A DOG'S HEART: A Monstrous Story (Hesperus Modern Voices) - Softcover

Mikhail Bulgakov

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1843914026 ISBN 13: 9781843914020

Publisher: Hesperus Press, 2005

Synopsis

Through his surreal, often grotesque humour, Bulgakov creates in this book - a new translation of one of the most popular satires on the Russian Revolution and on Soviet society - an ingenious new twist to the 'Frankenstein' parable. Having been scalded by boiling water earlier that day, and with little chance to survive the severe winter night, a stray dog is left for dead on the streets. Lamenting his fate, he is ill prepared for the chance arrival of a wealthy professor who befriends him and takes him home. However, it seems the professor's motives are not entirely altruistic - an expert in medical experimentation, he sees his new charge as the potential subject for a bizarre operation, and implants glands from a dead criminal in the dog. The resulting half-man, half-beast is, as to be expected, a monstrosity, yet one that fits in remarkably well with Soviet society...

About this title

Review:

I greatly enjoyed Roy McMillan's perfect reading of Mikhail Bulgakov's novel, A Dog's Heart. This is perfect satire commenting not just on human nature but on 1920s Russia, when communism produced some strange paradoxes. In this tale we meet a respected surgeon who transplants human glands into a stray dog with dire results. The dog takes on all of the worst traits of the human donor. Sadly, Bulgakov never lived to see this short novel or any of his plays published. Stalin banned all of his work although he spared the writer from the dire fate of some of the other intellectuals of his era. This unabridged audiobook offers many chuckles as well as food for thought. --Alide Kohlhaas, Seniors Review

From the Author:

'A Dog’s Heart is more than a satire – it is a sharp and complicated moral fable, funny and profound, by one of the great writers of the twentieth century.' - A.S. Byatt

About this edition

• Publisher: Hesperus Press
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 1843914026
• ISBN 13: 9781843914020
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 130