Heart of a Dog | Mikhail Bulgakov | An Absurd Masterpiece

Heart of a Dog | Mikhail Bulgakov | Bulgakov still at his best

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Heart of a Dog

	Heart of a Dog Mikhail Bulgakov Grove Press, 1994 - 84 pages average customer review:based on 47 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

An Absurd Masterpiece

Completed by Bulgakov in 1925, this short story remained unpublished in the Soviet Union for almost sixty years. When it finally appeared on Soviet bookshelves in 1987 it became an instant hit and is arguably seen as on of the author's most hard-hitting novels. Not for nothing did Stalin's censors deem this book too sensitive for publication.

`The Heart of a Dog' is the absurd story of a stray dog, who is taken in from the streets by a well-known, well-off Professor named Philip Philipovich Preobrazhensky in order that he may attempt a groundbreaking operation; the transplantation of human testicles and pituitary gland into the dog. The operation is successful; however the Professor has produced an intolerable being which resembles a human of revolutionary sentiment with a dog-like penchant for chasing cats.

The story is enjoyable in and of itself, and one must congratulate Bulgakov for his imagination and inventiveness - forced upon him by the oppressive intellectual climate of his time - in thinking up such a tale. In addition, It is very easy to read and interesting for its portrayal of the atmosphere in a bourgeois household in 1920s Moscow. There are also a number of other levels to the book and various interpretations of what Bulgakov's true message was. It is worth noting, for example, that Professor Preobrazhensky's name is a derivative of the Slavic word for `transfiguration', and the book is ostensibly about failed attempts to improve upon human nature. Thus, Bulgakov may be seen to be either ridiculing Soviet attempts to create communist supermen or attacking science's interference with nature. Finally, another interpretation of the story sees it as a parable of the 1917 Revolution in which things were set into motion which became almost uncontrollable.

`The Heart of a Dog' is a classic story of great intellectual value, which deserves to be read and which is immensely enjoyable for its absurdity, humour, and political message(s).

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Bulgakov still at his best

Bulgakov is one of those unique writers, he can write about social issues without being condescending, satire without being elitist and boring he has the ability to keep the readers attention and write books some like this in spite of their short size will make you want to read and read again.

Bulgakov lived in one of the most turbulent times of the 20th century and in one of the most turbulent nations of that era yet wrote with such humour and style that it gives faith that the human spirit can never be broken.

In heart of a dog he can touch upon the social life in communist Russia, the shortage of space and accommodation, the interference in every day life of the government and yet carry it through with humour only the Russians possess.

By this book, you will be laughing all the way through and only when you get to the end will you realise you have learned a little bit more about life during Communism in Russia.

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I wish there were a modern Bulgakov

If nothing else, good political satire emerged from the old Soviet machine. Bulgakov and Vysotsky were brilliant.

This is my favorite book of all time and I tend to read it again and again. It's an old friend.

unsubtle rebuke?

Censored by the state apparatus, there are a number of targets in this satire. As much a social satire in the vein of Metamorphosis or science Frankenstein; he concludes the base wants of food and beer are not so much different than the base wants of a respectable doctor- a large apartment. Power and control are are illustrated in several different ways.

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The Soul of a Political Satirist

Tentatively, this is the story of the after-effects of the transplantation of the Brain,Pituitary and testes from a man to a dog. The dog becomes a crass foul mouthed ingrate (but the parts were taken from a criminal...so take that Stephen King).

In reality it is a roman a clef of the expect (by Bulgakov) failure of the Bolshevics to create a "New Soviet Man". For the creation of the new man is still done with the same old faulty parts. Stalin was purported to say that the only way to create the new "Soviet Man" was to get rid of all the old ones (which he made a great try at, killing maybe 40 million or so over thirty years).

Keeping in mind that Bulgakov, was born and educated under the Tsar and lived through WWI and then the Civil War, he understood who and what Russians were. They were a half-civilized, illiterate and superstitious people who had to be dragged kicking and screaming out of the sixteenth century and into the twentieth.

But who says you can't have fun along the way!

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