چقد عجیب. من اینو اصن نزدم که خوندمش. بعد قلب سگی خوندم. و عاشقش شدم! نه فقط عاشق این کتاب، عاشق خود بولگاکف! نه حالا عاشق واقعاً. :)) ولی خیلی بهم چسبید. تمام تلخیها و لحظات استرسزا و بامزه و حساس، همه عالی بودن. خیلی برام زنده بودن، انگار همون جا بودم. مثلاً یکی از دستیارهاش بودم. چقد عالی بود. بازم میخونمش. هایلی ریکامندد. Fiction, Short Stories, Memoir به جرات شاید بتوان گفت که تک تک کلمات کتاب یادداشت های یک پزشک جوان نوشته میخاییل بولگاکف سرشار از عشق به بشریت ، امید و اراده و نبوغ و صداقت نویسنده ی دانای کتاب است ، آقای بولگاکف در این کتاب از خاطرات خود پس از اتمام تحصیلاتش و عازم شدن به بیمارستان روستایی دور در ایالت نیکولسکویه می گوید .
او در اوج جوانی و بی تجربگی و بی ثباتی روسیه انقلاب زده مسئول و همه کاره بیمارستانی در روستایی عقب مانده می شود و در این کار از خود پشتکار ، اراده و حس مسئولیت ونبوغ نشان می دهد و آماری شگفت انگیز مانند ویزیت 15هزار بیمار در یک سال از خود به جا می گذارد .
بولگاکف برای ویزیت یک بیمار در شب سیاه و برف و بوران با یک کالسکه از شهری به شهر دیگر می رود ، از چنگ گرگ ها فرار می کند ، جان خود را برای نجات بیماران به خطر می اندازد . او گاهی وقتها از دیدن کارنامه خود مغرور می شود اما بلافاصله اشتباه پزشکی مانند کندن آرواره بیمار بدبخت هنگام کشیدن دندان ! به او یاد آوری می کند که هنوز جوان است و بسیار بی تجربه .
بخشی از کتاب یادداشتی از دکتر دیگری ایست که از بولگاکف قبلا کمک خواسته ، این دکتر نتوانسته در برابر سختی و مشقت و مسئولیت این کار جان فرسا مقاومت کرده و به مورفین معتاد شده است، روند معتاد شدن او بسیار بسیار خواندنی و دردناک شرح داده شده ، این که اعتیاد چگونه او را مانند هیولایی بلعیده .
بولگاکف به مبارزه ای بی امان با بیماری بسیار خطرناک و کشنده سفلیس پرداخته بود ، بیماری که با علائم ظاهری ناچیز و بیشتر خاموش آغاز می شده ، او در همان حال با جهل بسیار عمیق و ریشه دار روستاییان روسیه هم می جنگیده که بیماری خود را جدی نمی گرفتند و باعث آلوده شدن بیشتر ملت به این بیماری کُشنده می شدند .
حس مسئولیت بولگاکف واقعا ستودنی ایست ، اراده قوی او به همراه صداقت فوق العاده اش و البته روش منحصر به فرد نوشتن او این کتاب را اثری برجسته کرده است .
خواندن این کتاب مصادف شد با شیوع ویروس کرونا در جهان و سپس در ایران و احساس عدم صداقتی از نوع صداقت پزشک جوان عالی جناب میخاییل بولگاکف . Fiction, Short Stories, Memoir Written between 1924 and 1927, these short stories are a mile away his most famous novel 'The Master and Margarita', here instead adopting a raw, realistic account of his experiences as a 24 year-old doctor in remote north-west Russia, where he was put in charge of a small hospital and left to get on with it, sometimes in conditions that were dreadful. Isolation is a big thing running through the book, the distance from civilised society weighs heavily on the soul. Alone at night in his study, with only his oil lamp for comfort, he reflects: The midnight express to Moscow rushes moaning past and does not even stop... The nearest street lamps are 32 miles away in the district town. This is a world of grinding hardship and violent contrasts, induced warmth, the bitterly cold wilderness outside; months of darkness that drags on with just the fragile light of the kerosene lamp for company. The brutal, impersonal force of the physical world not only endangers his patients, but threatens to extinguish the metaphorical light of reason, knowledge and social progress. At first, Bulgakov's university-trained mind is his sole weapon against the ignorance, cunning and superstition of the peasants, but as the months pass, he grows increasingly cunning himself, learns to outwit their objections with displays of confidence he does not feel and knowledge he does not always possess. Bulgakov casts a wry, self-deprecating humour. What shines through in Bulgakov’s hero is that this worry, although at times exhausting for the doctor, has a flip side. It’s what makes him so good at his job. It is what helps him to learn, bestows him with compassion for his patients, brings him satisfaction when the sick recover. For Bulgakov, the anxiety experienced by this doctor is not necessarily something to be “cured” as much as managed and even, at times, celebrated. His compassion for human folly is unfailing, and he nails his own foibles as unflinchingly as everyone else's. A country doctors's Notebook stands testament both to human resilience and a remarkable literary talent. Along with 'The White Guard', this is Bulgakov getting deep down in real life situations of his time. He definitely belongs up there with the great 20th century writers. Fiction, Short Stories, Memoir - مجموعة قصص قصيرة تنقل لنا تجارب طبيب شاب (بولغاكوف ذاته) بعد تخرجه من الجامعة وابتدائه بمزاولة الطب في الريف.
- اهم ما يميّز هذه المذكرات هو الصدق، فالطبيب الذي تخرج بعلامات عالية جداً كان خائفا وضائعاً ومشتتاً في تجاربه الاولى وهو لم يخجل بنقل ذلك الينا، وتعلم من تجاربه وبقي يتعلم. وهذا ما لا نراه كثيرا حالياً حيث يتخرج الكثيرون (بشتى المجالات) من دون اي خبرة عملية ويبدأون بالتنظير يميناً وشمالاً.
- من الناحية الأدبية لا تحمل هذه المذكرات الشيئ الكثير، فلغتها عادية ومضمونها لابأس به. لكنها تحمل الكثير من العواطف والقيم الإنسانية. Fiction, Short Stories, Memoir این ریویو را نخست با نقد مترجم آغاز میکنم
آقای آبتین گلکار چرا موخرهها را در پیشگفتارها ریختید؟
در پیشگفتار بولگاکوف را معرفی کردید، خیلی کار پسندیدهای کردید چون همهی خوانندهها ممکن است او را نشناسند و نخستین کتابی باشد که از او میخوانند اما وقتی فصل آخر(مرفین) هیجانانگیزترین فصل کتاب است چرا در مورد این بخش در پیشگفتار صحبت میکنید؟ کافی بود این بخش را در قالب یک موخره کار کنید.
از این نقد که بگذرم شایسته است تاکید کنم که من ترجمههای آقای گلکار را میپسندم و این کتاب نیز از ترجمهی روانی برخوردار بود اما نمیتوانستم نقدم را بازگو نکنم.
نکتهی مهم:
به دوستانم که نیت به خواندن این کتاب را دارند، پیشنهاد میکنم فکر کنند روز مطالعه چهارشنبهسوری است و پیشگفتار مترجم هم آتش و از روی آن با همان شادابی بپرند و به اصل داستان برسند و پس از پایان کتاب به سراغ پیشگفتار بروند.
بگذریم،
این کتاب از هفت فصل + یک ابرفصل(مرفین) تشکیل شده و بولگاکوفِ دوست داشتنی در هر فصل خاطرات خود از دوران ابتدایی پزشکی خود یعنی وقتی که ۲۳ سال داشت و تازه فارغالتحصیل شده بود نقل میکند و پرواضح است که داستانها و وقایع واقعیست.
من به عنوان کسی که بولگاکوف را دوست دارم و یکی از نویسندههای محبوبم است با سطح انتظار تعدیل شده به سراغ این کتاب آمدم اما نهایتا از خواندن هر فصل آن لذت بردم و از خواندن آن به هیچوجه خسته نشدم.
این کتاب چیز زیادی نداشت که بخواهم از آن نقل کنم اما خواندنش رو به دوستانم به خصوص دوستانی که به بولگاکوف علاقه دارند پیشنهاد میکنم.
بیست و ششم شهریورماه یکهزار و چهارصد Fiction, Short Stories, Memoir
Bu Bulgakov ile ilk tanışmam. Günlerdir, bu kitaptaki öyküleriyle yatıp kalkıyorum.
Devrim Rusyasında geçen güzel öyküler. Hem dönemin çıkmazlarına hem de okulu yeni bitirmiş doktorun ücra bir yerde tüm imkansızlıklarla görevini yapmaya çalışmasına şahit oluyoruz. Soğuk, yalnızlık, vicdan, korku ve daha bir çok zorluğa rağmen, genç doktorun acemiliğini günden güne nasıl da geride bıraktığını görüyoruz.
Çok kolaylıkla takip edilen, akıp giden bir anlatımı var ama bundan sığ olduğu çıkarılmasın. Anlatım dipdiri. Zifiri karanlık, at arabasıyla başka bir köye hasta görmek için giderken tipiye yakalanan doktorla aynı kabinde seyahat ediyorsunuz sanki. Kar taneleri yüzünüze vurup ince keskin çiziklerle canınızı yakıyor, elleriniz çatlıyor soğuktan. Arabacı yolu kaybedecek ve oracıkta çakallara yem olacaksınız korkusuyla yüreğiniz pırpır.
Hem edebiyat hem kurgu yönünden oldukça doyurucuydu Genç Bir Doktorun Anıları. Sıra Bulgakov’un başka kitaplarında. Tanıştığımıza çok memnunum. Fiction, Short Stories, Memoir ‘As one year has passed, so will another, and it will be just as rich in surprises as the first one… And so I have to go on dutifully learning.’
While we are all watching the world attempt to navigate public health, I decided to pick up this little book about a young doctor plunged into a rural district full of locals distrustful of medicine or doctors in general with a small staff battling against an overflow of patients. This might sound...uncomfortably familiar to *gestures wildly at everything right now* but here is A Young Doctor’s Notebook by the great Mikhail Bulgakov. Author of one of my all-time favorite works, The Master and Margarita, Mikhail Bulgakov based this book on his own life as a young doctor, told here as Dr. Bomgard. Having graduated from medical school in Moscow, Dr. Bomgard and his fresh, eager face are sent to a provincial hospital for a year of baptism by fire. As one would expect with Bulgakov, A Young Doctor’s Notebook is darkly comic and rife with social criticisms as we follow the young doctor, cut-from the world besides a small staff, as he learns that knowledge often cannot take the place of experience. Frustrated by locals who won’t trust him and frantically learning on the fly, this collection of stories becomes a truly uplifting and encouraging book about setting aside imposter syndrome, diving in and saving lives.
‘Clever people have long been aware that happiness is like good health: when you have it, you don't notice it. But as the years go by, oh, the memories, the memories of happiness past!’
Written between 1925-1926 about his time as a doctor in 1917, Bulgakov published these stories in various literary journals but had intended to eventually compile them into one volume. Unfortunately this never occurred within his own lifetime and many of his writings were censored or outright banned under Stalin. This edition, translated by Hugh Aplin, also includes a much longer story, Morphine, a deeply personal and autobiographical story detailing Bulgakov’s own addiction to morphine that was separately published as a novel in 1926, as well as a 30 page biography about the author.
‘Forty-eight days ago I graduated with high distinction, but distinction is one thing and hernia is another.’
Much like Bulgakov being sent to Smolensk province after medical school, A Young Doctor’s Notebook opens with Dr. Bomgard arriving in a small provincial hospital seperated from the nearest train station by several miles of what can barely even be considered a road. It is bleak, remote, and far from anything Bomgard knows having grown up well off in Moscow.
‘We are cut off from people. The first kerosene lamps are seven miles away from us at the railway station, and even their flickering light has probably been blown out by the snowstorm. The fast train to Moscow will go howling by at midnight and won’t even stop — it has no need of a forgotten station, buried in a blizzard. Unless the tracks are snowed under.’
Bomgard arrives with a head full of academic knowledge, but no experience and quickly realizes his young features, lack of beard and ‘adolescent gait’ also undermine respect for him amongst the staff and locals. He also is stepping into the shadows of the hospitals previous doctor, the very much revered and heavily bearded Leopold Leopoldovich. Leopoldovich has left behind a considerable library of medical works, which become the bookish Bomgard’s sanctuary and savior in the difficult year to come.
‘Oh dear, if only I could read a bit of Döderlein now!’ the young doctor often thinks as new situations arise, often running back to his room on the pretense of needing a cigarette in order to rapidly turn through textbooks like cramming for an exam. It makes for a charming and relatable read, with the doctor studying how to perform a surgery moments before doing it, or, when about to deliver a complicated pregnancy, being bombarded by warnings of death or other dangerous consequences should he not perform perfectly. ‘From fragmentary words, unfinished phrases, hints dropped in passing,’ he later admits, ‘I learnt those most essential things that are never in any books.’ As his experience grows, so does his confidence and he learns to believe in himself, in his abilities, and to not overthink the mistakes. Which are many, a particularly comical one involving the overzealous pulling of a soldier’s tooth and his days of anxiety that follow.
Bomgard’s struggles definitely hit home and made me also reflect on my early days of employment with a darkly humorous fondness. My first job directly out of university was to work in a sign making factory in a very conservative district outside Grand Rapids. Having just left years of studying, literature, philosophy and political activism were still my favorite topics of conversation which I quickly learned made me quite the weirdo, asshole or potential communist demon depending on who you asked within the factory. There is a line in Steinbeck’s In Dubious Battle warning the man sent to organize a union that he should never use a word the men don’t understand or he will lose them and their trust. This was a good lesson to learn and adapt, yet, as Bulgakov shows here, sometimes simply knowing something makes you untrustworthy or unliked. Much of the humor in these stories is the superstitions and other excuses locals give for distrusting medicine or the doctor himself. As Michael Glenny wrote about Bulgakov, ‘This was the sense of being a lone soldier of reason and enlightenment pitted against the vast, dark, ocean-like mass of peasant ignorance and superstition.’ It can get a bit elitist, mind you, but currently living through a global pandemic where I’m watching my local health dept be protested by armed militia for asking people to wear a mask while a separate protest against vaccines was going on at the hospital...lets just say I was having a sigh and a roll of the eyes along with Bulgakov. The story about trying to stop the spread of syphilis includes a moment when people say they cannot be quarantined because it will impact local businesses. I high-fived Bulgakov and yelled yea man, I remember that!
‘In a year I have seen 15,613 patients, I had 200 hospitalized patients, and only six died.’
By the end of the book we see Bomgard having transformed into a confident doctor, which is truly inspiring. Word gets out and he begins having over a hundred patients a day (more than even the late great Leopoldovich). He still makes mistakes but he learns more and more from each moment and each day. In the end, the biggest lesson is to trust in yourself and to always be learning. While this is not the heft and power of The Master and Margarita (honestly what could be though), this is still a fantastic little book and one of my favorites I’ve read this year.
4.5/5
‘And now a whole year has passed. While it lasted it seemed endlessly varied, multifarious, complex and terrible, although I now realise that it has flown by like a hurricane. I stare into the mirror and see the traces that it has left on my face. There is more severity and anxiety in my eyes, the mouth is more confident and manly, while the vertical wrinkle between my eyebrows will remain for a lifetime – as long, in fact, as my memories. I can see them as I look in the mirror, chasing each other in headlong succession.’ Fiction, Short Stories, Memoir Записки юного врача = Zapiski yonogo vracha = A Country Doctor's Notebook = A Young Doctor's Notebook, Mikhail Bulgakov
A Young Doctor's Notebook A Young Doctor's Notes, also known as A Country Doctor's Notebook, is a short story collection by the Russian writer Mikhail Bulgakov. The stories were written in the 1920s and inspired by Bulgakov's experiences as a newly graduated young doctor in 1916-18, practicing in a small village hospital in Smolensk Governorate in revolutionary Russia.
Stories:
The Embroidered Towel
The Steel Windpipe
Black as Egypt's Night
Baptism by Rotation
The Speckled Rash
The Blizzard
The Vanishing Eye
Morphine
The Murderer
The Hugh Aplin translation also includes the short story Morphine but does not include The Murderer.
تاریخ نخستین خوانش: روز هشتم ماه آوریل سال2012میلادی
عنوان: یادداشتهای یک پزشک جوان؛ نویسنده: میخاییل بولگاگوف؛ مترجم: آبتین گلکار؛ تهران، ماهی، سال1391؛ در209ص و4ص؛ شابک9789642091126؛ چاپ دوم سال1392؛ چاپ سوم سال1393؛ چاپهای چهارم و پنجم سال1395، چاپ ششم سال1396؛ چاپهای هفتم و هشتم سال1397؛ موضوع داستانهای کوتاه از نویسندگان روسیه - سده20م
داستانها: «حوله دوزی شده»، «توربین فولادی»، «سیاه به عنوان شب مصر»، «تعمید با چرخش»، «راش پوستی»، «بلیزاد»، «چشم نابینا»، «مورفین»، «قاتل»؛
این کتاب «میخاییل بولگاکوف» نیز، خالی از لطف نیست؛ این پزشک، آثاری همچون «دل سگ (قلب سگی)» و «مرشد و مارگاریتا» را، در کارنامه ی خویاش دارند، ایشان مجموعه داستانهای «یادداشتهای یک پزشک جوان» را بر بنیاد یادمانهای دوران خدمت خود در روستای دورافتاده ی «نیکولسکویه»، در ایالت «اسمولنسک» بنگاشته است؛ رخدادهای داستان در دوروبر سالهای انقلاب روسیه (در سال1917میلادی) رخ میدهند؛ با اینحال همچنانکه از یک روستای دورافتاده میتوان چشم داشت، آشوبهای انقلابی در این کتاب هیچ نشان و نمودی ندارند؛
تاریخ بهنگام رسانی 30/11/1399هجری خورشیدی؛ 12/10/1400هجری خورشیدی؛ ا. شربیانی Fiction, Short Stories, Memoir The title of A Country Doctor’s Notebook tells everything about the subject of the book…
How does it feel when a young doctor – an absolute greenhorn – just after the university in the capital city finds himself in the sticks where everything depends on him?
Where has the world disappeared to today, my birthday? Where, oh where are the electric lights of Moscow? Where are the people, where is the sky? I look out of my windows at nothing but darkness…
We are cut off; the nearest kerosene lanterns are seven miles away at the railway station, and even their flickering light has probably been blown out by the snowstorm. The midnight express to Moscow rushes moaning past and does not even stop; it has no need of this forlorn little halt, buried in snow – except perhaps when the line is blocked by drifts.
The nearest street lamps are thirty-two miles away in the district town. Life there is sweet: it has a cinema, shops. While the snow is whirling and howling out here in the open country, there on the screen, no doubt, the cane-brake is bending to the breeze and palm trees sway as a tropical island comes into view…
Meanwhile we are alone.
‘Black as Egypt’s night,’ observed Demyan Lukich, as he raised the blind.
His remarks are somewhat solemn but apt. Egyptian is the word for it.
In spite of his inexperience, the doctor boldly faces ailments and traumas and his will helps him to surmount the obstacles and to become more professional and skillfu… And he even manages to fight the endemic ignorance of the locals.
And now a whole year has passed. While it lasted it seemed endlessly varied, multifarious, complex and terrible, although I now realise that it has flown by like a hurricane. I stare into the mirror and see the traces that it has left on my face. There is more severity and anxiety in my eyes, the mouth is more confident and manly, while the vertical wrinkle between my eyebrows will remain for a lifetime – as long, in fact, as my memories. I can see them as I look in the mirror, chasing each other in headlong succession.
And Morphine is a story about a young life ruined by drug addiction.
A man of a strong willpower hardships make stronger and a man of a weak willpower they destroy. Fiction, Short Stories, Memoir I am a doctor, thrown straight from the university bench into a far away village, in the beginning of the revolution.¹
¹ EXTRA! EXTRA! Now to be translated to a small screen featuring Daniel Radcliffe. And it will be a new black comedy. I kid you not. I'm still trying to decide how I feel about it.Mikhail Bulgakov, the amazing Russian writer of The Master and Margarita fame, was a medical doctor by training. Just like the young protagonist of his semi-autobiographical collection of short stories The Notes of a Young Doctor (translated as A Country Doctor's Notebook), he has spent the time of his internship in a country hospital in the middle of nowhere, having to deal with insane patient volume, confusing diagnoses, and plain human stubbornness and stupidity that can make any medical professional's life a living hell. And what amazed me is that so many of these things are still present even in our sophisticated modern-day medicine. Some things never change, do they?
We are cut off from people. The first gas lights are nine miles away at the railroad station [...] A train to Moscow would rush by with a whistle without stopping - it does not need a God-forsaken station lost in the blizzard [...] We are alone here.A Country Doctor's Notebook describes the 'highlights' of the internship time of a brand-new young medical graduate Dr. Bomgard, sent straight from the medical university in Russia in the winter of 1917 to be the only doctor in a provincial hospital (the staff there consisting of a couple of nurses and a pharmacist) without any supervision or backup - save for quite a few medical textbooks and brand-new medical knowledge that he brought with him. This gives quite a new meaning to the whole 'thrown in at the deep end' phrase, doesn't it?
Well, and what if they bring in a woman in a complicated labor? Or, let's say, a patient with a strangulated hernia? What am I supposed to do then? Please, kindly tell me. Forty-eight days ago I graduated with high distinction, but distinction is one thing and hernia is another. Once I saw my professor operate on the strangulated hernia. He was doing it, and I was sitting in the audience, watching him. And that's it. I felt cold sweat running along my spinal column when I thought about hernias. Every night I sat in the same pose, having drank tea: on my left side, I had all the manuals on operative gynecology, with Dodelein's atlas on top. And on my right - ten different illustrated surgical manuals.Some of the situations seem almost surreal in their severity and grave danger. Picture a young doctor having to perform a maneuver to turn a malpositioned fetus in the mother's womb to save two lives - and never having done this procedure before, flipping through the pages of the textbook minutes before the surgery to figure out what the hell he is supposed to do. Imagine him performing a tracheostomy (surgically opening a throat to enable breathing) on a small dying child with diphtheria while her frantic mother is waiting outside. Think about discovering that your seemingly intelligent patient has taken his entire course of medications all at once (to speed up the healing process, apparently) and now is almost dying in front of your eyes.
Imagine the entire villages infected with syphilis without having any idea about the disease or its severity, and abandoning life-saving treatment halfway through at the earliest signs of improvement. Think about realizing that your colleague has fallen prey to the deadly morphine addiction, painstakingly documenting the horrific mental and physical destruction (by the way, probably one of the earliest realistic portrayals of narcotic addiction in fiction, and based on personal experience with the drug, no less).
I felt defeated, broken, flattened by the cruel fate. Fate threw me into this wilderness and made me fight my battles alone, without any support or instruction. What unbelievable difficulties I have to suffer through. They can bring in any strange or difficult case, most often a surgical case, and I have to face it, with my unshaven face, and win. And if you don't win, then you have to suffer and torture yourself - like now, riding along a bumpy country road, leaving behind an infant's little corpse and his mother.The young doctor's patients are poor peasants - illiterate, superstitious, ignorant of their diseases, frustratingly suspicious of surgeries and other out there treatments. After building up a favorable reputation after a miraculous life-saving amputation on day one, the doctor ends up seeing over a hundred patients daily (that's in addition to the hospitalized patients), often having almost no time to sleep, and often still having to make a house call to a woman dying in labor or a patient too sick to be transported to the hospital, often riding miles in miles in the middle of Russian winter blizzard.
After that, I started seeing about a hundred peasants a day. I stopped eating dinners. Mathematics is a cruel science. Let's imagine that I was spending only five minutes - five! - with every one of my hundred patients. Five hundred minutes - eight hours and twenty minutes. All in a row, please note that. And besides that I had a hospital ward for thirty patients. And in addition to that, I was still performing surgeries.The young doctor/ Bulgakov's alter ego laments the ignorance of his patients that endangers their lives and the lives of their loved ones, facilitates the spread of diseases, and causes harm and grief. And yet, so unlike the doctor stereotype of that long-gone era he exhibits astounding patience and perseverance, fighting the uphill battle and actually succeeding with every life saved, every disaster averted. These stories are often sad but at the same time life-affirming. And I happily give this book about my colleague almost a hundred years ago, facing similar problems that we encounter even in modern medicine, five well-earned stars.
In a bout of inspiration, I opened a clinic patient roster and began counting. I counted for an hour. In a year I have seen 15,613 patients, I had 200 hospitalized patients, and only six died.Fiction, Short Stories, Memoir
Brilliant stories that show the growth of a novelist's mind, and the raw material that fed the wild surrealism of Bulgakov's later fiction.
With the ink still wet on his diploma, the twenty-five-year-old Dr. Mikhail Bulgakov was flung into the depths of freezing rural Russia which, in 1916-17, was still largely unaffected by such novelties as the motor car, the telephone or electric light. How his alter-ego copes (or fails to cope) with the new and often appalling responsibilities of a lone doctor in a vast country practice — on the eve of Revolution — is described in Bulgakov's delightful blend of candid realism and imaginative exuberance. A Country Doctors Notebook