The Heart Of A Dog
Mikhail Bulgakov's absurdist parable of the Russian Revolution. A world-famous Moscow professor-rich, successful, and violently envied by his neighbors-befriends a stray dog and resolves to achieve a daring scientific "first" by transplanting into it the testicles and pituitary gland of a dead...
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Mikhail Bulgakov's absurdist parable of the Russian Revolution. A world-famous Moscow professor-rich, successful, and violently envied by his neighbors-befriends a stray dog and resolves to achieve a daring scientific "first" by transplanting into it the testicles and pituitary gland of a dead man. But the results are wholly unexpected: a distinctly and worryingly human animal is on the loose, and the professor's hitherto respectable life becomes a nightmare beyond endurance. As in The Master and Margarita, the masterpiece he completed shortly before his death, Mikhail Bulgakov's early novel, written in 1925, combines outrageously grotesque ideas with a narrative of deadpan naturalism. The Heart of a Dog can be read as an absurd and wonderfully comic story; it can also be read as a fierce parable of the Russian Revolution.
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Format: paperback
ISBN:
9781860466403 (1860466400)
Publish date: February 18th 1999
Publisher: Vintage
Pages no: 128
Edition language: English
The witty and satirical mood of the book is tangible. Whilst similar to the themes of Frankenstein, The heart of a dog not only deals with eugenics, but is a satire in its purest form. Bulgakov's work criticizes the communist creation of the new Soviet man and highlights the inconsistencies of the s...
Philip Philipovich, surgeon, reproductive expert and refined borgeois gentleman, makes the grievous error of transplanting a human pituitory gland and testicles into a mongrel he has enticed with a piece of sausage. The dog is unexpectedly transformed into a human, taking on the unprepossessing dogg...
I really enjoy Bulgakov's stories but I think I don't like his writing style. The "I think" is because I depend on the interpreters skill at bringing works of Russian literary fiction to life in the English language - not an easy task. I also wonder if dark satire is really my thing. I like Vonnegut...
"The whole horror of the situation is that he now has a human heart, not a dog's heart. And about the rottenest heart in all creation!" The recipe for success a la Bulgakov: # Take a street dog, hungry and flea-ridden and wickedly smart (yes, he can even read - you gotta do that to survive on th...
ChronologyIntroductionA Note on the TextFurther Reading--A Dog's HeartNotes