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Heart of a Dog
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Manufacturer: Grove Press
Author: Mikhail Bulgakov
Publisher: Grove Press
Average Customer Rating:
Our Price: $10.40
You Save: $ 2.60 ( 20% )
Usually ships in 24 hours
Manufacturer: Grove Press
Author: Mikhail Bulgakov
Publisher: Grove Press
Average Customer Rating:
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Heart of a Dog Description
Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 891.7342
EAN: 9780802150592
ISBN: 0802150594
Label: Grove Press
Manufacturer: Grove Press
Number Of Items: 1
Book Pages: 84
Publication Date: 1994-01-21
Publisher: Grove Press
Studio: Grove Press
Dewey Decimal Number: 891.7342
EAN: 9780802150592
ISBN: 0802150594
Label: Grove Press
Manufacturer: Grove Press
Number Of Items: 1
Book Pages: 84
Publication Date: 1994-01-21
Publisher: Grove Press
Studio: Grove Press
Editorial Review of Heart of a Dog
This early novella from Mikhail Bulgakov, published in 1925, already shows the surreal comic genius that later produced The Master and Margarita, the writer's masterpiece. A kind of Frankenstein parable, Heart of a Dog is the story of a stray dog that gains a human intelligence after a prominent Moscow professor transplants human glands into the unfortunate canine's body.
Customer Reviews of Heart of a Dog
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Hilarious, sarcastic look at Soviet life
Review: Written in 1925, Bulgakov's Heart of a Dog is an absolutely hilarious and wonderfully sarcastic look at Soviet life, directly after the revolution.
The plot focuses on genius professor Preobrazhensky, who transplants the pituitary gland from a minor criminal into a stray dog named Sharik (little ball, in Russian). Gradually, the dog turns into a disgusting, crass little man and terrorizes the professor's household...
Sharik transforms into a dark satire of a Soviet official - Director of the agency responsible for clearing Moscow of 'vagrant quadrupeds' such as cats. He drinks, chases women, steals money, etc. All the while, Preobrazhensky battles the newly formed proletariate housing committee that has taken control of his luxury apartment building.
Absolutely unique for its time, the book strongly anti-communist and decidedly anti-proletariat... It wasn't until 1987 (60 years after it was completed), that Heart of a Dog was allowed to be published in the Soviet Union. It is also ridiculously over the top funny.
If you enjoy this novel, I would highly recommend trying to get a copy of the wonderful 1989 film, which was nominated for several international awards.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Heart of a Dog--Revolution or Evolution?
Review:
This novel, written by the Soviet writer Mikhail Bulagakov, in 1925, is a satirical science fiction novel. The subject of the satire is the Communist ideology and bureaucracy as well as the petty bourgeoisie that they oppose. However, Bulgakov develops an even deeper theme relating to human nature and human culture.
Professor Preobazhensky is a flagrantly decadent bourgeois character who does all he can to resist the leveling of the Communist Revolution, maintaining a relatively luxurious lifestyle while young radicals, like Shvonder are trying to carry out their revolutionary leveling policies.
Shvonder insists that Preobazhensky give up several rooms of his apartments and give them to other individuals in the spirit of the revolution.
Shvonder then threatens to complain to higher authorities, implying that force would be used if needed. Preobazhensky refuses and is actually the first to use a kind of force by using his influence with the apparently corrupt Communist bureaucracy to maintain his lifestyle. He calls Party officials and tells them that he will no longer perform operations to help Party officials if Shvonder is allowed to divide up the apartment. Shvonder is called to the phone and apparently ordered to back off.
As the novel proceeds, Preobazhensky is further fleshed out as a sort of mad scientist character. He undertakes a dramatic experiment in which he transplants the pituitary gland and testes of a male human into a stray dog, Sharik. In a Kafkaesque transformation, this dog, Sharik, is transformed into a sort of human. He is only "sort of human" in the sense that once he appears human, he still retains the "heart of a dog" or more accurately we might say in English the "soul" of a dog. At least, this is the reader's first interpretation of the new Sharik, soon to be re-christened "Sharikov."
The plot of the novel is developed by the complications arising from this experiment. Preobazhensky had set out prove that the intelligence of humans is located in the pituitary (and testes?) and that this can be successfully transplanted--even to another animal, like a dog. Thus, if a dog were to receive a human pituitary, he would develop the intelligence of a human. At first, the experiment seems to be a stunning success. Sharik(ov) even develops the ability to speak and read.
Unfortunately, the professor finds out that there is a downside to the transplantation. Along with human capabilities he has also transplanted the degenerate character of the donor. Sharik(ov)'s character develops as a degenerate human character. This is due, of course, to the fact that the "donor" human was the low-life, bar-brawling scoundrel, Klim Chugunkin.
Later in the novel, having fully having experienced this downside in his subject, Preobazhensky, despairs of his efforts. The allure of eugenics no longer enthralls him. It is nothing but a blind alley. The human race can only be improved through the slow, gradual process of natural evolution--in no other way.
Dr. Bromenthal answers his colleague's despair by asking Preobazhensky, "But what if it were Spinoza's brain" that had been transplanted? Wouldn't the transplantation then have been worthwhile? Preobrazhensky answers "no." No, it would not have been necessary, he explains, because every day the world produces Spinozas out of ordinary women. The point is, nature needs no help in producing Spinozas. In the course of its evolution, Preobazhensky explains, the human race "creates dozens of outstanding geniuses who adorn the earth, stubbornly selecting them out of the mass of scum."
Of course, the whole attempt to "remake" a creature is also suggestive of the Communists' idea of remaking man into Soviet Man - and of remaking the crude and ignorant peasants and workers into proletarians fully aware of their class, their class power, and of the class struggle.
We can hear the author's voice in Preobazhensky's observation that torture or force cannot be used to change human nature or human society. This is a clear statement of the theme of the novel. The Communists can transform neither individuals nor entire classes through the forcible methods that they are employing. The only results of such attempts will be violence and chaos.
This violence and the resulting chaos is produced by Sharik, who begins by demanding the first name and patrynomic of Polygraph Polygraphovich and the appropriate surname of Sharikov (son of Sharik), which he truly is. The man Sharikov, who is described as somewhat physically deformed or at least incompletely formed, acts out a parallel deficient moral character. He becomes the low-life character that his human donor was--stealing, chasing women, lying, exploiting, mooching, exhibiting cruelty and prejudice, etc.
Of course Sharik's name is emblematic. He is a "polygraph" in the sense that he is telling the truth that the author Bulgakov is trying to tell--literally recording the truth as the writing of the novel is read by the reader.
The only way some semblance of order can be restored and the main conflict of the novel resolved is by removing the transplanted organs from Sharikov and giving him back is own organs. As a restored dog, Sharik again finds his natural place; and all is once again relatively peaceful, as peaceful, perhaps, as anything can be in this world.
And so humanity will have to wait patiently for its next Spinoza, and by extension, it will also have to wait patiently for its era of deliverance from the darkness of past ages. Social progress is a story of evolution not revolution, and evolution is a very slow process, barely discernable in the lifetime of any single individual.
At the end of the novel, we see the "stubborn, persistent" Preobazhensky at it again, pulling brains out of jars, "searching for something all the time, cutting, examining, squinting and singing..." Hadn't Preobazhensky learned his lesson? Perhaps he had, for a brief time. But the mind of science, the reductionist element in our dominant Western culture can't just leave it alone. Bulgakov sees this as the enduring danger against which we must be on constant guard. We murder to dissect. We have trouble going with the flow--seeing the big picture and not being open to the wisdom it can give us.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: russian masters
Review: Heart of a Dog is a most insightful book into the Russian soul, and Bulgakov proves himself to be another brilliant Russian satirist. It was great fun to read of the Bolshevik era in this common Russian theme, with its bizarre appearances of the "loyal comrades" upstairs. One of the great Bolshevik era writers. If one considers the dog to be the common Russian, who was attemptedly educated to be of a higher class, the monster he became rings a familiar note looking at Putin's Russia right now.
The dissonance between classes was pronounced in the pre revolutionary era, as now, and does not change with the poltical winds, it seems to this author, despite the huge variation in political rulers and philosopies over the last 100 years. An interesting, quick and fun read. Highly recommended, especailly to those with a history of reading Russian novels.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: I wish there were a modern Bulgakov
Review: 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.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Bulgakov still at his best
Review: 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.
Review Summary: Hilarious, sarcastic look at Soviet life
Review: Written in 1925, Bulgakov's Heart of a Dog is an absolutely hilarious and wonderfully sarcastic look at Soviet life, directly after the revolution.
The plot focuses on genius professor Preobrazhensky, who transplants the pituitary gland from a minor criminal into a stray dog named Sharik (little ball, in Russian). Gradually, the dog turns into a disgusting, crass little man and terrorizes the professor's household...
Sharik transforms into a dark satire of a Soviet official - Director of the agency responsible for clearing Moscow of 'vagrant quadrupeds' such as cats. He drinks, chases women, steals money, etc. All the while, Preobrazhensky battles the newly formed proletariate housing committee that has taken control of his luxury apartment building.
Absolutely unique for its time, the book strongly anti-communist and decidedly anti-proletariat... It wasn't until 1987 (60 years after it was completed), that Heart of a Dog was allowed to be published in the Soviet Union. It is also ridiculously over the top funny.
If you enjoy this novel, I would highly recommend trying to get a copy of the wonderful 1989 film, which was nominated for several international awards.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Heart of a Dog--Revolution or Evolution?
Review:
This novel, written by the Soviet writer Mikhail Bulagakov, in 1925, is a satirical science fiction novel. The subject of the satire is the Communist ideology and bureaucracy as well as the petty bourgeoisie that they oppose. However, Bulgakov develops an even deeper theme relating to human nature and human culture.
Professor Preobazhensky is a flagrantly decadent bourgeois character who does all he can to resist the leveling of the Communist Revolution, maintaining a relatively luxurious lifestyle while young radicals, like Shvonder are trying to carry out their revolutionary leveling policies.
Shvonder insists that Preobazhensky give up several rooms of his apartments and give them to other individuals in the spirit of the revolution.
Shvonder then threatens to complain to higher authorities, implying that force would be used if needed. Preobazhensky refuses and is actually the first to use a kind of force by using his influence with the apparently corrupt Communist bureaucracy to maintain his lifestyle. He calls Party officials and tells them that he will no longer perform operations to help Party officials if Shvonder is allowed to divide up the apartment. Shvonder is called to the phone and apparently ordered to back off.
As the novel proceeds, Preobazhensky is further fleshed out as a sort of mad scientist character. He undertakes a dramatic experiment in which he transplants the pituitary gland and testes of a male human into a stray dog, Sharik. In a Kafkaesque transformation, this dog, Sharik, is transformed into a sort of human. He is only "sort of human" in the sense that once he appears human, he still retains the "heart of a dog" or more accurately we might say in English the "soul" of a dog. At least, this is the reader's first interpretation of the new Sharik, soon to be re-christened "Sharikov."
The plot of the novel is developed by the complications arising from this experiment. Preobazhensky had set out prove that the intelligence of humans is located in the pituitary (and testes?) and that this can be successfully transplanted--even to another animal, like a dog. Thus, if a dog were to receive a human pituitary, he would develop the intelligence of a human. At first, the experiment seems to be a stunning success. Sharik(ov) even develops the ability to speak and read.
Unfortunately, the professor finds out that there is a downside to the transplantation. Along with human capabilities he has also transplanted the degenerate character of the donor. Sharik(ov)'s character develops as a degenerate human character. This is due, of course, to the fact that the "donor" human was the low-life, bar-brawling scoundrel, Klim Chugunkin.
Later in the novel, having fully having experienced this downside in his subject, Preobazhensky, despairs of his efforts. The allure of eugenics no longer enthralls him. It is nothing but a blind alley. The human race can only be improved through the slow, gradual process of natural evolution--in no other way.
Dr. Bromenthal answers his colleague's despair by asking Preobazhensky, "But what if it were Spinoza's brain" that had been transplanted? Wouldn't the transplantation then have been worthwhile? Preobrazhensky answers "no." No, it would not have been necessary, he explains, because every day the world produces Spinozas out of ordinary women. The point is, nature needs no help in producing Spinozas. In the course of its evolution, Preobazhensky explains, the human race "creates dozens of outstanding geniuses who adorn the earth, stubbornly selecting them out of the mass of scum."
Of course, the whole attempt to "remake" a creature is also suggestive of the Communists' idea of remaking man into Soviet Man - and of remaking the crude and ignorant peasants and workers into proletarians fully aware of their class, their class power, and of the class struggle.
We can hear the author's voice in Preobazhensky's observation that torture or force cannot be used to change human nature or human society. This is a clear statement of the theme of the novel. The Communists can transform neither individuals nor entire classes through the forcible methods that they are employing. The only results of such attempts will be violence and chaos.
This violence and the resulting chaos is produced by Sharik, who begins by demanding the first name and patrynomic of Polygraph Polygraphovich and the appropriate surname of Sharikov (son of Sharik), which he truly is. The man Sharikov, who is described as somewhat physically deformed or at least incompletely formed, acts out a parallel deficient moral character. He becomes the low-life character that his human donor was--stealing, chasing women, lying, exploiting, mooching, exhibiting cruelty and prejudice, etc.
Of course Sharik's name is emblematic. He is a "polygraph" in the sense that he is telling the truth that the author Bulgakov is trying to tell--literally recording the truth as the writing of the novel is read by the reader.
The only way some semblance of order can be restored and the main conflict of the novel resolved is by removing the transplanted organs from Sharikov and giving him back is own organs. As a restored dog, Sharik again finds his natural place; and all is once again relatively peaceful, as peaceful, perhaps, as anything can be in this world.
And so humanity will have to wait patiently for its next Spinoza, and by extension, it will also have to wait patiently for its era of deliverance from the darkness of past ages. Social progress is a story of evolution not revolution, and evolution is a very slow process, barely discernable in the lifetime of any single individual.
At the end of the novel, we see the "stubborn, persistent" Preobazhensky at it again, pulling brains out of jars, "searching for something all the time, cutting, examining, squinting and singing..." Hadn't Preobazhensky learned his lesson? Perhaps he had, for a brief time. But the mind of science, the reductionist element in our dominant Western culture can't just leave it alone. Bulgakov sees this as the enduring danger against which we must be on constant guard. We murder to dissect. We have trouble going with the flow--seeing the big picture and not being open to the wisdom it can give us.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: russian masters
Review: Heart of a Dog is a most insightful book into the Russian soul, and Bulgakov proves himself to be another brilliant Russian satirist. It was great fun to read of the Bolshevik era in this common Russian theme, with its bizarre appearances of the "loyal comrades" upstairs. One of the great Bolshevik era writers. If one considers the dog to be the common Russian, who was attemptedly educated to be of a higher class, the monster he became rings a familiar note looking at Putin's Russia right now.
The dissonance between classes was pronounced in the pre revolutionary era, as now, and does not change with the poltical winds, it seems to this author, despite the huge variation in political rulers and philosopies over the last 100 years. An interesting, quick and fun read. Highly recommended, especailly to those with a history of reading Russian novels.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: I wish there were a modern Bulgakov
Review: 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.
Customer Rating:
Review Summary: Bulgakov still at his best
Review: 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.