Reviews

Memorie di un giovane medico by Mikhail Bulgakov

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sfox_the_reader's review against another edition

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dark funny informative inspiring medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.5

Content Warnings

cerviallacarica's review against another edition

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funny informative inspiring reflective medium-paced

beril's review against another edition

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medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

3kojou's review against another edition

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i really enjoyed this!!! it was rather humorous and while i wouldn't say i exactly learned anything... i certainly feel like i know more about the human body and what can happen to it than i ever did before. i've lived a very privileged and easy life and so have never experienced anything even close to anything that was written in this book... it was a look into an entirely different world.
i appreciated the good humour that balanced out the doctor's adjustment and stress getting used to something he had little experience with, all at once thrown into the deep end. furthermore it was really interesting seeing what the medical field was like & in general what rural russia was like at the time, although the classism and whatnot was rather hmm... but seems par for the course at least based on the admittedly rather few russian novels i've read.
in any case despite the rather heavy subject material, i found this to be really good and engaging

scrapespaghetti's review against another edition

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5.0

Notes to myself..
quote#1"

18th May
A sultry night. A thunderstorm is brewing, black storm clouds building up beyond the forest. A moment ago there came a pale warning flash of lightning. The storm has begun.

A book is open in front of me and this is what it has to say about the symptoms of morphine withdrawal:

‘… morbid anxiety, a nervous depressed condition, irritability, weakening of the memory, occasional hallucinations and a mild impairment of consciousness …’

I have not experienced any hallucinations, but I can only say that the rest of this description is dull, pedestrian and totally inadequate. ‘Depressed condition’ indeed! Having suffered from this appalling malady, I hereby enjoin all doctors to be more compassionate toward their patients. What overtakes the addict deprived of morphine for a mere hour or two is not a ‘depressed condition’: it is slow death. Air is insubstantial, gulping it down is useless…there is not a cell in one’s body that does not crave…but crave what? This is something which defies analysis and explanation. In short, the individual ceases to exist: he is eliminated. The body which moves, agonises and suffers is a corpse. It wants nothing, can think of nothing but morphine. To die of thirst is a heavenly, blissful death compared with the craving for morphine. The feeling must be something like that of a man buried alive, clawing at the skin on his chest in the effort to catch the last tiny bubbles of air in his coffin, or of a heretic at the stake, groaning and writhing as the first tongues of flame lick at his feet.

Death. A dry, slow death. That is what lurks behind that clinical, academic phrase ‘a depressed condition’.

I can’t hold out. I have just had to inject myself. A deep breath. And another.

Feeling better. Ah…there it is…a stab of cold in the pit of my stomach, a taste of peppermint…

Three syringes of a 3% solution. That will last me until midnight.

Nonsense. That last entry was nonsense. It’s not as bad as that. Sooner or later I’ll give it up…but now I need sleep, sleep.

This idiotic, agonising battle against morphine is wearing me out.

(The next couple of dozen or so pages are torn out.)

…ing.

…gain vomited at 4.30 a.m.

When I feel better I shall record this appalling experience.

quote#2"

17th January
Blizzard today, so no consultation. During the hours of abstention I read a textbook of psychiatry and it appalled me. I am done for; there’s no hope.

During abstinence I am terrified by the slightest sound and I find people detestable. I am afraid of them. In the euphoric phase I love everyone, although I prefer solitude
Outward appearance: thin, pale with a waxen pallor.

I took a bath and afterwards weighed myself on the hospital scales. Last year I weighed 148 lbs (67 kgs); now I weigh 120 lbs (54 kgs). I had a fright as I watched the needle on the dial, but the shock soon passed.

My forearms and thighs are a mass of unhealed abscesses. I don’t know how to prepare sterile solutions, besides which I have injected myself with an unsterilised syringe on about three occasions when I was in a great hurry to go out on my rounds.

This can’t be allowed to go on.

quote#3"

18th January
I had the following hallucination:

I was sitting in front of a blank, dark window expecting some kind of pale figures to appear. The suspense was intolerable. Yet there was nothing there except the blind. I fetched some gauze from the hospital and draped it over the window. I was unable to think of a rational excuse for my action.

Hell, why should I have to find a pretext for every single thing I do? What I am living is not a normal existence, but torture.

Do I express my thoughts lucidly?
I think I do.
What is my life? An absurdity.

quote#4"

11th February
I have decided to appeal to Bomgard. Why to him? Because he is not a psychiatrist; because he’s young and we were friends at university. He is healthy and tough yet kind-hearted, if I have gauged his character right. Perhaps he will be reli…sympathetic. He will think of some solution. He can take me to Moscow if he wants to. I can’t go to him. My sick leave has been approved. I am not going to work in the hospital, but am lying in bed.

I swore at the feldsher. He just laughed…It doesn’t matter. He had come to report to me, and offered to sound my respiration and heartbeat.

I refused to let him. Must I go on finding excuses for refusing? I am sick of inventing pretexts.

The note has been sent off to Bomgard.

People! Won’t anyone help me?

I am lapsing into outbursts of self-pity. If anybody were to read this they would find it maudlin and insincere. But no one will read it.

Before writing to Bomgard, all my memories came back to me. I had a particular recollection of a Moscow railway station in November, when I was running away from the clinic. What an appalling evening that was. I had gone to a lavatory in the station to inject my stolen morphine. It was a nightmare. People were banging on the door, shouting and swearing at me for spending too long in there, my hands were shaking and the doorhandle was rattling so violently that I thought the door would burst open at any moment.

This was when I started to develop abscesses.

I wept the night that I remembered that incident.

12th Night
I wept again. Why does this disgusting weakness come over me at night?
13th February 1918. Dawn, Gorelovo
I can congratulate myself: I have not had an injection for fourteen hours! Fourteen! An unbelievable number. Murky yellowish light of dawn. Soon I shall be quite cured.

On mature reflection I don’t need Bomgard, or anyone else for that matter. It would be shameful to prolong my life a minute more. Certainly not a life like mine. The remedy is right beside me. Why didn’t I think of it before?

Well, let’s get it over with. I owe nothing to anyone. I have destroyed only myself. And Anna. What else can I do?

Time will heal all, as Amneris sang. It’s easy and simple enough for her.

This notebook is for Bomgard. That’s all …

anastasiarozova's review against another edition

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4.0

I read it in Russian, of course, and now I'm rereading it, because I loooove this book really much. I think it's worth reading, even though there are only several short stories.