Dog Hearted: Essays on Our Fierce and Familiar Companions

Product Information

Nell Frizzell is the author of Holding the Baby: Milk, Sweat and Tears from the Frontline of Motherhood

A key work of early modernism, this is the superbly comic story of a Soviet scientist and a scroungy Moscow mongrel named Sharik. Attempting a medical first, the scientist transplants the glands of a petty criminal into the dog and, with that, turns a distinctly After an hiatus of two years, I was delighted to read that Daunt Books would be publishing another collection of essays this year, having enjoyed their past collections, particularly In The Kitchen: Essays on Food and Life. For this collection, the central topic of our pooch pals could not have been more apt for me given that I have recently been initiated into the cult of canine companionship for the very first time! Let Bulgakov's genius mix all of these ingredients together - and you will end up with a brilliantly written satirical fantastical commentary-on-contemporary-society laughter-through-tears piece of literary art that is Heart of the Dog.The spy was not disappointed. Two months after the readings, the prospective publishers, Nedra, wrote to Bulgakov, returning the work and telling him that even a rewrite wouldn't save it. The following year, OGPU raided Bulgakov's flat and seized the manuscript. It was returned in 1929, but it was not until 1987, more than 60 years after Bulgakov finished it and almost half a century after the writer died, that the book was published in Russia. A key work of early modernism, this is the superbly comic story of a Soviet scientist and a scroungy Moscow mongrel named Sharik. Attempting a medical first, the scientist transplants the glands of a petty criminal into the dog and, with that, turns a distinctly worryingly human animal loose on the city. The new, lecherous, vulgar, Engels-spouting Sharik soon finds his niche in governmental bureaucracy as the official in charge of purging the city of cats. Philip Philopovich Preobrazhensky is one sorry doctor. Not only does his experiment yield a strange and frightful sort of human creature of a Frankensteinian nature, but his 'creation' starts to call him out on his own shit. Haber, Edythe C. (1998). Mikhail Bulgakov: The Early Years. Harvard University Press. pp.216–17. ISBN 0-674-57418-4.

When the time comes to operate on the dog, however, Preobrazhensky and Bormenthal switch to representing a different kind of bourgeois intellectual - those like Trotsky and Lenin who believed that in Karl Marx they had found a scientific system which could be imposed on human beings, and proceeded to carry out a great experiment in the form of a revolution, with the Russian people as the subject, and Russia as the laboratory. When a stray dog dying on the streets of Moscow is taken in by a wealthy professor, he is subjected to medical experiments in which he receives various transplants of human organs. As he begins to transform into a rowdy, unkempt human by the name of Poligraf Poligrafovich Sharikov, his actions distress the professor and those surrounding him, although he finds himself accepted into the ranks of the Soviet state. 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!" While foraging for trash one winter day, a stray dog is found by a cook and scalded with boiling water. Junto con su ayudante, el doctor Bormental, lograrán que un castigado perro llamado Shárik, se transfigure en un hombre apellidado Shárikov.Daunt Books has signed Dog Hearted: Essays on Our Fierce and Familiar Companions, an anthology "rich with joy and delight" edited by Rowan Hisayo Buchanan and Jessica J Lee. In March 2011, Heart of a Dog was staged at the University of Leeds, directed by James Ahearne and Matthew Beaumont. [14] Musical [ edit ] All of dog life is here, and this charming book shows how much poorer our own lives would be without them.’ The Lady Nuevamente es un experimento científico, un descubrimiento de la ciencia, el que Bulgákov utiliza para disfrazar su aversión al incipiente comunismo que comenzaba a regir con mano dura la Unión Soviética.

A Dog's Heart seemed fresh six decades after Bulgakov described the travails of disparate households crammed into apartment buildings seized from the wealthy, because people were still crammed into the same apartment buildings, barely renovated in all that time. Sixty years on, Pravda was still indigestible. Senior medical consultants were still, like Professor Preobrazhensky, using the leverage of their rare skills to gain or keep material advantages - big flats, for instance - from a corrupt communist leadership. Essential goods were still in short supply.It was a fun read and I took three days to complete reading the book, and would have actually finished it in one sitting as I did not want to put it down, but life intervenes. Being a lover of verse, I was happy to see Lord George Gordon Byron’s ‘Epitaph to a Dog’ included. This heartfelt tribute is a gem and all dog lovers will agree that every word is true. Part of this epitaph reads: “But the poor Dog, in life the firmest friend, The first to welcome, foremost to defend, Whose honest heart is still his Master’s own…” Instead of giving them their own room, as Sharikov demands, the professor takes the woman aside and explains that Sharikov is the product of a lab experiment gone horribly wrong. The woman has been told that Sharikov was maimed fighting Admiral Alexander Kolchak's White Army in Siberia. Upon learning the truth, she leaves the apartment in tears. Seething with hatred, Sharikov vows to have her fired. Again, Bormenthal beats up Sharikov and makes him promise not to do anything of that sort. Can you say "Booby Brash Bolsheviks" three times fast, comrades? If not, you can surely howl with laughter. Ooow-ow-ooow-owow!