Dublin Opinion

Mikhail Bulgakov’s Heart of a Dog is perhaps not as well known as his masterpiece Master and Margarita. Both feature animals who are partly human, or at least are animals who have characteristics that one considers to be human.

In The Master and Margarita, the companion of the visiting Professor (who may or may not be the Devil) is a large cat, who walks upright, wears a pince-nez and a well tailored suit and has the ability to jump on and off Moscow trams.

The Heart of a Dog features a dog who after an operation on his brain by the Moscow doctor Philip Philippovich Preobrazhensky, is transformed into a man. The novel, written in 1925, is set during the initial stages of the Bolshivik Revolution at a time when bourgeoisie housing was being radically redistributed amoung the needy proletariat. Soon enough, as a new tenent in the Doctor’s large apartment, the dog-man begins to wreck havoc and drive the good doctor to despair.

Especially when he starts to makes alliances with the Housing Committee members who are responsible for redistributing accommodation. In order to become a citizen and accept a job with the Moscow Cleansing Department” with responsibility for “eliminating vagrant quadrupeds (cats, etc.)”, however, he needs official papers and a name. Using the calendar in the doctor’s office he’s able to get the latter, Polygraph Polygraphovich Sharikov*. However, he has to ask the doctor to write up official papers, to prove to the state that he exists.

I read this book many years ago, and much of it I’d forgotten. But following on from the Russian theme yesterday I decided to track down some information on it to write a post. The book is a satire on the early stages of the Soviet Revolution and suggests that someone with the mentality of a dog could be raised to the same status as a doctor. It’s a short funny book, with plenty of knockabout humour but without any of the phenomenal set pieces of Master and Margarita. By the way, if you’ve yet to read that book, do so as soon as possible. The chapter, ostensibly from the ‘Masters’ novel in which Jesus talks with Pontius Pilot is a unique work of art in its own right. However, one of the funnier episodes in Heart of a Dog that I remember follows on from when Sharikov demands official papers from Dr. Preobrazhensky.

The text of the book is available online and I was going to quote from it. But while looking in Wikipedia I found out that a Russian film, Sobachye Serdtse, was made of the book in 1988, and it’s available on YouTube. The film, as it appears on the web, is broken up into episodes and almost by accident I came across the episode that I liked so much when I read it first.

Sharikov and the official from the housing committee leave the Doctors office but shortly after there’s the sound of breaking glass, and a kafuffle in the bathroom. The doctor’s assistant presumes correctly that a cat has got into the flat.

The rest of the episodes can be found here.

*According to Wikipedia: “One commonly accepted interpretation is that Bulgakov was trying to show all the inconsistencies of the system in which a man with a dog’s intelligence could become an important part (Sharikov); and that his other goal was to picture a man with a strong personality who could remain unaffected by the system and keep his personal independence (Preobrazhensky)”