Name: The Heart of a Dog
Rating: 4.136363636363637 (11 reviews)
ISBN: 9780099529941

Mikhail Bulgakov

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.

The Heart of a Dog

Josephine Cammarano

By kindness. The only possible method when dealing with a living creature. You’ll get nowhere with an animal if you use terror, no matter what its level of development may be. That I have maintained, do maintain and always will maintain. People who think you can use terror are quite wrong. No, terror’s useless, whatever its colour - white, red or even brown! Terror completely paralyses the nervous system.

Short but smart and funny and entertaining, while also remaining layered and poignant. I feel like we are starting to lose this a little bit in the current publishing environment which is very profit driven - which may be an unfair comparison since Bulgakov had no choice but to not be so.

There is a lot in the novella that prompts contemplation and consideration. It is an examination of the remnants of a revolution but it is also an examination of the old regime clinging onto the last remnants of itself. It cannot be read as condemnation of one or the other the same way it cannot be read as glorification of one or the other. It is a grotesque situation that somehow feels like an honest eyes-wide-open reflection of society.

It is strange because it still feels so relevant today. A clash of the ideas of the masses and the ideas of the intelligentsia and how taking either to an extreme puts them at odds. And no one would like to admit they are wrong. I can tell I will be thinking about it for a long time.

Short but smart and funny and entertaining, while also remaining layered and poignant. I feel like we are starting to lose this a little bit in the current publishing environment which is very profit driven - which may be an unfair comparison since Bulgakov had no choice but to not be so.

There is a lot in the novella that prompts contemplation and consideration. It is an examination of the remnants of a revolution but it is also an examination of the old regime clinging onto the last remnants of itself. It cannot be read as condemnation of one or the other the same way it cannot be read as glorification of one or the other. It is a grotesque situation that somehow feels like an honest eyes-wide-open reflection of society.

It is strange because it still feels so relevant today. A clash of the ideas of the masses and the ideas of the intelligentsia and how taking either to an extreme puts them at odds. And no one would like to admit they are wrong. I can tell I will be thinking about it for a long time.

Cerys

A really interesting and unsettling piece of satire fiction.

Roo Lampione

Diogo Cabanas

Emilie 

Abdelaziz Almulla

Daniel Gynn

Adam Perfect

Charlotte 

The Heart of a Dog is often regarded as science fiction or satirical fantasy. The novella tells the tale of Sharik, a stray dog who has been brought in for experimentation by the scientist Philip Philipovich Preobrazhensky. The experimenter specializes in transplanting the organs of animals into humans and vice versa.The work moves with a constantly shifting perspective, jumping from the dog's point of view to Preobrazhensky's to that of an unseen narrator. It opens with the howling of the dog, who complains that he was scalded when a cook at the National Economic Council's canteen spilled boiling water on him. Sharik recounts his misfortune to himself. He had been foraging in the garbage outside the council building when the cook threw the water out. The style shows some of what has been called "stream of consciousness," as the dog thinks about the good life he could have enjoyed, rolling in the park, and about his present misfortune.A girl finds the injured dog, and, without a break, the narrative slips from the dog's thoughts to a narrator outside the story. Then it returns to the dog, who sees Preobrazhensky in the street and imagines what the man is thinking. Preobrazhensky puts a leash on the dog and leads him away. Thus, the opening of the story introduces readers to the main characters and the technique of juxtaposing internal monologues and physical descriptions.The tale continues with Sharik watching the professor, who is seeing patients at his apartment. Sharik bites a man whom Preobrazhensky has been rejuvenating with transplants, and the dog sees a woman in whom the doctor promises to transplant monkey ovaries. The dog also watches as Preobrazhensky is visited by a house management committee threatening to install more residents in the doctor's home. Preobrazhensky overcomes this problem by calling a powerful patient waiting for an operation and threatening to end his practice. The scientist dismisses the committee with sneering comments about the proletariat. In this way, the science-fiction elements of the story are placed alongside elements of Socialist...

The Heart of a Dog

Reviews

Highlights