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Tolstoy Short Story Appreciation: 'How Much Land Does A Man Need?' (Patreon)

Published:
2023-02-25 20:59:23
Imported:
2026-06
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Content

Today we’re opening up some short story appreciation with Tolstoy's 'How Much Land Does A Man Need?'

This is the tale that James Joyce called 'the greatest story that the literature of the world knows.' 

Topics of discussion include: the power of parable, how to appreciate scripture, the moral value of art, the painful search for meaning, and much more.

You can listen to this discussion before or after reading the short story. I recommend the Ronald Wilks translation in Penguin paperback. You may find it rewarding to take this parable out into nature and treat Tolstoy as your walking companion.

Timestamps:

  • 0:00 the key to appreciating this short story
  • 3:40 how to use this discussion
  • 5:20 a short story reading assignment
  • 6:30 the bookshelf in your soul
  • 8:00 how to live the great books
  • 9:00 living/reading assignment for this story
  • 9:50 rereading, dreaming & symbolism
  • 10:50 recommended edition of this story
  • 11:20 Tolstoy as walking companion
  • 11:40 the Russian oral tradition
  • 12:10 Tolstoy & defamiliarisation
  • 14:00 the moral/social value of art
  • 14:58 Tolstoy’s translation of the Gospels
  • 16:00 Christianity & the Sermon on the Mount
  • 17:53 a meditation on the Lord’s Prayer
  • 20:00 loving our neighbours as ourselves
  • 21:30 Tolstoy’s existential crises
  • 23:00 the pain search for meaning
  • 26:00 on auto-psychological characters
  • 27:00 relating to Tolstoy’s A Confession
  • 30:00 the Emancipation of the Serfs
  • 32:40 Tolstoy’s later spiritual writings
  • 33:30 on the power of parables
  • 35:30 a parable from the Gospel of Luke
  • 40:00 the composition of this short story
  • 42:08 How Much Land Does A Man Need?
  • 47:00 the devil in Tolstoy’s short story
  • 54:00 the grass is always greener
  • 55:24 Walt Whitman & the Psalms
  • 1:00:00 Tolstoy’s shifting perspectives
  • 1:03:00 on trying to find oneself
  • 1:06:00 utopia beyond the binaries
  • 1:10:00 great literature as premonition
  • 1:11:45 echoes of Ecclesiastes
  • 1:13:00 the ending of this short story
  • 1:15:00 your thoughts on this story?

Questions to Consider:

1) What do you make of this short story? 

2) How does this work compare to Tolstoy's other writings? Can you see see the writer of War and Peace in this story?

3) What other short stories do you appreciate? Do you see any commonalities among your favourite works?

Happy reading, everybody!

Files

Previews only

Comments

Rob (del’ly frèé) McClusky

This reading was disappointing from the get-go. I sensed as much from the sisters’ conversation. When the devil showed up, I was convinced. The story followed a predictable path. It felt like one of those tales from the Middle Ages, a parable intended to teach a moral. It seemed like a child’s tale, something along the line of things a child should or should not strive for. Seeing where Tolstoy was taking the story, I took it in another direction: The protagonist was not as a capable as one might assume. He really wasn’t able to plan out for the longer time. He wasn’t anticipating the problems which might occur. This was a repeated sequence. Later on, he couldn’t pace himself for scoping out a one day trip around his potential farm. This says to me that the peasant was in over his head from the beginning. In contrast, the merchant who paid 1,000 roubles for 13,000 acres was far more capable than the peasant. The whole time I was reading the book, warning bells kept going off: this is contrived; it’s not practical; it’s not useful; it’s a child’s tale. Rating: 1 out of 5.

Andrew Kiepek

I’ve come a bit late to the party here, but I’ve just finished my small collection of Tolstoy short stories. I loved “how much land does a man need” and its messages about greed and simplicity. A different story took the cake for me, however. “What Men Live By” was an absolute pleasure to read. It’s themes regarding divine love and compassion brought me right back to War and Peace, and Tolstoy even built upon the themes he originally penned in his masterpiece. Truly a wonderful read.