Book Review: How Much Land Does a Man Need, by Leo Tolstoy (1886)

How Much Land Does a Man Need?

This was a parable.  Based on the title, I assumed it would be a social commentary, perhaps an essay on socialism or communism, the sharing of wealth and land.  I assumed it would be a way to demonstrate that people only need enough land to feed their families, and the rest of the land should be shared out to others.

But it turned out to be nothing like that at all.  It was a parable about a man who wanted more and more land, who was tricked by Satan at every turn because Satan kept telling him (in the form of other people) about cheaper land someplace else.  He moved from place to place, buying land, selling it, then buying more.  He ended up in a bad way, and died trying to gain more land.

Book Review: The Christmas Tree and the Wedding, by Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1848)

I won't lie to you, this story sort of disgusted me.  I'm sure that was the purpose.  Imagine seeing a cute little 11 year old girl.  Then imagine planning to marry her.  I shouldn't use the word "plan".  Scheme would be better.  Connive.

Having a narrator was just a way of telling the story, he plays no part in the story except as an observer.  He went to a Christmas party, got bored with no one to talk to, and watched some children play.  One of them was a pretty little 11 year old girl.  It came out that the father had already set aside a large amount of money for her dowry.

Book Review: The Dream of a Ridiculous Man, by Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1877)

The Dream of the Ridiculous Man is what modern readers of Dostoyevsky crave.  Forget mysteries or thrillers.  They want something they can speak of while using the word “metaphysical”.  If they can say that to their friends while describing the inner meanings of this story, it’s a winner.

So here we have a short story that is a thin allegory of Dostoyevsky’s thoughts on the meaning of life.  I warn you now, if you want a fun story, an entertaining plot with whacky characters, you’re looking in the wrong place.  Dostoyevsky uses a very brief tale of a suicidal man to do nothing more than describe a journey for meaning.  This was his last short story, written just a few years before his death.  There are obvious Christian elements in the symbolism.

June is Russian Month

As you know, all of 2012 and 2013 were dedicated to reviewing 19th century literature here at The Literary Rambler.  This month I will specialize in 19th century Russian literature.  Sorry, I won't have time for such monsters as War and Peace or The Brothers Karamazov, but I'll at least get my feet wet with some of Leo Tolstoy's and Fyodor Dostoyevsky's shorter works.

I will also read these guys:

• Anton Chekhov
• Alexander Pushkin
• Nikolai Gogal
• Mikhail Saltykov-Shchedrin
• Ivan Turgenev

As always, I'll review them with a modern eye, not the flowery, fawning simplicity of a 3rd year lit student.  I won't give you the typical awestruck review because these are giants in literature.  I'll be honest, as my readers have come to expect from me.  But Russian literature has something to offer that Dickens, Austen, and Twain do not.  Their culture was unique, and their world evolved from something far different than ours.  We want a taste of their history, their concerns, and their thoughts.  And isn't that why we read literature?

Manly Months - One Final Thought

I know we're done with Manly Months but I had a few more examples to share.

Here is everyone's favorite Victorian Historian, Professor Patrick Allitt, discussing the tough schooling that boys received in Britain in the 1800s.

The two most famous [schools] and two of the most ancient were Eton and Harrow...The Duke of Wellington had claimed that the battle of Waterloo, back in 1815, had been won on the playing fields of Eaton.  What he meant by that was that the tough schooling which the young gentlemen had been given there had prepared them for their roles as army officers and enabled them to prevail in the situation of the battle itself.  Eaton, especially in the early 19th century, was a very hard school indeed.  A merciless discipline was enforced by the master on the boys, but also by the older boys on the younger ones.  They had a system called fagging which really amounted to a kind of slavery in which the younger boys were completely at the mercy of the older ones and could be bullied and beaten by them without any redress at all.

Manly Months Conclusion

When Men Were Men

Manly Months is done.  We spent April and May reading manly 19th century literature, and you might be surprised at just how rough and tough our ancestors were.  Believe it or not they didn't all sit around sipping tea and eating cobbled oats.  I know, they wore those lacy looking shirts and all, but don't define them by their frilly fashion sense.

Here are the books I managed to read and review:

• King Solomon's Mines, by Sir H. Rider Haggard (1885)
• Captains Courageous, by Rudyard Kipling (1897)
• Heart of Darkness, by Joseph Conrad (1899)
• The Red Badge of Courage, by Stephen Crane (1895)
• The Black Arrow, by Robert Louis Stevenson (1888)
• The Frozen Pirate, by W. Clark Russell (1887)

Only six books, I wish I could have finished more.  Here's a list of others I could have added to this list, and still plan to read:

Book Review: The Frozen Pirate, by W. Clark Russell (1887)

This is one of the better books I read during Manly Months here at The Literary Rambler.  It's the story of adventure on the seas, of treasure and survival.  It starts out with some of the boldest action language I've ever seen.

The storm made a loud thunder in the sky, and this tremendous utterance dominated without subduing the many screaming, hissing, shrieking, and hooting noises raised in the rigging and about the decks, and the wild, seething, weltering sound of the sea, maddened by the gale and struggling in its enormous passion under the first choking and iron grip of the hurricane's hand.

That's what W. Clark Russell was known for, and that's why people read him.  I first heard about him from the Sherlock Holmes story, The Five Orange Pips, which had Watson reading a Russell book.

Book Review: The Black Arrow, by Robert Louis Stevenson (1888)

The Black Arrow was a harrowing tale of a young adventurer, trying to find his true love.  It's set against the backdrop of the War of the Roses.  You don't have to know anything about the history of the period, the author feeds you any details necessary.  For the most part it's not a bad tale, just a bit long winded.  That may not make a lot of sense because it's a small book - only about 80,000 words, 220ish pages.  But it felt like it just went on and on.

2013 Writers' Conferences in the Southeast

January 6-12, 2013
Blue Flower Arts Winter Writers' Conference
New Smyrna Beach, Florida

January 19-27, 2013
Eckerd College Writers’ Conference: Writers in Paradise
St. Petersburg, Florida

January 24-28, 2013
Fun in the Sun Conference
Florida

January 26-27, 2013
Cocoa Beach Writers’ Conference
Cocoa Beach, Florida

April 4-6, 2013
Tennessee Mountain Writers Conference
Oak Ridge, Tennessee

April 5-6, 2013
Blue Ridge Writers' Conference
Blue Ridge, Georgia

April 13, 2013
NC Writers' Network Spring Conference 2013
Greensboro, North Carolina
(I assume they had this but the website link doesn't work.  Not sure if it was a conference or just workshop)

April 18, 2013
Conference on Souther Literature
Chattanooga, Tennessee
(Held every other year)

April 19-20, 2013
Kentucky Writers’ Conference and Southern Kentucky Bookfest
Bowling Green, Kentucky

May 4-5, 2013
DFW Writers Conference
Dallas-Ft. Worth, Texas

May 10-12, 2013
Atlanta Writers Conference
Atlanta, Georgia

May 17-18, 2013
Tallahassee Book Festival and Writers Conference
Tallahassee, Florida

May 18, 2013
Red Clay Writers' Conference
Kennesaw, Georgia
(This may have replaced Springfest which used to be held in Kennesaw in the spring)

June 23-28, 2013
Chesapeake Writers' Conference
St. Mary's City, Maryland

July 17-20, 2013
Romance Writers of America Annual Conference
Atlanta, Georgia

July 23-Aug 4, 2013
Sewanee Writers' Conference
Sewanee, Tennessee

August 22-26, 2013
Killer Nashville
Nashville, Tennessee

August 30, 2013
The Writers' Conference at the Decatur Book Festival
Decatur, Georgia
(The Decatur Book Festival typically has a one day writers' conference at the start of the festival, but the website currently has no details about it.  Poets and Writers has this blurb)

September 25-28, 2013
Chattahoochee Valley Writers' Conference
Columbus, Georgia
(I don't have much hope for this one, they even misspelled their own name on their website, and they have no details of an event coming in a few months)

September 26-28, 2013
Scribblers Retreat and Writers' Conference
St. Simon's Island, Georgia
(This may not be happening in 2013, they have no details or schedule on their website.  But they do allow you to pay for it online right now)

October 4-5, 2013
Moonlight and Magnolia's 2013
Norcross, Georgia

October 18-20, 2013
Florida Writers Conference
Lake Mary, Florida

October 19-20, 2013
James River Writers' Conference
Richmond, Virginia

November 7-10, 2013
Sanibel Island Writers' Conference
Sanibel Island, Florida

November 15-17, 2013
NC Writers' Network Fall Conference 2013
Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina
(No website for this yet, and not sure if it's a true conference or just a workshop)

November 16, 2013
Baltimore Writer's Conference
Baltimore, Maryland
(Website has info from 2011 conference, no details on anything newer except a "save the date" message)

January 5-10, 2014
Blue Flower Arts Winter Writers' Conference
New Smyrna Beach, Florida

January 18-25, 2014

Eckerd College Writers’ Conference: Writers in Paradise
St. Petersburg, Florida



sources: Poets and Writers, Stacey O'Neale, Google

Finding a Writers' Conference

Finding a comprehensive list of writers' conferences was no easy task.  There was no single place I found that had all the ones I came up with for my list, 2013 Writers' Conferences in the Southeast.

Writers' conferences in New York are different.  You can expect everyone in the writing and publishing industry to poke their heads in at some point.  But Georgia?  Sure, we've got a lot of talented writers, but several conferences seem to be either defunct or not well advertised.

Manly Months Report

With only two weeks left in our Manly Months the pressure is on to deliver more of that manly stuff!  Don't worry men, there are plenty of other manly 19th century books out there, even if I can't get to them all.

I've reviewed four books and am working on two more.

• King Solomon's Mines
• Captains Courageous
• Heart of Darkness
• The Red Badge of Courage

• The Black Arrow
• The Frozen Pirate

I think I can squeeze in at least one more after this.  But there are many others I wish I had time for.  So much adventure literature of the 19th century took the form of either true war stories, or sea tales.  Here are some of the others I hope to read.

• W. Clark Russell - various sea stories
• Captain Frederick Marryat - various sea stories
• Victor Hugo - Toilers of the Sea (1866)
• Stephen Crane - The Open Boat (1897)
• Richard Henry Dana - Two Years Before the Mast (1840)
• Winston Churchill - various war stories including The River War (1899)

Inferno, by Dan Brown - Predictions

I'm not planning to read this book, not for a while.  Based on his last book, The Lost Symbol, which had a plethora of plot holes, Dan Brown seems to have lost steam.  I don't know anything about Inferno, all I did was glance at the cover on Amazon without even reading the blurb.  So here are my predictions.

Book Review: The Lost Symbol, by Dan Brown (2009)

[I originally posted this review in 2009 on another site.  I'm reposting an updated version of it here because Dan Brown's latest book, Inferno, has just been released.]

The Lost Symbol, by Dan Brown (2009)

Dan Brown has one good skill in particular I'd like to mention.  He's good at puzzles and codes.  That became obvious in The Da Vinci Code.  It's his thing.  I usually enjoy when he incorporates that into his books because he does it well.

I'll start this review of The Lost Symbol by discussing a few points that most critics predicted for this novel.  Then I will discuss the bad points of this book.  The four things that many critics expected before the book even hit the shelves: poor writing skills, formulaic storytelling, predictability, and factual mistakes.

Book Review: The Black Arrow, by Robert Louis Stevenson (1888) First Thoughts

I stopped reading this book.  Well into the third chapter I had no idea what was going on because of that crazy vernacular.  It was written in the late 1800's, but it took place in the 1400's so Stevenson wrote it in that God-awful style straight out of Canterbury Tales.  It's hard to understand, and it makes it difficult to follow.

However, I could tell the storyline was worth reading,

Music is Feeling with Sound

I don't usually post videos on this site, but this one deserves to be enjoyed.  The quote, "Music is Feelings with Sound" comes to mind when I watch this.

Book Review: The Red Badge of Courage, by Stephen Crane (1895)

Tom Sawyer goes to war.

I won't be flip about this book, but I'm probably too old to have read it.  I can now understand why it is so often assigned as a book report in school.  It gives wonderful insight into the mind of a teenager who goes into battle and wants to be a hero.  The descriptions of the main character's thoughts took me back to my own teenage years, describing well the myriads of trifling things that occupy the mind of a guy that age.

It's a coming of age story, as our main character - referred to as "the youth" - is worried that he will run from the battle.  Will he stand and fight?  Will he run like a big chicken?  That's his worry.  It's perfect.  Looking at the Civil War from a distance, looking at the battles as an outsider, we see cause and purpose, we see strategy, we see a fight against slavery maybe, an insurrection perhaps, a great upheaval.  We see all those things.

Audible for Audiobooks

Is audible a good deal?  That's what you want to know.  The answer is a mixed bag, so here's what I found out.

Audible sells audiobooks, but not on CD.  You download them from their website.  The problem is they are in a special format.  It ends with ".aa".  What this means is you have to use special Audible software to play these files.  That's the problem people have with using Audible.

I'll start with the good.

Book Review: Heart of Darkness, by Joseph Conrad (1899)

Yes, this is the book on which the movie Apocalypse Now was based.  Same kind of deal, a man, Marlow, traveling up a river to find another man, Kurtz, who has gone crazy and needs extracting.  Along the way we're treated to surreal and brutal scenes of inhumanity.

This book is far more introspective than I realized it would be.  It's told in the manner of a person looking back on a great sadness or horror, after reflecting on it for some time.

Joseph Conrad was a master literary figure, I gathered that much even if most of what he was saying was far too obtuse for an adventure novel.  Plus his writing can sometimes be a bit long winded.  Take this sentence for example.

Book Review: Captains Courageous, by Rudyard Kipling (1897)

Not so bad sea story about a boy who falls off a ship and is kidnapped by a nice guy who punches him in the face so he learns some manners.

There you have it, the whole story in a nice little nutshell.  I'm not saying it's a bad book but it did surprise me.  The main premise is exactly as I stated above.  For some reason I pictured the book differently.  I thought it would show a young man becoming heroic.  He learned all about life at sea, that much I did expect, but I just pictured him saving the ship in a storm or something.  I mean, the title is Captains Courageous, don't you think he should have done something courageous?  But all he did was fish a lot.

Book Review: King Solomon's Mines, by Sir H. Rider Haggard (1885)

This is an action/adventure book.  Blood pumping action, heart thumping adventure.  This book is about high adventure in Africa made famous by stories of big game hunters and old legends of lost treasure.

It's not for the faint of heart.  It's not for your mother's drawing room or your gran-gran's tea parties.

Lifting his gun, he let drive at the last, a young cow. By some extraordinary chance the ball struck it full on the back of the neck, shattering the spinal column, and that giraffe went rolling head over heels just like a rabbit. I never saw a more curious thing.