Rating: 
Summary: can't agree...
Review: 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...
Rating:
Summary: A theatrical play.
Review: I was 18 years old preparing for the entrance examinations for the university in Greece. I could not stay up late at nights going to parties or discos because I had to wake up early in the morning to study. There was only one solution for entertainment: theater.Athens, Greece, has a very cultural life style and there are more than 60 to 70 theaters with live performances. I bought the newspaper of the day and chose a play. It was "The heart of a dog" by some russian writer named Bulgakov. The leading actor was Greece's most famous actor at the time Georgos Kimoulis. I said what the heck, I cant go wrong with him, lets hope that it is a good play -it was the first time I would go to the theater. At the end of the play I was a new man. It was an experience that changed my life. What a play. So powerfull, so romantic, nostalgic, humorous, full of irony and sarcasm. The play was dealing about the efforts of the new "goverment" to creat the "perfect man". It made me think: what does it mean ? a perfect man ? I was amazed by the indirect way that Bulgakov treated the subject. It was like he was laughing at the face of the political leaders of the time without never naming names or saying things with their name. Only later I learned that he paid a heavy price for this irony. The atmosphere was surreal. Now I can understand it. It was pure surrealism, the man transforming to a dog, the bureaucrats the dialogues...I was so much captivated by the atmosphere of the early revolutionary Russia described by Bulgakov, such a mysterious time and place, that for a long time I was only selecting plays by Russian authors -I even wanted to visit Russia but the fall of the communist regime changed my plans. Bulgakov made me a theater-addict for life. Immediately after the performance I bought the script of the play and read it. So tasteful, it was excellent. And then of course I carried on with Bulgakovs masterpiece "the master and margarita" which until today, many years later, is the best piece of literature that I have ever read. Now I live in New York and I often go to Brodway and off-Broadway plays. Nothing compares with the feelings of "the heart of a dog". And every time that the lights go dim, before the play starts, I always think of that play that started it all for me. The heart of a dog. A triumph. A masterpiece. Such a same that Bulgakov had to go through the terror of the people that did not understand him - or to put it correctly, from the peole that really understood him......
Rating:
Summary: What a knockout!
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: Great Soviet Era Satire
Review: 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
Rating:
Summary: Open to many interpretations ...
Review: Mikhail Bulgakov (1891-1940) endured the difficult experience of having to live under the pressure of censorship, but has nonetheless left some interesting books that allow us to know what he thought about the process that has taking place in the newborn Soviet Russia. "Heart of a dog" is one of those books. It was written by Bulgakov in 1925, but it wasn`t published in Soviet Russia until 1987, due to the fact that it can easily be interpreted as a critical satire regarding the URSS.
"Heart of a dog" is the story of a stray dog, Sharik, that hasn`t led an easy life. He lives in the streets of Moscow, and eats what he can, when he can. However, one day a doctor gives him food and takes him to his home. Sharik believes that his fate has changed, but he doesn`t know that the doctor has rather strange intentions...
The doctor wants to perform an experiment on Sharik, in order to learn what would happen if some human organs were transplanted to a dog. The doctor performs the operation, implanting in Sharik the pituitary gland and the testicles of a dead criminal. Against all odds, Sharik survives the operation, and from that moment on begins an extraordinary transformation, that makes him more and more human.
But what kind of human is he?. Sharik can talk, and asks everybody to call him first "Mr. Sharikov", and afterwards "Polygraph Polygraphovich Sharikov". He also walks like a human being, and somehow resembles one... But can he think, or does he merely repeat what he hears, specially Marx`s teachings?. Has the doctor`s experiment ruined a perfectly good dog, making him a perfectly despicable "human" being that threatens to denounce counterrevolutionaries and chases cats?.
I don`t want to tell you more about this book: you really should read it yourself. It isn`t long, but it is quite interesting. What is more important, it is open to many interpretations, and you can always find your own. Some people believe that for Bulgakov Sharik represented the failure of those who try to create new beings (exactly what was supposedly being done at that time in the URSS, with the "soviet man"). Others highlight the glimpses of Soviet society that "Heart of a dog" allows us to have, and think that the aim of the author was to give the reader at least an idea of what it was like to live in the URSS at that time...
These few possible interpretations don't exclude others, so read this book and find them!!. Obviously, I highly recommend "Heart of a dog"...
Belen Alcat
Rating:
Summary: Extremely funny, incredibly written small masterpiece
Review: 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!
Rating:
Summary: Extremely funny, incredibly written small masterpiece
Review: 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!
Rating:
Summary: Simply Brilliant
Review: 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.
Rating: 
Summary: Dark and majestic
Review: Placed within the boundaries of post revolutionary Russia (October revolution 1917) this novel with its dark atmosphere pierces deeply into bones of a reader, leaving him amazed and stunned with a size to which can escalate human stupidity, and evilness and unintelligent behaviour by following the paths of some greater revoultion, of some welfare for all.
By walking the alleys of Moscow, professor Petar Petrovic Preobrazensky comes across a wanderrer dog, and after feeding him, he performs an operation on him, in which he combines part of a dead man body (dead man is alchocolic, violent, and member of communist party)with the parts of a dog.
What is caused by operation is already presented in some other novels like 'Frankestein' but here (considering that this is Bulgakov and all...) is totaly unexpected. Dog starts to transform, slowly at first, into a human being whose parts he now posesses. What becomes apparent in the process are all the bad thing one can have when "suffering" from a posession of a human heart. He losses all nobility of a dog, ant transforms himself into a man that he used o be before, with all negative sides that remained.
Association with the president of House Comitee Svonde, will lead to major problems.
Bulgakov uses his famous, fluid style, not allowing break beetween narration and dialogue, though short this novel keeps his reader glued to his chair, and doesn't allow him to leave mists of post revolutionary Moscow, mists of human spirit (in which was believed that by mere act of revolting (violent), all became different than it used to be, neglecting the fact that people that used to live under empire are the same people the now live under Lenin)
Though somewhat flawish on some places, with weak links between objects and verbs, with holes in some spaces, that should (or could) be filled with more detailed narration, this novel stands side by side with the rest of Bulgakov's work.
Thumbs up!
Rating:
Summary: Some people find it funny
Review: 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.
|
