Not as ambitious as Master & Margarita and not as funny as The Fatal Eggs, The Heart of a Dog nonetheless has plenty of Bulgakov satirical absurdity, wicked fun, and biting puns. Where it might fall short, at least for me, is in its shifting focus which can perplex readers who wish to follow its themes.

The first portion of the novella is from the creative and absurd perspective of the titular dog, a stray adopted and offered a lavish lifestyle before the experiment. Furball's sensibility is common, gustatory, and apprehensive at all the wrong moments (not unlike many humans). When subjected to an operation and granted human pituitary and sexual organs, the resulting transformation is matched by a move in point of view. We oddly read much of his progress through the documents of the doctor. Finally, when we see the final incarnation of Poligraf Poligrafovich Furballov (!), we are offered a third person point of view of the action, where our titular victim now externalizes a wide range of offensive opinions and invective.

The result is a work with satirical themes around the dehumanizing work of politics, the politics of class and of science, eugenics, and the normalizing of manners and propriety to protect it all. Another work of Bulgakov which was never published in his lifetime but offered about in the underground samizdat, it is easy to understand both its appeal and repression.  Need a quick read that offers some intellectual chuckles? This is a good choice.