Heart of a Dog by Mikhail Bulgakov Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Heart of a Dog
Book Review: Great thoughtful fun
Summary: 5 Stars
Heart of a Dog is a book worth returning to. While is it specifically a satire on the USSR under communism, it also is a satire on human nature. Therefore, the book remains a gem after the failure of communism and the breakup of the USSR. The satire is built on an interplay of the distinctions (if any) between man and dog - and the dangers of being so self-confident as to blur that line. While satire often does not bear rereading, this book is well-structured and well-written - a favorite to return to.Book Review: HUMANIMALS
Summary: 5 Stars
'Could animals became human?' is just the reverse of the
question which Bulgakov could not put down living in
the stalinist Russia: 'How come humans could became
animals?' It's corosive hummour burns out everything
sheding a mercyless light on the true aspects of the
'hommo sovieticus'. I hardly ever read something simmilar
exept, perhaps, the swiftian 'modest proposal'.Book Review: Heart of a Dog
Summary: 5 Stars
Bulgakov is simply irresistible - when you start reading the book "Heart of a Dog" be sure you have five or fix straight hours free ahead because once you start you cannot stop till the end. Mirra Ginsburg's translation is good but again please do not expect "Fitzgerald" or "Steinbeck" from the translation. Before starting we have to remember this book was published in 1925 when the Bolshevic revolution was at its prime and talking against the authorities almost meant certain death - as happened in the case of Gogol. In 1925 Bulgakov predicted the fall of the communist empire but that does not mean he is terribly fond of the Tzcarian rule. A dog called "Sharik" - who represent the oppressed class before the 1917 revolution is transformed to "Sharikov" - the comrade whose only source of knowledge is his mentor ""Shvonder" another comrade of the new age. This is satire at its best as the comrades make fun of earlier generation, even their own creators, everything is getting destroyed in the name of equality. When "Sharikov" goes after the cat and in the process destroys the whole apartment shows how the revolution went after the few individuals to destroy the whole country - the destruction of the Persian carpets symbolize the destruction of the heritage which is almost impossible to rebuild. The change in names is also quite remarkable "Polygraph Polygraphovich" probably represents the measured relation between truth and the existence of "Sharikov" - his physical presence is the truth but the lack of papers again contradicts that truth. It is like a polygraph test just that "Shariov" has to be physically present to attest to the fact that he exists. The young rebellious group is out to destroy not with a cause but just to establish their power. Again it is not that Bulgakov has left the old house untouched - he shows their love for authority and reluctance to share some of the authorities with the new age people. They live in supreme luxury and try to justify it and if they are not successful in doing so then they resort to brutal power to neutralize the new age. In the final chapters the transformation of the man back to a dog probably symbolizes the fall of communism.Book Review: Heart of a Dog
Summary: 5 Stars
This book is fantastic. Bulgakov had something to say and he said it outright. As all those busybody do-gooders out there in the world march down the road to becoming oppressors, this guy stands in the ditch and spits at them as they pass. I laughed a lot.Book Review: Heart of a Dog--Revolution or Evolution?
Summary: 5 Stars
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.