He transforms himself one limb and one organ at a time, mapping the effects of the canine body across a human form in a kind of diagramming. Since dogs are quadrupeds, he ties shoes to his hands and feet. When his paws prevent him from lacing the fourth shoe, he uses his mouth, which becomes a dog's snout. This metamorphosis almost succeeds, until the hero comes to the dog’s tail, for which he can find no analogue among human limbs. For him to involve his sexual organ in this transmogrification would tear him away from the society that he has begun to flee. Who would he be, if his identity could not be inferred from his anatomy? The story ends with a descent into childhood memories of the protagonist's mother. It appeared in n° 7 of the Revue Minuit alongside texts by Samuel Beckett, Robert Pinget, and Alain Robbe-Grillet. It served as inspiration for discussion by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari in A Thousand Plateaus. Several years later, Vladimir Slepian renamed himself Eric Pid. He explained his new French name as an anagram of the blind king Oedipus, alluding to blindness at the etymological origins of his Russian family name. In his later years, Slepian succeeded at having his dramatic text staged as an interpolation in A quand Agamemnon ?, an adaptation of Aeschylus’ Agamemnon by Philippe Brunet and Demodocos, a band of young artists specialized in classical theatre, performed in French, Latin and/or ancient Greek. He went around Paris, distributing framed photographs of this performance for wall display at restaurants. On 7 July 1998, Slepian collapsed on a sidewalk at Saint-Germain des Prés. The cause of his death is variously reported as hunger and a cardiac crisis. He was buried as an indigent, at the state’s expense. Vladimir Slepian’s life served as inspiration for Viktor Atemian, the protagonist of 2007 feature film L’Homme qui marche by Aurélia Georges. External links Memorial page of Vladimir Slepian, in Russian Commemoration of Vladimir Slepian, with an extract from Fils de chien, in French Time Magazine reports an anonymous exhibition of paintings by Vladimir Slepian in Paris' Right Bank Galerie Daniel Cordier L'Homme qui marche at IMDb Slepian's painting at the Tretyakov Gallery Demodocos References 1930 births 1998 deaths Russian artists Russian writers French artists Jewish artists Jewish writers French male writers 20th-century French male writers