Can you say "Booby Brash Bolsheviks" three times fast, comrades? If not, you can surely howl with laughter. Ooow-ow-ooow-owow!
Operating on animals to effect a transform in a humanly direction has been around for some time. In novels, that is. There’s H.G. Wells’ The Island of Doctor Moreau published in 1896 and Kristen Bakis’ less well known 1997 Lives of the Monster Dogs, a bizarre, creepy story of humanoid German shepherds strolling Manhattan as rich aristocrats.
Another such novel on the list, The Heart of a Dog, is Mikhail Bulgakov’s stinging satire written in 1925 but not published in the Russian author's home country until 1987 (oh, those damn censors!). Having been censored, of course it follows that much of the heart of The Heart targets the Soviet Union’s brand of communism practiced in those tumultuous years. Additionally, the novel can be interpreted as a parable of the Russian Revolution. And there’s a healthy bit of word play lost in translation. This to say, as a 21st century American, I feel confident writing a book review but I do not have the background in either Russian history or the Russian language to begin to address a number of important dimensions on display in this modern classic.
But still, even in English (I’d recommend the Michael Glenny translation), Mikhail Bulgakov's short novel makes for a rewarding read. I hesitate to say “enjoyable read” since one is best reading the book on an empty stomach and when in the mood for page after page of unnerving, off the wall humor of the blackest variety.
So much of the bite (no pun intended) of this novel about an Ivan Pavlov watanabe experimenting on a mangy, stray dog by surgically implanting a dead convict’s pituitary gland and testicles is in its colorful detail. Thus, I’ll couple my comments with a batch of direct doggie novel quotes:
“Some bastard in a dirty white cap - the cook in the office canteen at the National Economic Council - spilled some boiling water and scalded my left side. Filthy swine - and a proletarian, too.” ---------- This from the opening chapter where Sharik the dog makes pithy observations on the pathetic, viscous humans he must put up with as he makes his way through Moscow. The short novel's delightful shifts back and forth between first-person (the dog) and third-person provide the narrative technique enabling Mikhail Bulgakov to hurl his caustic barbs from multiple angles, well crafted darts at a dart board filled with stupidity and arrogance of both individuals and society as a whole.
“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.” ---------- Our good professor’s observation on how to treat dogs like Sharik. Irony of ironies - since humans do not possess the dignity of animals, state sponsored ‘red’ terror is perfectly acceptable. And effective! Especially if you want to strong-arm an entire population into lockstep conformity. And hypocritical Professor Philip Philipovich eventually resorts to his own brand of terrorizing to achieve his selfish ends.
“This place is indecent, thought the dog, but I like it! What the hell can he want me for, though? Is he just going to let me live here? Maybe he's eccentric. After all, he could get a pedigree dog as easy as winking.” --------- Ha! All those decent, starving Russians were likewise gullible in their support of Uncle Joe. If they only knew what evil their new leader was capable of perpetrating, all in the name of “improving” human nature and society.
“'Excuse me,' Shvonder interrupted him, 'but it was just because of your dining-room and your consulting-room that we came to see you. The general meeting requests you, as a matter of labor discipline, to give up your dining-room voluntarily. No one in Moscow has a dining-room.'” -------- Four members from the apartment committee barge into the professor’s living quarters and attempt to lay down the law on how the new society will be structured. Each time committee members make their appearance throughout the novel is an opportunity for the author to poke a long satiric needle into the side of the Soviets. Ouch!
“Yes, a policeman! Nothing else will do. Doesn't matter whether he wears a number or a red cap. A policeman should be posted alongside every person in the country with the job of moderating the vocal outbursts of our honest citizenry.” ---------- Professor Philip Philipovich’s wry comment. Mikhail Bulgakov anticipates the omnipresent eye of the totalitarian state sending men and women off to forced labor camps for the slightest vocal outburst.
“Dripping with exertion and excitement Bormenthal leapt to a glass jar and removed from it two more wet, dangling testicles, their short, moist, stringy vesicles dangling like elastic in the hands of the professor and his assistant. . . . The professor replaced the membranes over the brain, restored the sawn-off lid to its exact place, pushed the scalp back into position and roared: 'Suture!'” --------- As a trained physician himself, Mikhail Bulgakov had the background in medicine to provide oodles of lurid details in his scene devoted to operating on the dog, Again, a novel requiring a strong stomach; not for the squeamish.
“'Take that trash off your neck. Sha . . . if you saw yourself in a mirror you'd realise what a fright it makes you look. You look like a clown. For the hundredth time - don't throw cigarette ends on to the floor. And I don't want to hear any more swearing in this flat! And don't spit everywhere!” --------- The unexpected consequence of the operation – the dog is now a completely formed little man capable of speaking and reading. And spluttering and acting like a low-grade slob! Not exactly the type of person our good professor wants in his apartment. But, as it turns out, he has no choice – in a planned society, rules are rules.
These are but seven delectable morsels. Each and every page of The Heart of a Dog is filled with such supercharged passages. I urge you to take the plunge into the author's short masterpiece.
Here's looking at you. Mikhail Bulgakov, 1891-1940
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