Product Description

This title is presented with a new introduction by Andrey Kurkov. A rich, successful Moscow professor befriends a stray dog and attempts a scientific first by transplanting into it the testicles and pituitary gland of a recently deceased man. A distinctly worryingly human animal is now on the loose, and the professor's hitherto respectable life becomes a nightmare beyond endurance. An absurd and superbly comic story, this classic novel can also be read as a fierce parable of the Russian Revolution.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #4911 in Books
• Published on: 2009-04-02
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 144 pages

From the Back Cover
A rich, successful Moscow professor befriends a stray dog and attempts a scientific first by transplanting into it the testicles and pituitary gland of a recently deceased man. A distinctly worryingly human animal is now on the loose, and the professor's hitherto respectable life becomes a nightmare beyond endurance. An absurd and superbly comic story, this classic novel can also be read as a fierce parable of the Russian Revolution.

'As high-spirited as it is pointed. Unlike so much satire, it has a splendid sense of fun.' Eileen Battersby, Irish Times

'Bulgakov here assaults the dour utilitarian lives of Soviet citizens with a defiant, boisterous display of nonsense.' The Times

'One of the greatest of modern Russian writers, perhaps the greatest.' Nigel Jones, Independent

'A marvellous writer.' Michael Frayn

About the Author
Mikhail Bulgakov (1891 - 1940) was born and educated in Kiev where he graduated as a doctor in 1916. He rapidly abandoned medicine to write some of the greatest Russian literature of this century. After a lifetime at odds with the stultifying Soviet regime, he died impoverished and blind in 1940, shortly after completing his masterpiece, The Master and Margarita. None of his major fiction was published during his lifetime.

Customer Reviews

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Completed by Bulgakov in 1925, this short story remained unpublished in the Soviet Union for almost sixty years.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).

Woof!
We had Behemoth the cat in "The Master And Magarita". Now it's Sharik the dog. Sharik the hungry waif dog picked up by the brilliant scientist Preobrazhensky and fed until the fat canine starts to believe that he's entitled to the good life. But in life nothing is free. Once upon a day Sharik is drugged for a very unusual operation - the brilliant surgeon replaces the dog's genitals and pituitary glands with human ones. The dog survives the operation against all odds and then astonishingly starts to speak and behave human. Before you could say Jack Robinson rumours are flying all over Moscow and everyone wants in on the secret. The human-dog reads, attends the theatre, gets a job and is even made a citizen.

There won't be a story if that was the end of it. It wasn't and it's not long before the experiment goes horribly wonky. Preobrazhensky must now decide how to cure his monstrous construct. The story is absurd of course but it is so off the wall funny you can't put it down. When a story begins in the first person spoken by a dog with guile and a salacious sense of humour then one's fate is sealed - the book must be read.

It is well known that Bulgakov's tale is an indictment against Bolshevism. Written in 1925 the story of how a brilliant Lenin created a monster out of the proletariat was not the sort of reading material suitable for comrades. History and hindsight may now show us clearly the fault lines of Leninism but it was clear to some others within 10 years of the revolution as demonstrated by Preobrazhensky's rather incautious musings. Another 10 years and Stalin would have made mince meat of this rather proud and rash gentleman.

It is irrelevant if you have no interest in Russia or its history. This book stands on its own three feet. Outstanding.

Open to many interpretations ...
Mikhail Bulgakov (1891-1940) endured the difficult experience of having to live under the pressure of censorship, but has nonetheless left some interesting books that allow us to know what he thought about the process that has taking place in the newborn Soviet Russia. "Heart of a dog" is one of those books. It was written by Bulgakov in 1925, but it wasn`t published in Soviet Russia until 1987, due to the fact that it can easily be interpreted as a critical satire regarding the URSS.

"Heart of a dog" is the story of a stray dog, Sharik, that hasn`t led an easy life. He lives in the streets of Moscow, and eats what he can, when he can. However, one day a doctor gives him food and takes him to his home. Sharik believes that his fate has changed, but he doesn`t know that the doctor has rather strange intentions...

The doctor wants to perform an experiment on Sharik, in order to learn what would happen if some human organs were transplanted to a dog. The doctor performs the operation, implanting in Sharik the pituitary gland and the testicles of a dead criminal. Against all odds, Sharik survives the operation, and from that moment on begins an extraordinary transformation, that makes him more and more human.

But what kind of human is he?. Sharik can talk, and asks everybody to call him first "Mr. Sharikov", and afterwards "Polygraph Polygraphovich Sharikov". He also walks like a human being, and somehow resembles one... But can he think, or does he merely repeat what he hears, specially Marx`s teachings?. Has the doctor`s experiment ruined a perfectly good dog, making him a perfectly despicable "human" being that threatens to denounce counterrevolutionaries and chases cats?.

I don`t want to tell you more about this book: you really should read it yourself. It isn`t long, but it is quite interesting. What is more important, it is open to many interpretations, and you can always find your own. Some people believe that for Bulgakov Sharik represented the failure of those who try to create new beings (exactly what was supposedly being done at that time in the URSS, with the "soviet man"). Others highlight the glimpses of Soviet society that "Heart of a dog" allows us to have, and think that the aim of the author was to give the reader at least an idea of what it was like to live in the URSS at that time...

These few possible interpretations don't exclude others, so read this book and find them!!. Obviously, I highly recommend "Heart of a dog"...

Belen Alcat