A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian: Marina Lewycka (Penguin Essentials, 71)

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Ki akarja menteni a Szovjetunió szétesése után rohamosan gengszterizálódó Ukrajnából, be akarja kuckósítani maga mellé a családi lakba, ennek érdekében pedig nem is riad vissza semmitől. With her proclivity for green satin underwear and boil-in-the-bag cuisine, she outmanoeuvres the sisters at every turn. My mind could not make the link between the words 'history', 'tractors', 'Ukrainian' and the comedy that the blurb on the back promised. I don't usually like this kind of book, but I was totally hooked it kept me up at night a couple of times - it's that good. Nadia is a sociologist, while her sister Vera is more of a socialite, and they haven’t spoken to each other since their mother died.

A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian can provide for a few hours of pleasurable reading to pass the time on the bus or the metro, but those seeking an entry window to the history of Ukraine or human drama with more depth than a puddle would be better served elsewhere. But as they start to work together as a team, the healing and understanding comes and the family can find love and support within their own small circle again. One of the failings of the novel is for me the fact that certain people are almost totally invisible: Nadia's husband Mike is present in the background usually with a glass in hand but rarely even given a word, and the children of both sisters are almost completely absent (apart from one instance rather clumsily written but crucial to the story). A hilarious, lively, moving and compassionate debut about one Ukrainian-British family 's tumultuous relationship and the history they never knew. what I mean is that she has enormous skills and I'd love to see her apply them to any topic of her choice.This book is trying too hard to be cutesy, including over things that really don't lend themselves to cutesy treatment. The novel won the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize at the Hay literary festival, the Waverton Good Read Award 2005/6, and was short-listed for the 2005 Orange Prize for Fiction, losing to Lionel Shriver's We Need to Talk About Kevin.

Fortunately I read this novel not knowing that it had won a comedy award and with simply a basic sense of interest.As predicted, Valentina is extremely careless with what little finances he has; she demands very specific brand names on the things he is mandated to provide her with, including three vehicles and a specific color pressure cooker. Nadia's story is interspersed with excerpts from her father's work on tractors (he was an engineer), and the tale of her grandparents, parents, the war and how they came to be in England. Nu o sa mint, am și plâns puțin, sunt multe pasaje tandre despre legătura dintre părinți și copii, despre relația dintre surorile Vera și Nadia (care încep povestea ca dușmance) și despre bătrânețe. Because this is what 'Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian' is also about: the little people who are, essentially, and despite all the scars they might be carrying, survivors of History. Despite the dark memories and family feud raging between the sisters, it was still a warmhearted story.