A Dog's Heart
Sharik is a hapless stray dog, baffled observer of human kind and vitriolic haterofcats. He is plucked from the streets of communistMoscow by Preobrazhensky, a medical professor, and subjected to a bizarre, human-gland-transplanting experiment. When Sharik begins to transform in weird and unexpected ways, his creator's virtuoso scientific confidence turns rapidly to wonderment, and then to horrified soul-searching. Bulgakov's hilarious science fiction is an angry satire of the, Utopian communist dream gone spectacularly awry, in which sinister forces lurk everywhere. Written in 1925 but immediately banned by the early Soviet government, the novella captures, in a unique style that alternates lucid realism with pulse-raising drama, the atmosphere of its rapidly changing times.
Andrew Bromfield's vibrant new translation is accompanied by an introduction by James Meek, which places the work in the context of the Russian class struggles of the era and considers the vision, progressive style and lasting relevance of an author who was isolated and suppressed in his own lifetime. This edition also contains notes and a chronology.
Свежая озорная фантазия царит в повести "Собачье сердце", которую Михаил Булгаков так и не увидел при жизни напечатанной. Существо с собачьим сердцем и замашками хозяина новой жизни, искусственно созданное и ускоренно воспитанное, - ему подобные должны были строить бесклассовое общество. "Я - мистический писатель", - говорил о себе Михаил Афанасьевич, имея в виду, насколько притягательной для него всегда была область магического, таинственного и страшного в каждодневной нашей жизни.
Svezhaja ozornaja fantazija tsarit v povesti "Sobache serdtse", kotoruju Mikhail Bulgakov tak i ne uvidel pri zhizni napechatannoj. Suschestvo s sobachim serdtsem i zamashkami khozjaina novoj zhizni, iskusstvenno sozdannoe i uskorenno vospitannoe, - emu podobnye dolzhny byli stroit besklassovoe obschestvo. "Ja - misticheskij pisatel", - govoril o sebe Mikhail Afanasevich, imeja v vidu, naskolko pritjagatelnoj dlja nego vsegda byla oblast magicheskogo, tainstvennogo i strashnogo v kazhdodnevnoj nashej zhizni.
