Novel review: Leo Tolstoy - How Much Land Does a Man Need? / What Men Live By (1886)

This small book containing two very short (20~30 pages) stories was given to me last week by someone special, so I had to break my self-promise to have Crime and Punishment as my first foray into Russian literature.

Fun coincidence: I was shaving off my music backlog while writing this review and just reached some very nice Russian shoegazey indie/alt rock.

The stories themselves were quite predictable, kind of naturalistic and moral fables. But the way they were written and developed was truly refreshing: there's some kind of simplicity, almost candidness to the style that compels you to continue turning the pages.

The aforementioned special person was right in saying that the second tale holds a deeper meaning (the first being a simple illustration of the dangers of greed) clearly related to Tolstoy's Christianity; which I won't spoil to you few readers.

But I must reiterate that the style was more remarkable than the content to me. It conjured some memories of famous paintings in my mind, such as A Burial at Ornans or more appropriately The Rooks Have Returned. Without artifices, streamlined without falling into minimalism, dancing nimbly between earthliness/dark and spirituality/light. "Real", in a single word.