Heart of a Dog by Mikhail Bulgakov

Review by Adam Beckett

An excellent example of absurd Russian satire, with everything you'd want and expect from the man who gave us Master and Margarita: Mikhail Bulgakov.

Politically speaking this book is as important as you'd expect given the landscape and time. A criticism of Leninist socialism and scientists’ newfound interest in eugenics, Heart of a Dog was written during the Communist Revolution in 1925 and was confiscated from Bulgakov for years by the new government: The Bolsheviks. It was only in 1987 that Heart of a Dog was officially published in Russia (Western translations were published in the 60's, and there was an underground publication, a "samizdat", circulating around Russia since the late 20's).

"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, no, terror is useless, whatever its colour – white, red or even brown! Terror completely paralyses the nervous system."

Bulgakov writes with a timeless clarity that takes stylistic aspects from both gothics and realists. If you picture Shelley's Frankenstein written by Chekhov, you're almost there. This prose style works well for telling a tragic comedy; it feels at once nightmarish and tongue-in-cheek; while there is a frustration reverberating through every sentence, you can't help but laugh at our protagonist Polygraph Polygraphovich Sharikov: an experimented on dog-cum-humanoid smoking cigarettes and strangling cats for the government.

It is this absurd humour that makes it easy to recommend this book; while many readers are uninterested in historical importance or deep discussion, almost everyone can enjoy reading a scruffy mutt in the body of a man.

For me, I need the deeper stuff to give it the time of day, and I was happy to read between the comical lines to figure out the allegories. It also helped that I take an interest in Russian history; let's just call it my masochistic vice, or perhaps we can call it a passion for melancholy.

Recommended for fans of Flowers for Algernon or the politically intrigued.