Heart of a Dog by Mikhail Bulgakov Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Heart of a Dog
Book Review: Dr. Frankenstein meets Dr. Doolittle...
Summary: 5 Stars
Bulgakov's main character in this hilarious little novel is named Dr. Phillip Phillipovich, a "bourgeois" Soviet doctor/scientist in 1925 Moscow. The story begins from the point of view of a dying stray mutt, whom the seemingly benevolent doctor saves, pampers and feeds gourmet foods that are not even available to the majority of the proletariat "masses." Eventually, the doctor attempts to implant a human pituitary gland into the brain of the dog. Ironically, this perfectly nice dog "devolves," into a reckless, selfish, horrid human being. Of course, the neighboring proletariat neighbors feed the dog/man communist literature such as Engels, and the doctor promptly throws these books into the fire! The dog/man, who has now named himself Polygraph Polygraphovich, "informs" on the doctor -- that he has dared to throw Engels in the fire, and that he has an eight room flat when entire families live in one room flats. The doctor's connections to Soviet officials save him from even a slap onBook Review: Even a dog can join the party
Summary: 5 Stars
This novel (a bit like Metamorphosis by Kafka) combines both an understanding of the turmoil of Russian society just after the Revolution of 1917 and enough humor to make you laugh well after you've put the book down. it's really hilarious. perhaps similar to metamorphosis, a stray dog is picked up by a famous scientis and given human organs. the dog takes on a semi-human appearance and learns to speak. In a sarchastic take on the how revolutions tend to fear thinking and critical minds, Bulgakov shows how easily mediocrity can raise your station in life in such an ideological climate. the 'Dog' becomes a party member and even manages to get the scientis in trouble with the authorities, while acquiring the self-importance of little minds. You don't have to be a student of ethics to appreciate this novel. just think of your supervisor and how he got to the top. This book is a far better analysis of 'climbing the ladder' than many specialized management books.By the way, to better appreciate the humor, it helps to know that many Russians took odd names after the revolution to honor the concept of the new man that was being inaugurated with by socialism. I've heard of gilrs being named Tractorina (yes after a tractor, symbol of modernized agricultural renewal). Just remember this point when you read what the man-dog decides to call himself.Book Review: Extremely funny, incredibly written small masterpiece
Summary: 5 Stars
Mikhail Bulgakov, best known for his brilliant novel "The Master and Margarita" was steeped in the theatrical craft. When his books were censored, he wrote a wild, heartfelt letter to authorities in Soviet Russia, asking that, if they were not to be allowed to publish his work, would they then assign him to work in theater, even as a lowly stagehand. In one of Stalin's capricious moves, Bulgakov was, indeed, assigned to work as an assistant director at a Moscow theater.Meanwhile, Bulgakov continued to amass what must be one of the world's great hordes of literary work unpublished in the lifetime of an author. "Heart of a Dog" is probably his most viciously anti-Soviet, anti-Proletariat work, and it reads like a cross between Orwell's "Animal Farm" and Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein" but with Bulgakov's intense sarcasm and humor thrown in. The book is so dramatic, it's almost impossible to read it without seeing it run like a film or play behind your eyes as you read it.
A professor (whose Russian name is a play on the scientist Pavlov) adopts a mongrel dog. The dog Sharik (Fido, Rover...) is grateful! His life on the street has been hard, he's been kicked, scalded with hot water and he is starving. The professor feeds him well. Ah, he's gaining weight and healing up. What a nice man! A god, even, well, to a dog. But wait a minute! The professor, noted surgeon that he is, is preparing to operate. He seizes the dog....
And then we see the results of the professor's cruel experiment. A dog gets a human brain portion and begins to develop as a human. But he isn't a nice friendly, tail-wagging human. Oh, no. He's low, a cur, yes, a dog of a man who chases cats uncontrollably, pinches women's bottoms and drinks like a fish (oops mixed metaphor there.) He demands to be registered and get papers like a human being in Soviet society. And the authorities are anxious, even rabid to assist him. Sharikov takes a first name and patronymic that is so inappropriate, so hysterically funny that you have to laugh out loud. Then he gets a prominent job as a purge director, eliminating those counter-revolutionary cats from Moscow's pure Communist society. That is, until the professor cooks up a plot.
This is a gem of a book. Bulgakov shares Orwell's deep hatred of totalitarianism, but unlike the delicate satire of Orwell, Bulgakov writes with massive belly laughs of deeply sarcastic humor and over-the-top jokes. He's a dramatist at heart, and this book shows his theatrical thinking, where exaggerated movement and stage props play as much a role in exposition as dialog.
This is a true small masterpiece and should appeal to just about anyone. It would be a very good book for a high school or college literature study. It is really wonderful, and prepares the reader for Bulgakov's wildly out of control masterpiece "Master and Margarita." Don't miss this book for anything!
Book Review: Grand Book
Summary: 5 Stars
A wonderful satire of Soviet life as it tries to transform an objet that it can not reform with out leaving something from the prior exsistence there. Heart of a Dog is a great short book that is easy to read and rally gives the reader a funny look at Soveit society. If you want a good laugh read this book.Book Review: Great Soviet Era Satire
Summary: 5 Stars
It's just something about those Russians. I guess because they've had to put up with so much turmoil, for so long, historically; or it could be those long Russian winters; but for whatever reason they have produced a steady stream of excellent satirists for the past two hundred years. Refer to Nikolai Leskov's LAUGHTER AND GRIEF, for a mid 19th century examination of the phenomenon from someone who first noticed it. Leskov's narrator, Vatahvskov, states in a conversation amongst his colleagues that the feature most singular in Russian society is "its abundance of unpleasant surprises." Which brings me to Bulgakov and to HEART OF A DOG, for it is a novella full of "unpleasant surprises," both happening to and instigated by, Bulgakov's singular literary creation, Sharik (aka Mr. Sharik, aka Citizen Sharikov, aka Polygraph Polygraphovich Sharikov, commisar of cat control, etc.) Bulgakov takes an absurd situation (think of Gogol's "nose" wandering around the streets of St. Petersburg for comparison) and crafts it into a wonderful parody of the societal madhouse that was 30s Moscow under the party's intolerable decrees. His is a portrait of political correctness run amok. Citizen Shvonder, the representation of all things banal about the collectivist mentality of the era is the Bulgakov's primary target in this regard. His jealous rage at the fact that professor Phillipov is living the high life, while he and his ilk are sharing one room apartments, remains comically ineffectual. It was Bulgakov's way at getting back at all of the party appartchiks that were in fact causing him a great deal of consternation and physical hardship at the time.
A reviewer who was critical of this work as being too much akin to a Chagall painting was drawing an accurate analogy. Yet, coming from a perspective in which magical realism has become an accepted literary technique, I don't consider that a drawback. It is part of the same Russian tradition. The fanciful and the grotesque have long been an integral part of Russian fiction. Bulgakov is simply one of its more famous and adept practitioners.
BEK