How much land does a man need?
How much land does a man need? Or, more broadly, how much money does a person need? How much is truly enough for life? I’ve grappled with this question many times, especially when experiencing a burnout. We all work hard for an unknown future, and as we slog through the years, we wrestle with the thought: how much is enough? I’ve sought answers, read about it, discussed it, but the answer remains elusive.
This story is about Pakhom, a small farmer from a village. His family might not be entirely content in their modest surroundings, but they find peace in what they have. Of course, poverty is frustrating, and Pakhom’s main grievance is owning only a tiny piece of land. His cattle often stray, forcing him to pay fines to the owner of a nearby large farm. Thus, he yearns for a big plot of his own.
Fortune smiles on Pakhom, and he eventually acquires a large farm—his long-held wish. The new land is fertile, and he prospers. Encouraged, he works harder and acquires more land. It’s intriguing to see how much land he ultimately owns, how his life’s happiness and health evolve, and how much quality time he spends with his family. Or perhaps his life takes an entirely different course. To discover the answer to how much one really needs in life, read this powerful story!
The book contains another short story about a shoemaker named Semyon. He can barely make ends meet with his meager earnings. One freezing winter evening, he finds a man named Mikhail lying naked, listless, and frozen near a chapel. After initial hesitation, Semyon offers the man his only warm coat and brings him home. Semyon and his wife provide him food and comfort. Mikhail learns shoemaking, effortlessly becoming an expert craftsman. Thanks to Mikhail’s skills, Semyon’s business thrives.
Mikhail remains aloof and absorbed in work. He never makes mistakes but doesn’t reveal anything about his life to Semyon or his family. Curiously, during the six years he spends with Semyon, he smiles only three times. When he explains the reasons behind these rare smiles, the story imparts great wisdom about how humanity endures through its hardships.
Reading Insights
Elif Shafak recently wrote an essay about this story on substack. These two short stories published under Penguin Classics banner are incredibly powerful. James Joyce wrote to his daughter that it is “the greatest story that the literature of the world knows”. Yet, this profoundly wise and powerful story is written in the simplest words.
I never once needed to consult a dictionary, and it takes just an hour and a half to finish this book of two short stories. You can pick up this book when you need a pleasant distraction. It entertains with beautiful storytelling while making you smile and reflect. It’s also an excellent story for adolescents.
About the author (from Goodreads)
Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy (Russian: Лев Николаевич Толстой; most appropriately used Liev Tolstoy; commonly Leo Tolstoy in Anglophone countries) was a Russian writer who primarily wrote novels and short stories. Later in life, he also wrote plays and essays. His two most famous works, the novels War and Peace and Anna Karenina, are acknowledged as two of the greatest novels of all time and a pinnacle of realist fiction.
Many consider Tolstoy to have been one of the world’s greatest novelists. Tolstoy is equally known for his complex and paradoxical persona and for his extreme moralistic and ascetic views, which he adopted after a moral crisis and spiritual awakening in the 1870s, after which he also became noted as a moral thinker and social reformer.
His literal interpretation of the ethical teachings of Jesus, centering on the Sermon on the Mount, caused him in later life to become a fervent Christian anarchist and anarcho-pacifist. His ideas on nonviolent resistance, expressed in such works as The Kingdom of God Is Within You, were to have a profound impact on such pivotal twentieth-century figures as Mohandas Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr.
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Need to read this. You may be Bhagvat Geeta. This may help more
Yes. That’s on my mind. I don’t want to just read it, but want to study it taking some time! Thanks.
Seems like just the perfect read for a 3 to 4 hour long journey… Thanks for highlighting the book.
It’s my pleasure. Glad that you liked it. Yes indeed it’s a wonderful short travel read.