By the Shores of Gitchee Gumee of the novel is 19-year-old Maud Slivenowicz, whose major source of knowledge is "Reader's Digest". Her mother, Evangeline, has five children by five different deadbeat fathers. Without a regular income, the Slivenowicz family dream of becoming movie stars, and at the end of the book it seems one of Maud's brothers might actually be given a role in a television commercial. The title of the book relates to a famous line in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's epic poem "The Song of Hiawatha". By the Shores of Gitchee Gumee By the Shores of Gitchee Gumee (1996) is a satirical novel by Tama
The Song of the Merchant Kalashnikov The Song of the Merchant Kalashnikov A Song about Tsar Ivan Vasilyevich, the Young Oprichnik, and the Valorous Merchant Kalashnikov (Russian: Песня про царя Ивана Васильевича, молодого опричника и удалого купца Калашникова), often abbreviated as "The Song of the Merchant Kalashnikov", is a poem by Mikhail Lermontov written in 1837 and first published in 1838. The plot of the poem is set during Oprichnina times. Rhythmically, "Kalashnikov" is patterned after "bylina", the Russian folk epic. Its most famous scene describes a fistfight between the protagonists, Kalashnikov and oprichnik Kiribeevich. The first scene of the poem describes a banquet at the