Heart of a Dog

Bulgakov entirely destroys the concept of Russian literature most of us got from college - dull, grey, plodding and intense. Instead, Bulgakov is witty, irreverent, fantastical and intensely colorful. The political implications of his works are so well intertwined with the stories that you can pay them intense attention or ignore them entirely as you choose. His plotlines are hilarious and just twisted enough to keep you guessing and surprised.
While Master and Margarita is clearly his greatest work, Heart of a Dog is a brilliant short novel that provides a great introduction to not just Bulgakov, but to Soviet era Russian literature in general.

This was an enjoyable little book, though after the wild, breathtaking ride that was _Master & Margarita_, this book for me was something of a let-down. If you are unaquainted with Bulgakov or have never read his magnum opus, _Master & Margarita_, do yourself a favor and read _Heart of A Dog_ FIRST. If you like it, go on to _M&M_. If you DONT, go on to _M&M_ anyway. _Heart of A Dog_ is one of Bulgakov's earlier works, he was still developing as a writer when he wrote it. _M&M_ is shows him at his absolute best. _Heart of A Dog_ is a good book in its own right, but it kind of suffers from standing in _M&M_'s shadow, at least for me it did.

I enjoyed this book as a very entertaining story - the grotesque elements are fun, clever ideas and I can see the political engagement.

But - of all the characters in the book, I found the arrogant pompous professor and his bullying assistant by far the most unsympathetic individuals in the novel. If you asked me who were the main targets of the satire, I would not say it was the Soviets / Communists, but those like the professor who thought that humanity could be improved by rational / scientific means, and with kindness rather than cajoling.

Of course there is satire directed against the housing committee for their singing and bureaucatic pedantry - but the self righteous over civilisation and pseudo sophistication of the professor seem much more objectionable. I think I would become an argumentative Sharik if I had been taken from my perfectly natural life as a dog and told I must suddenly conform to the petty social norms advocated my the professor. Although he begins by saying that there should be no violence against the dog or the man, Sharik is frequently beaten, and in the end, any humanity he may have possessed is taken away from him as he returns to the status of a dog.

The image of the dog feeling docile and comfortable again in the professor's house at the end feels sad and pathetic: the professor's "escape" from justice (he has after all ended a man's life - more effectively than giving him a lobotomy like One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest) seems nothing more than a nasty cheap trick.

I read the book to mean that Shariks were perhaps the inevitable result of a revolution over bourgeois manners - and that is was foolish to be an optimistic liberal and think that man in his natural state would be any different. Both the communists and the professor (liberals) sought to transform man into some new image - in this novel both I think are proved deluded - not just the communists who it is fashionable to slate, but also the progressives and liberals, who favoured a more gradual and mild mannered reform.

And for those smug Westerners who have been writing about the lumpen proletariat, can I just add that I have lived in both Europe/UK and Russia - and I know that Soviet people were by no means the unsophisticated oafs that bigoted liberal democrats would portay them to be. I believe there is more genuine humanity in the Shariks of this world, than the twee, effete and superior wealthy of the West.

If perused only ephemerally, or taken merely at face value, Mikhail Bulgakov's "The Heart of a Dog," is likely to give the reader a false impression of simplicity or childishness; however, if more carefully surveyed in light of the monumental political and historical context in which it was penned, the novel, formally seeming silly or fantastical, reveals itself to be a highly critical analysis and commentary of the Russian Revolution of 1917, as well as subsequent events. This fanciful tale of an unfortunate street dog transformed, against its own will, into a drunken and vice-laden human monstrosity, closely parallels the fitful and savage conversion of the Russian Empire and its peoples into the Soviet Union and its subjects. When said dog, Sharik, first makes his appearance in the tale, he is indeed a quite sympathetic and homely creature; battered from a harsh life on the streets and suffering from the wounds inflicted upon him by a well-to-do chef, Sharik is nonetheless capable of great empathy, as evidenced by his feelings of sorrow for an underpaid and overdependent typist. Although Sharik is initially much afflicted by his wounds, one can sense a decisive mentality of perseverance in this hapless and battered, yet overwhelmingly grateful and obedient, animal. Sharik, thus, symbolizes aptly the Russian people as they stood prior to the Bolshevik Revolution. Hungry, abused, and left destitute by a cold bourgeois society that cared little for their well-being, the Russian, much like Shark, nonetheless remained unbroken in spirit and consistently persevered through their difficulties while maintaining their unique mindset and wit. Yet, just as Sharik was pushed to his limit of persistence by his scalding, so to were the Russian by the hardships of the second World War; in both cases, these battered would would likely have perished had it not been for the arrival of charismatic and empathetic leaders, whom they, in their destitution, would follow blindly to their ultimate detriment. Just as many Russians rallied behind Lenin and his promises of peace, land, and bread, so too did Sharikov throw in his lot with Professor Preobrazhensky, a seemingly kindly doctor who took pity on the suffering dog.
Professor Philip Philipovich Preobrazhensky, literally "Professor Transformation" in the original Russian, presents a unique dilemma for the critic attempting to assess his character and actions; on the one hand, it is simple to view him in light of his charity to Sharik, while, on the other hand, his cold betrayal of the dog coupled with his questionable morality significantly blacken his character. Indeed, the Professor, who appeared at first to adopt Sharik simply out of some goodness of heart, had truly done so in order to use the poor mut as the subject of his experiments; after fattening up Sharik, the Professor quickly betrays his trust and sets about forcibly altering him. In this, one can discern a certain similarity with the behavior of the Bolsheviks, who upon gaining the trust of certain of the Russian people with their promises, ultimately brought upon them immense suffering as they attempted to force them into the Communist mold. The operation in which the Professor transplants a human pituitary gland into Sharik is depicted in such violent and grisly terms as to only be a criticism of the "operation" that was the Bolshevik Revolution. Just as the Professor "treacherously" cut and prodded Sharik in molding him into a man, so too did the Bolsheviks impose much bloodshed and carnage upon the Russian during the Revolution and subsequent civil war. Indeed, the entire gruesome operation sequence, combined with base nature and the resultant human Sharikov, speak loudly to Bulgakov's underlying criticism of the Bolsheviks hasty and brutal methods of imposing Communism upon the nation. Similarly damning to the character of the Professor is his seeming moral indifference and unwillingness to accept the results of his own cruel actions. In performing the experiment upon Sharikov, the Professor knew nothing of what would result; he did so merely out of cold scientific uncaring. Yet, when the result was the drunken Poligraph Ploigraphovich, the Professor exhibited no tolerance for his own creation, constantly berating him instead of more patiently bearing the responsibility of his actions. When the Professor's assistant suggests murdering Sharikov, the Professor refuses only out of a desire to keep his hands clean of crime; such poor morality does not speak well for him. His refusal to abandon his bourgeois lifestyle, which inevitably leads to conflict with the Soviet authorities, presents not only his stubbornness and corruption, but also his possibly noble refusal to submit to a cause which he does not hold dear.
In sharp contrast with the more nuanced and ambiguous Professor, Poligraph Poligraphovich Sharikov, as the dog becomes know after his transformation into a man, represents all that is worst in human nature, as well as the nascent Soviet mentality. From the beginning, Sharikov is portrayed as hopelessly vulgar, impetuous, ungrateful, and drunken. Not afraid to lie, he invents tales of war heroism to woo a coworker; when this dishonesty is exposed, he shows himself to be vengeful, vowing to have the woman's pay docked. Perhaps more significantly, Sharikov quickly becomes a staunch, mindless, devotee to the local Communist leader, Shvonder; to the Professor's disgust, he begins using terms like "Comrade" and speaking of the division of property. It is with this that Bulgakov makes his biting attack upon the corruption already apparent in the Communist lifestyle of the Soviet Union. Aside from being a drunken monstrosity, Sharikov also only half-heartedlt accepts the Communist ideals he so loudly espouses, as revealed by his refusal to register for military service. It is with the generally disagreeable character of Sharikov that Bulgakov illustrates best the ungodly and corrupted beast that the Revolution had transformed Russia into; though not overtly anti-Soviet, Bulgakov does not fear exposing the rot of the Soviet system. In a prophetic statement that Bulgakov could never have understood at the time, the Professor foresees that Sharikov, brute as he is, represents just as much of a threat to the Communists as he does to the Professor and his well-being; this succinct remark foreshadows the depraved and mindless purges carried out by Stalin against the Communist Party itself. In realizing the overall pointlessness of the ability to transform a man into a dog when nature itself is capable of creating great men at any time, the Professor profoundly comments upon the mistake of forcing a Communist revolution upon Russia, when Marx had urged that such a transformation would occur naturally; in ultimately reversing the procedure and changing Sharikov back into a dog, it is possible to identify an exhortation to reverse the botched Bolshevik Revolution. However, Bulgakov was too careful and canny an author to jeopardize his life or liberty by so overtly criticizing the Soviet regime, and as a result, "The Heart of a Dog" is an intentionally multi-faced and ambiguous novel, which may be interpreted in numerous fashions.

Bulgakov's poignant satire of the Soviet man, made him a pariah in official literary circles of the Soviet Union. Sharikov, who is nothing but a cur becomes a human being who presumes to take a job on the purge committee in charge of getting rid of the udesirable social element, in this case, the cats.
This brave allegory is one of Bulgakov's best works. The author came from a long line of Russian priests, was trained as a doctor, and gave up medicine to write full-time. He chose not to leave Russia after the Bolshevik revolution of 1917, and led a rather miserable existence in Russia until his death in 1941. At least he avoided Stalin's purges. In this book, and in most others, Bulgakov shows his "theological heritage" by being very concerned with values, moral issues, and the like. The new man, whose advent was so loudly heralded by communists turned out to be a loutish, arrogant, semi-educated creature. This new man, with his old habits and simplistic views of life, assumes power and presumes to know how everybody should live. This is a well-executed allegory about one of the great tragedies of human history, when intellectual arrogance presumed to postulate the "new man" as false hope, as a promise of communist paradise on Earth.

A terrifically creepy, sad, and funny satire of the time. I had never heard of this book before I picked it up and I'm sorry that it's taken me so long. I thoroughly enjoyed the layers of metaphor and story. This needs to be more widely read.

A good early novel by Bulgakov, with a few weaknesses that fortunately get swept quickly aside because this is a very short book (122 pages of generous sized type). The book starts with a few chapters of general character setup, then about half way through really picks up speed of development, even though much of it is dialogue based (and how inventive and effective it is! There are many very funny parts beyond the half-way point). The bizarreness of the evolving events is justified for the reader by the valuable reflections about individual and social-political processes that are displayed.

Five stars for the story, 0 for the formatting. Was a pain in the arse to read, hard-wired line endings on my Kindle Paperwhite, every second line was one or two words long, like having a fit trying to keep up the rhythm and pace of the story. I enjoyed the story; it's a classic; but don't buy this version. Pay an extra couple of bucks and get a properly formatted version, I would if I knew what I do now.
I've met a lot of fellows like Sharik in my time, the type who shamelessly admit they envy dogs for their contortionist abilities. Really great characterization and a very funny story.

This short novel will make most of readers to laugh. Although it is true that the book may be interpreted as a feroucius citique to the soviet system, it is also true that the very "facts" of the novel, the plot, the dialogs, are quite funny by themeselves. So I agree with the reviewers that think this novel is an easy reading.
I give Heart of a Dog four stars just becuase I can't avoid comparing it to The Master and Margarita. Compared to Bulgakov's masterwork, The heart of a Dog is just an exellently written divertimento.

I'd always had some trepidation about Bulgakov. Russian literature has such incredible precedents - how d'you compare with Tolstoy, old Dostoy, Turgenev? But Heart of a Dog knocked me for six. Laugh out loud funny, the dog-creation ranks with Papa Karamazov as a ghastly comic character you can't help having a sneaking affection for. It's the perfect short novel, that you'll want to read again and force onto a friend, guaranteed. Unless you're a cat lover.

I have read this book many times, obviously - in Russian. Moreover, I was born and have been living almost all my life in USSR, so whole context of this book is "native" for me. Thus I can't agree with previous reviews. By no means the book is about "Soviet way of life", it is cliche. This book is rather about more general idea - how normal person could be abused by lumpen-proletariat surrounding. And yet another note: this book deserve to be read in Russian. I have asked my coleagues (non-Russians) to read it, and after discussion I came to conclusion - English version of the book just lost too much from translation. Let me explain. I don't blame translator - it is rather non-viable target: to translate fully-featured, fictious Russian language into English. So, if you haven't felt asleep to this moment on my "lecture", it is good point to learn real, literature Russian to get a real effort from reading of the book. It deserve...

Steer clear of this version. Another great story rendered unreadable by a por scan. Typos and poor formatting make this wonderful story torturous to read, which may be very in keeping with Russian literary themes. However, I'm American by way of France, so I prefer my metaphors a bit less meta. Heart of a Dog is a wonderful novel, do yourself a favor and get it. Just not this one.

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.

Bulgakov's "Heart of a Dog" is a fantastic introduction to his writing in general. I read this after "The Master and Margarita" and found it to be a bit less polished, but on the whole a very enjoyable book! Many lessons for modern science. Perhaps high school English teachers should add this book to their curriculum, as it has not lost any of its edge over the intervening 60 years.

'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'.

One of my favorite novels. You can nearly feel 1920s Moscow reading this marvellous book, which is not only bitingly funny but a subtle portrait of the place and time. Walking down Prichistenka Street you can hear the echo of Sharik's bark. I actually prefered this novel to the more famed Master and Margerita. Equally essential for any student of Russian culture or any fan of satire.

As a huge fan of Bulgakov's masterpiece Master and Margarita, I really enjoyed this book. It's a delightfully quick and witty read. Heart of a Dog is full of pointed references at Soviet society, many of which are outdated, but many of which are fully comprehensible and applicable by modern, Western readers. The satirical nature and tone that came to ultimate fruition with Master and Margarita can be traced through this book, making for an overall short, enjoyable read.

This satirical dystopian novella was written in 1925 in the Soviet Union and was, not surprisingly, banned there until 1987. A mongrel named Sharik receives a Frankenstein-like transplant from a criminal, and is transformed into a New Soviet Man, a bureaucrat charged with ridding the city of cats.

This review is for the Mirra Ginsburg translation of the book. If you have read Bulgakov's masterwork, The Master and Margarita, then you know Bulgakov has no qualms with delving into the fantastic and unbelievable. Heart of a Dog is no exception, but the novella form keeps this book to a very neat size, where satire works best.

Clearly in Bulgakov's sights was the socialist "support structure" that was in place at the time. Professor Preobrazhensky provides the best display of anti-soviet sentiment when he rages against "the general rack-and-ruin." Having meetings and sitting around singing songs will do nothing to combat economic downfall. We could learn from that type of logic in our current state of rack-and-ruin.

In this particular printing of the book, there are no frills as far as critiques or introductions, which is a bit disappointing for a story this short. Generally, it is nice to pad out these short novels with some background or discussion. Despite that shortcoming, the book is too good to deserve any less than 5 stars.

This book is just great.Its irony is just fantastic.It reveals the Soviet Union experiments upon its citizens.Bulgakov implies that all those Soviet apparatchiks had hearts of a dog. But don't be fooled so easily.It's easy to read,but it's not an easy reading.The reader should THINK and analyse everything while reading this book.Both its humor(or,rather,satire)and underlying psychological meaning are great. Read it once,read it twice,read it thrice-just read it,it's worth while doing it.

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.

Terrifically insightful, if something less than subtle. Bulgakov's genius for satire turns, again, upon the Soviet way of life. In retrospect, not exactly a moving target, but his came early, and displays considerably more insight than most of the others. A quick and humorous read, but lacking in both the scope and the depth of emotion that his "Master and Margarita" attained.

The work itself is no doubt brilliant. My main complaint is with the shoddiness of the translation. It seems as though it had been translated by a computer and lacked a human's nuanced touch. There were also many typos which were somewhat distracting. I'd love to read this again by a different translator. This is referring to the edition with the ISBN 13 - ending in -0316

What a wonderful book! Funny, ascerbic and critical of the Soviet regime, Bulgakov writes an amusing tale that is easy to read, with an obvious message.
The book remains delightfully readable 70 years after it is written - this is a book you will enjoy, not a book you 'should' read.

I was very disappointed when I received this in the mail, it was a play version of Heart of a Dog, not the novel I wanted. I called the store, because no where on here did it say that, even in the "quick look" it showed the novel. And after about 15 minutes of futile arguing (I wasn't going to give up) they let me return it. So BE AWARE THAT YOU MIGHT NOT GET THE NOVEL.

This is one of Bulgakov's greatest work. It presents the reader with a critical commentary on the state of the society (primarily its cultural development) in the Soviet Union. Perhaps the most important question that the author tries to answer in this book is as follows, "What does it take to be a human being?"

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.

Bulgakov's quibble with the Soviet authorities seems not to be that they have come to realise that the lower classes are ghastly, but that they ever supposed they could be anything else. I'm sure the dicky-bowed, monacled MB would have been happier as a Parisian boulavadier, aristo-emigre. Funny, decadent, thoroughly counter-revolutionary - its scarcely surprising he was supressed during his lifetime.

Some do, but for ex-soviet people the humanized dog turning into the proletarian and going against his creator is rather sad. You will indeed enjoy the irony and great satire of this early Bulgakov work, especially if you are familiar with Master and Margarita.

Love dogs. Love Russian history. Love the idea of a book written from perspective of a dog with an eye on a pivotal point in Russian history. That's what this book is! Didn't love this book. The first part's a bit compelling for the very reasons I'd hoped it would be. Then, it dives into a tedious metaphor about communism and humanity that is a bit gross and dull. Probably seemed radical in its day. Now, just odd and dull.