|
While I wait for The Count of Monte Cristo to be delivered, currently scheduled for July 8th, I needed something else to read. So I'm now halfway through Mikhail Bulgakov's "Heart of a Dog". It is about a dog that a Russian scientist experiments on by grafting the testicles and pituitary gland of a recently deceased human ruffian onto the dog's groin and brain. The dog ends up transforming into a human, but it's still a dog at heart. Thus, the title "Heart of a Dog". The creature ends up going far in Soviet politics.
It's a wild tale. The world famous one-line "let's have a smoke or I'll give you a poke" comes from this.
It's mostly comedic but operates as a scathing indictment on Marxism as well, which is why it was banned in the Soviet Union for so long, as was basically everything Bulgakov wrote (although Stalin quite liked his stuff, which is why he was never executed, Stalin would still ban it. One time, Bulgakov got so tired of everything he wrote getting banned, that he wrote a play that was strictly about how great Stalin was. He just wanted something to be produced without being banned. That play got immediately banned LOLLL).
Bulgakov was a pretty big time baller. The whole thing checks in at 117 pages so it isn't a huge investment for those with the inclination. It's like Soviet Frankenstein, essentially.
|