Failures of Transformation in Sobac'e serdce

Narrating Animal Trauma in Bulgakov and Tolstoy

“…. who serves as an autobiographical spokesman for [Bulgakov's] , and an idiom attested by Vladimir Dal', the great Russian lexicographer: "Don't beat the dog, for even she used to be human, having been transformed into a dog due to gluttony" (Ne bei sobaki, i ona byla chelovekom, obrashchena v psa za prozhorlivost') ( [7], p. 391, my translation). The preponderance of canine figures, not to mention the Aesopian idiom which straddles the human/animal divide, sheds light onto why Bulgakov may have chosen a dog as his narrator as well as the subject of the experiment.…”

“…Perhaps I'm really a dog prince, living incognito, mused the dog as he watched the shaggy, coffee-coloured dog with the smug expression strolling about in the 4 It is worth noting that Bulgakov was trained as a doctor and had practiced medicine before turning to literature. While from his portrayal of Sharik, the pet, we might infer the novelist's benevolent and empathetic attitude, in the chapter describing the operation, informed no doubt by his own practical experience, Bulgakov, in Susanne Fusso's words, "spares no detail of spurting blood or oozing tissue" as he "emphasizes the intense physicality of surgery" ( [7], p. 391). The latter, arguably, tells us more about his attitude toward the brutality of science-and the Bolshevik revolution-than toward animals.…”

“…, and surprising worldliness" ( [29], p. 551). Another critic charges that the dog's "seemingly first-person narrative" is, in fact, "contaminated by the voice of an omniscient third-person narrator" ( [7], p. 389). Although embedded in Glenny's English translation without any distinguishing punctuation, this mirror passage is enclosed in quotation marks in the original Russian, thereby marking off the dog's interiority ( [23], p. 539).…”

“…Gaps and incongruities are left in order to signal that this transformation too remains on the level of figurative language. This is not a dog's narration but a dog-like narration ( [7], pp. 389-90).…”

“…Tolstoy's Strider and Bulgakov's Heart of a Dog have been read as social and political commentaries, and even critics who have focused on the first-person animal narrators in these short novels, through philological, historical, political, and narratological lenses, have seen the animal experience as representative of human concerns [4][5][6][7][8]. With a few exceptions [9,10], critical readings tend to be human-centric even as the texts themselves center on the animal in pain.…”