Mikhail Bulgakov - Heart Of A Dog
This story is pretty inspired stuff really. Dude finds a stray dog and transplants a penis and pituitary gland from some murdered lowlife onto him. Then the dog turns into this semi-feral human who likes a drink and works in a government department to purge the city of cats. Amazing, right?
Except it just didn’t seem to flow especially well. I know better than to criticise the writing style of one of the most respected Russian writers of all time, so I’m guessing it’s either down to the translation or the fact that it was written in 1925 and just feels a bit dated. Either way, the book didn’t live up to its synopsis.
Out of the forty thousand or so Moscow dogs, only an idiot won’t know how to read the word ‘sausage’.
“Eat in the bedroom,” he said in a slightly choked voice, “read in the examination room, dress in the waiting room, operate in the maid’s room, and examine patients in the dining room. It is very possible that Isadora Duncan does just this. Perhaps she dines in her office and dissects rabbits in the bathroom. Perhaps. But I am not Isadora Duncan!”
“Doctor, would you please take him to the circus? But, for God’s sake, take a look at the program first - make sure they have no cats.”
Mikhail Bulgakov - Heart Of A Dog
Publication date: 1982
Publisher: Grove Press
Price then: $5.95
Price now: $8
Purchased from: Green Apple Books, San Francisco
From the synopsis: “His many misadventures, lecherous behaviour, and final denunciation of the doctor himself, drive the exasperated scientist to take most extraordinary measures.”
