This story was faithfully transposed to *bande dessinée" (European comics) by Martin Veyron in 2016. "Ce qu'il faut de terre à l'homme" won a prize at the Angoulême Festival, and I recommend it very much if you can read French. My only complaint with it is that the handful of Cyrillic texts in the drawings are not made of Russian words but simple transliterations of French words.<p>Among the short novels wrote by Tolstoi, my personal preference is for "Father Sergius". A young prince can't support any more the royal court, so he flees outside of his world, then struggles in trying to find meaning and peace in his life.
This story has stuck with me for years. Any time I've over-promised what I could deliver or stand to miss a deadline or am otherwise stressed out by situations of my own creation it comes back to me.<p>This website often focuses on ambition and furiously chasing one's dreams, but it's nice to have reminders that in the end, it's the small comforts and relationships we've built that really matter.
Absolute classic. Another Tolstoy short story I really love is the tale of "The Two Pilgrims". You read them once. And they stay with you your entire life ;)<p><a href="http://www.online-literature.com/tolstoy/2891/" rel="nofollow">http://www.online-literature.com/tolstoy/2891/</a>
Tolstoy was a Georgist, and this is basically a little Georgist short story.<p><a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/3487337" rel="nofollow">https://www.jstor.org/stable/3487337</a><p>The basic point of Georgism is that landownership is the root of most of the economic evil in the world and land should all be expropriated and held in common. (but don't want to expropriate capital or do anything to it, unlike the Marxists: Marx called Georgism "Capitalism's last ditch")<p>So strangely enough, it's not about greed in general, it's about land specifically.
Gosh... I (re)read it this morning, and come across it to here. I developed an habit that I gift a book to a random person I meet on outside... at a coffee shop, or on a beach whatever. I usually choose a person that read a book and go like "hey, what are you reading?" and we talk about it... It's a great icebreaker. By the time, I happen to buy hundreds of books and decided to share them. What is the point collecting them and calling it a "library"? It eventually lead me to meet the people from all shades of life with the interesting stories.
This story reminds me of playing the board game "Deep Sea Adventure" ( <a href="https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/169654/deep-sea-adventure" rel="nofollow">https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/169654/deep-sea-adventur...</a> ) with some friends. In this game you try to get as much treasure as you can from the sea bottom floor. At the same time you share your oxygen supply with your competitors. We managed to run out of air three times in a row! The final round was particularly amusing: When the players noticed that (only) one player had a chance of making it back to the surface, they made sure to use up the shared oxygen supply since they were doomed anyway.<p>Fun game, give it a try. Also quite educational, just as this excellent short story.
I'm glad that Tolstoy found it's place on hacker news. His Christian anarhisam and nonviolence doctrine influence basically all civil right heroes in 20 century. But it is funny how Georgisam is selected. Just wonder could it be related with high property price in bay area.
The story is reminiscent of the <a href="http://enwp.org/The_Fisherman_and_His_Wife" rel="nofollow">http://enwp.org/The_Fisherman_and_His_Wife</a> archetype.<p>It teaches the concept of "good is good enough" and the consequences of greed.
We had a translated and simplified version of this story for my Tamil class in elementary school - and distinctly remember this and a few others. So much so, that I googled a few years ago to realize that the original was from Tolstoy
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Absolutely love this short story, it really gets under your skin.<p>In one sense, I'm pretty sure it's a riff on Jesus' parable of the rich fool (recounted in Luke 12:13-21). In both cases, the sudden & unexpected death of the main protagonist shocks you into thinking through their (and by extension your own) value system.
In french (Le Moukik Pakhom):<p><a href="http://www.metafora.ch/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Tolsto%C3%AFPakhom.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://www.metafora.ch/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/Tolsto%C3%...</a>