent, ou passer outre aux mises en garde solennelles d'un savant de renommée mondiale, la déraison est d'ores et déjà installée dans la place. Le destin n'est plus alors qu'un show more petit coup de pouce à donner... .et fouette, cocher ! show less