A Short History Of Tractors In Ukranian

[Chinahand]

I've just finished a Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian. I really enjoyed it. The plot is pretty simple and is basically explained in the blurb on the back page. The narrator is a Ukrainian immigrant brought up in the UK, her mother dies and within two years her 84 year old father is engaged to be married to a 36 year old recent arrival from the Ukraine. The narrator teams up with her elder sister to break up the relationship.

 

There are levels to the book. The family left the Ukraine after World War II; the narrator born just after the War, her sister a few years before. The 36 year old is a divorcee, bringing her teenage son to the UK in the hope of a better material life.

 

The current politics of the role of immigrants and their attitudes to their new country are echoed in the book. I do wonder how autobiographical the book is. I guess there is more than a bit - the bio of Mrs Marina Lewycka seems to have parallels to the plot.

 

As well as the immigrant storyline there is also a theme about how people react to the post communist collapse and to the fear and paranoia that the communist era instilled with its purges and camps. The father's mistrust of communists, desire to help émigrés and fears of authority all reflect the theme, but another level which I wasn't expecting and which grips the book more strongly, especially towards the end, relates to World War II and the fear and terror it sowed.

 

The narrator was born after the war and so the events her sister and parents went though are trapped in unexplained family myths which in some ways haunt the book. This coupled with the basic plot of trying to break up the relationship between a decaying widower and a grasping materialistic, manipulating, sexual immigrant from the east gives the book a serious overtone, which is to me, only partly subsumed by a writing style with has resonances with Sue Townsend and Adrian Mole.

 

The Time's quote on the front cover is "Extremely funny", the Economist one includes "uproariously funny ... [and] a comic feast." I didn't really feel that. There is a touch of the grotesque or maybe parody in the book, but I honestly question whether the author deliberately went out to amuse. Her style isn't weighty but the subject matter, and delivery, isn't really comic. She's an ear for the accented English Ukrainians would use - it was quite fun to read it out loud to my missus - and the temptress character is almost a cliché of the sexual bimbo attempting to get Permanent Residence via manipulation, but these don't totally descend into comic cliché or farce. The temptress's son and ex-husband for example give depth and dimension to her story.

 

The "History of Tractors" part of the book comes over to me as a bit of a device. It doesn't add much, though I suppose its style and subject matter broaden the father's character, but I have a feeling its slightly tacked on to the book to make it more literary.

 

Overall though I enjoyed the book. Its lightness of touch and easy style make it a pleasure to read, but there is a depth to it too. What communism did to Eastern Europe and before that Hitler and the War is a subject that is difficult to get across without making the subject matter morbid. For Mrs Lewycha to be able to blend these themes in with the more contemporary and lighter tale of domestic woe shows her success as a writer The story fairly coasts along and kept me glued though to the end. It was a thought provoking and interesting read and definitely worthwhile.

 

8/10

[oogie boogie]

Agreed Chinahand. I really enjoyed this book. I have Two Caravans, her follow up but havne't had chance to sit down and start it yet.

 

I didn't think it was as funny as the reviews made out but there were still bits that had me chuckling. Though this is more likely to the stubborness of the father being a similar trait in my grandfather.