What happens when a rather touching stray dog, accidentally scalded by water, is rescued by an eminent scientist only to become the victim of a bizarre experiment in humanisation, involving the implanting of the pituitary gland and testicles of an alcoholic criminal? You've guessed it, disaster. Written in 1925, but not published in Russia until 1987, this short novel is both magic realism and a comic, scathing satire on the Stalinists' attempts to manipulate human behaviour.
(Jenny Baker - bwl 65 Summer 2012 ) |
