--- product_id: 8576057 title: "Heart of a Dog" price: "€ 22.68" currency: EUR in_stock: true reviews_count: 13 url: https://www.desertcart.ie/products/8576057-heart-of-a-dog store_origin: IE region: Ireland --- # Heart of a Dog **Price:** € 22.68 **Availability:** ✅ In Stock ## Quick Answers - **What is this?** Heart of a Dog - **How much does it cost?** € 22.68 with free shipping - **Is it available?** Yes, in stock and ready to ship - **Where can I buy it?** [www.desertcart.ie](https://www.desertcart.ie/products/8576057-heart-of-a-dog) ## Best For - Customers looking for quality international products ## Why This Product - Free international shipping included - Worldwide delivery with tracking - 15-day hassle-free returns ## Description I first read Mikhail Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita on a balcony of the Hotel Metropole in Saigon on three summer evenings in 1971. The tropical air was heavy and full of the smells of cordite and motorcycle exhaust and rotting fish and wood-fire stoves, and the horizon flared ambiguously, perhaps from heat lightning, perhaps from bombs. Later each night, as was my custom, I would wander out into the steamy back alleys of the city, where no one ever seemed to sleep, and crouch in doorways with the people and listen to the stories of their culture and their ancestors and their ongoing lives. Bulgakov taught me to hear something in those stories that I had not yet clearly heard. One could call it, in terms that would soon thereafter gain wide currency, "magical realism". The deadpan mix of the fantastic and the realistic was at the heart of the Vietnamese mythos. It is at the heart of the present zeitgeist. And it was not invented by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, as wonderful as his One Hundred Years of Solitude is. Garcia Marquez's landmark work of magical realism was predated by nearly three decades by Bulgakov's brilliant masterpiece of a novel. That summer in Saigon a vodka-swilling, talking black cat, a coven of beautiful naked witches, Pontius Pilate, and a whole cast of benighted writers of Stalinist Moscow and Satan himself all took up permanent residence in my creative unconscious. Their presence, perhaps more than anything else from the realm of literature, has helped shape the work I am most proud of. I'm often asked for a list of favorite authors. Here is my advice. Read Bulgakov. Look around you at the new century. He will show you things you need to see. Review: Open to many interpretations ... - Mikhail Bulgakov (1891-1940) endured the difficult experience of having to live under the pressure of censorship, but has nonetheless left some interesting books that allow us to know what he thought about the process that has taking place in the newborn Soviet Russia. "Heart of a dog" is one of those books. It was written by Bulgakov in 1925, but it wasn`t published in Soviet Russia until 1987, due to the fact that it can easily be interpreted as a critical satire regarding the URSS. "Heart of a dog" is the story of a stray dog, Sharik, that hasn`t led an easy life. He lives in the streets of Moscow, and eats what he can, when he can. However, one day a doctor gives him food and takes him to his home. Sharik believes that his fate has changed, but he doesn`t know that the doctor has rather strange intentions... The doctor wants to perform an experiment on Sharik, in order to learn what would happen if some human organs were transplanted to a dog. The doctor performs the operation, implanting in Sharik the pituitary gland and the testicles of a dead criminal. Against all odds, Sharik survives the operation, and from that moment on begins an extraordinary transformation, that makes him more and more human. But what kind of human is he?. Sharik can talk, and asks everybody to call him first "Mr. Sharikov", and afterwards "Polygraph Polygraphovich Sharikov". He also walks like a human being, and somehow resembles one... But can he think, or does he merely repeat what he hears, specially Marx`s teachings?. Has the doctor`s experiment ruined a perfectly good dog, making him a perfectly despicable "human" being that threatens to denounce counterrevolutionaries and chases cats?. I don`t want to tell you more about this book: you really should read it yourself. It isn`t long, but it is quite interesting. What is more important, it is open to many interpretations, and you can always find your own. Some people believe that for Bulgakov Sharik represented the failure of those who try to create new beings (exactly what was supposedly being done at that time in the URSS, with the "soviet man"). Others highlight the glimpses of Soviet society that "Heart of a dog" allows us to have, and think that the aim of the author was to give the reader at least an idea of what it was like to live in the URSS at that time... These few possible interpretations don't exclude others, so read this book and find them!!. Obviously, I highly recommend "Heart of a dog"... Belen Alcat Review: Outrageous, entertaining, satire of Communism's efforts to remake human nature - Mikhail Bulgakov is a master of the outlandish and the surreal. And this book is full of both. Just when you think Bulgakov can’t get any more outrageous, he surprises you with odd twists and turns. The novella begins with a charming tale of a stray dog but this is no Walt Disney tale, for this dog becomes the pet of a renowned Moscow professor of medicine who plants human glands into the dog’s body and the dog becomes a monstrosity. Communism has presented itself to the world as a scientific political theory and I felt like Bulgakov was trying to tell us that despite the science behind Communism, the brute aspects of humanity can’t be washed away. As a sub-human, part-dog creature, we see behaviors that are rude, boorish, violent, but all too human. Human nature, including the worst aspects of human nature, exists even after scientific Communism has taken over. The goal of creating a new breed of man, which was one of the goals of Communism, is impossible and backfires in the writing of Bulgakov. I am reminded of his masterpiece, the Master and Margarita, where the Communist outlaw God but they forgot to outlaw the Devil. The book was written at a time when there were physicians who were injecting patients with hormones or glands of sheep fetus or monkey gonads to bring about everlasting youth or sexual stamina. Bulgakov takes this theme and runs with it. The dog Sharik becomes the human Sharikov, and as such becomes the image of the dull intelligence, short temper, crudeness, non-verbal, non-rationalizing, violent, prejudicial, of the worst group of lower class, lower income persons. Bulgakov would have us see that the Communist experiment can allow this type of person to gain power and influence and to be very socially destructive in their actions. Moscow must have been chaos in the 1930’s as one complete political and economic system is being replaced by another, and thus there is much room for human brutes to rise in a totalitarian system that allowed no dissent. I don’t want to give the impression that the book is all ideology, since in fact, it is highly inventive, entertaining, and outrageously satiric. The scenes are vivid and well written, easily imagined. I recommend this short book. It reminded me of the George Orwell’s Animal Farm mixed with Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein. I know other reviewers have made this comparison but it is a great description of the book to someone who has not yet read it. ## Technical Specifications | Specification | Value | |---------------|-------| | Best Sellers Rank | #85,558 in Books ( See Top 100 in Books ) #93 in Absurdist Fiction (Books) #214 in British & Irish Humor & Satire #1,135 in Fiction Satire | | Customer Reviews | 4.5 out of 5 stars 589 Reviews | ## Images ![Heart of a Dog - Image 1](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/A1XoD909J8L.jpg) ## Customer Reviews ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Open to many interpretations ... *by B***L on August 27, 2004* Mikhail Bulgakov (1891-1940) endured the difficult experience of having to live under the pressure of censorship, but has nonetheless left some interesting books that allow us to know what he thought about the process that has taking place in the newborn Soviet Russia. "Heart of a dog" is one of those books. It was written by Bulgakov in 1925, but it wasn`t published in Soviet Russia until 1987, due to the fact that it can easily be interpreted as a critical satire regarding the URSS. "Heart of a dog" is the story of a stray dog, Sharik, that hasn`t led an easy life. He lives in the streets of Moscow, and eats what he can, when he can. However, one day a doctor gives him food and takes him to his home. Sharik believes that his fate has changed, but he doesn`t know that the doctor has rather strange intentions... The doctor wants to perform an experiment on Sharik, in order to learn what would happen if some human organs were transplanted to a dog. The doctor performs the operation, implanting in Sharik the pituitary gland and the testicles of a dead criminal. Against all odds, Sharik survives the operation, and from that moment on begins an extraordinary transformation, that makes him more and more human. But what kind of human is he?. Sharik can talk, and asks everybody to call him first "Mr. Sharikov", and afterwards "Polygraph Polygraphovich Sharikov". He also walks like a human being, and somehow resembles one... But can he think, or does he merely repeat what he hears, specially Marx`s teachings?. Has the doctor`s experiment ruined a perfectly good dog, making him a perfectly despicable "human" being that threatens to denounce counterrevolutionaries and chases cats?. I don`t want to tell you more about this book: you really should read it yourself. It isn`t long, but it is quite interesting. What is more important, it is open to many interpretations, and you can always find your own. Some people believe that for Bulgakov Sharik represented the failure of those who try to create new beings (exactly what was supposedly being done at that time in the URSS, with the "soviet man"). Others highlight the glimpses of Soviet society that "Heart of a dog" allows us to have, and think that the aim of the author was to give the reader at least an idea of what it was like to live in the URSS at that time... These few possible interpretations don't exclude others, so read this book and find them!!. Obviously, I highly recommend "Heart of a dog"... Belen Alcat ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Outrageous, entertaining, satire of Communism's efforts to remake human nature *by C***S on May 19, 2014* Mikhail Bulgakov is a master of the outlandish and the surreal. And this book is full of both. Just when you think Bulgakov can’t get any more outrageous, he surprises you with odd twists and turns. The novella begins with a charming tale of a stray dog but this is no Walt Disney tale, for this dog becomes the pet of a renowned Moscow professor of medicine who plants human glands into the dog’s body and the dog becomes a monstrosity. Communism has presented itself to the world as a scientific political theory and I felt like Bulgakov was trying to tell us that despite the science behind Communism, the brute aspects of humanity can’t be washed away. As a sub-human, part-dog creature, we see behaviors that are rude, boorish, violent, but all too human. Human nature, including the worst aspects of human nature, exists even after scientific Communism has taken over. The goal of creating a new breed of man, which was one of the goals of Communism, is impossible and backfires in the writing of Bulgakov. I am reminded of his masterpiece, the Master and Margarita, where the Communist outlaw God but they forgot to outlaw the Devil. The book was written at a time when there were physicians who were injecting patients with hormones or glands of sheep fetus or monkey gonads to bring about everlasting youth or sexual stamina. Bulgakov takes this theme and runs with it. The dog Sharik becomes the human Sharikov, and as such becomes the image of the dull intelligence, short temper, crudeness, non-verbal, non-rationalizing, violent, prejudicial, of the worst group of lower class, lower income persons. Bulgakov would have us see that the Communist experiment can allow this type of person to gain power and influence and to be very socially destructive in their actions. Moscow must have been chaos in the 1930’s as one complete political and economic system is being replaced by another, and thus there is much room for human brutes to rise in a totalitarian system that allowed no dissent. I don’t want to give the impression that the book is all ideology, since in fact, it is highly inventive, entertaining, and outrageously satiric. The scenes are vivid and well written, easily imagined. I recommend this short book. It reminded me of the George Orwell’s Animal Farm mixed with Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein. I know other reviewers have made this comparison but it is a great description of the book to someone who has not yet read it. ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ Bulgakov's novella is a must read. *by J***D on October 1, 2025* One of them most important modern writers in Russian history. If you've never read a book of novel, I would start here. It is one of my favorite books, and I would put it on the same level as Old Man and the Sea or The Hobbit --- ## Why Shop on Desertcart? - 🛒 **Trusted by 1.3+ Million Shoppers** — Serving international shoppers since 2016 - 🌍 **Shop Globally** — Access 737+ million products across 21 categories - 💰 **No Hidden Fees** — All customs, duties, and taxes included in the price - 🔄 **15-Day Free Returns** — Hassle-free returns (30 days for PRO members) - 🔒 **Secure Payments** — Trusted payment options with buyer protection - ⭐ **TrustPilot Rated 4.5/5** — Based on 8,000+ happy customer reviews **Shop now:** [https://www.desertcart.ie/products/8576057-heart-of-a-dog](https://www.desertcart.ie/products/8576057-heart-of-a-dog) --- *Product available on Desertcart Ireland* *Store origin: IE* *Last updated: 2026-08-14*