Heart of a Dog (Russian: Собачье сердце, Sobach'e serdtse), a novel by Mikhail Bulgakov, is a biting satire of the New Soviet man written in 1925 at the height of the NEP period, when Communism appeared to be weakening in the Soviet Union. It's generally interpreted as an allegory of the Communist revolution and "the revolution's misguided attempt to radically transform mankind." Its publication was initially prohibited in the Soviet Union, but circulated in samizdat until it was officially released in the country in 1987. It is "one of novelist Mikhail Bulgakov's most beloved stories" featuring a stray dog "named Sharik who takes human form," as a slovenly and narcissistic incarnation of the New Soviet Man. The novel has become a cultural phenomenon in Russia, known and discussed by people "from schoolchildren to politicians." It has become a subject of critical argument, was filmed in both Russian and Italian-language versions, and adapted in English as a play and an opera.
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Famous quotes containing the words heart of, heart and/or dog:
“The hearts of small children are delicate organs. A cruel beginning in this world can twist them into curious shapes. The heart of a hurt child can shrink so that forever afterward it is hard and pitted as the seed of a peach. Or, again, the heart of such a child may fester and swell until it is misery to carry within the body, easily chafed and hurt by the most ordinary things.”
—Carson McCullers (1917–1967)
“Nothing is so insufferable to man as to be completely at rest, without passions, without business, without diversion, without study. He then feels his nothingness, his forlornness, his insufficiency, his dependence, his weakness, his emptiness. There will immediately rise from the depth of his heart weariness, gloom, sadness, fretfulness, vexation, despair.”
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““And how do you know that you’re mad?”
“To begin with,” the Cat said, “a dog’s not mad. You grant that?”
“I suppose so,” said Alice.
“Well then,” the Cat went on, “you see a dog growls when it’s angry, and wags its tail when it’s pleased. Now I growl when I’m pleased, and wag my tail when I’m angry. Therefore I’m mad.””
—Lewis Carroll [Charles Lutwidge Dodgson] (1832–1898)