A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian

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A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian

3.32 of 5 stars 3.32 · rating details · 11,026 ratings · 1,474 reviews

'Two years after my mother died, my father fell in love with a glamorous blonde Ukrainian divorcee. He was eighty-four and she was thirty-six. She exploded into our lives like a fluffy pink grenade, churning up the murky water, bringing to the surface a sludge of sloughed-off memories, giving the family ghosts a kick up the backside.'

Sisters Vera and Nadezhda must put asid...more

Paperback, 326 pages

Published August 1st 2006 by Penguin Books (first published 2005)

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May 15, 2012 Nataliya rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2012-reads

Never before have I bought a book because of title alone. Plus, it was sandwiched between Nicholas Sparks (ughhh!) and "Eat, Pray, Love" (blerghhh!). I rescued it from this ghastly company and expected a grateful dose of funny in return.

But instead of fun with tractors I got the above - the family squabbles, elderly abuse, well-hidden family secrets that nobody wants to unearth, the pent-up years of anger and frustration, and the misery of life. In a nutshell, it is a story of a very dysfunction

...more Never before have I bought a book because of title alone. Plus, it was sandwiched between Nicholas Sparks (ughhh!) and "Eat, Pray, Love" (blerghhh!). I rescued it from this ghastly company and expected a grateful dose of funny in return.

"Our little exile family, held together by our mother's love and beetroot soup, has started to fall apart."

To quote Leo Tolstoy, "Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way". Narrated by a middle-aged sociology professor Nadezhda, this is a story of her small British family of Ukrainian immigrants which thrown into utter chaos by an unexpected arrival of a Ukrainian bombshell-tart Valentina, she of short denim skirts, high-heeled mules, Botticellian breasts, and an infamous green satin bra.

"Two years after my mother died, my father fell in love with a glamorous blonde Ukrainian divorcée. He was eighty-four and she was thirty-six. She exploded into our lives like a fluffy pink grenade, churning up the murky water, bringing to the surface a sludge of sloughed-off memories, giving the family ghosts a kick up the backside."

The Mayevskij family has never been really happy. The father, obsessed with technology and "Ukrainianism", the feuding sisters, a mutual hatred between father and daughter, and the death of the mother who kept this little dysfunctional family together. All of this does not exactly spell harmony, even without the addition of an oversexed buxom blonde who is clearly after a British visa and not as much after the charms of a man five decades her senior. All for the following reasons:

Valentina is ready for anything to obtain the coveted comforts of Western life that the Westerners take for granted. Can you blame her? Can you NOT blame her? But isn't the idea of comfort and security what we are all after at some point in life?

The "funny" that I was expecting from the back cover blurb is more of a smile-through-the-tears and throw-your-hands-up-in-the-air-in-resignation kind than simple side-splitting laughter. After all, there is nothing funny about elderly abuse or the loneliness that comes with age. And there is nothing funny about the old grudges that tear families apart. And so I think the sad humor that Lewytska chose for her book works very well in setting the perfect atmosphere, which is definitely the strength of this story.

The characterization is quite interesting as well. None of Lewytska's characters are quite likable; they are petty and vicious and often quite ridiculous - but you cannot help but sympathize with them, even the intended villain Valentina. The author accomplishes it well by always pointing out the other side of the story, the other point of view, the alternate take on the events. Caricaturish at first, Lewytska's characters develop, show new sides of their personalities and come to life in an unexpected way all while remaining surprisingly outlandish

"My mother had known ideology, and she had known hunger. When she was twenty-one, Stalin had discovered he could use famine as a political weapon against the Ukrainian kulaks. She knew - and this knowledge never left her throughout her fifty years of life in England, and then seeped from her into the hearts of her children - she knew for certain that behind the piled-high shelves and abundantly stocked counters of Tesco and the Co-op, hunger still prowls with his skeletal frame and gaping eyes, waiting to grab you the moment you are off your guard."

The chaos of the Majevkij family present-day life is interspersed with the exerpts from a titular book about tractors (in Ukrainian) written by old Nikolaj which shed some light on a sad history of Ukraine in the 20th century, as well as bits and pieces of the sad history of Nadezhda's parents and grandparents in the middle of wars, famine, and concentration camp. As expected, the dark secrets help Nadezhda grasp the origins of the peculiarities of her kin, and help her finally come to understand where the ultimate differences between herself and her seemingly obnoxious sister Vera are coming from - the War Baby vs. the Peace Baby.

"Doesn't she realise how time and memory fix everything? Doesn't she realise that once a story has been told one way, it cannot be retold another way? Doesn't she realise that some things must be covered up and buried, so the shame of them doesn't taint the next generation?"

I did have a love-hate relationship with the writing. I loved Lewytska's ear for the characteristic Ukrainianisms in the speech of the characters. I did raise my eyebrows, however, at the predominance of Russian names in the family of the supposedly Russian-hating man, a mistake that a woman raised in Ukrainian family should not make. I did also notice quite a few instances when the first-person narrator suddenly became rather omniscient, giving us the emotions and feelings of the people she comes in contact with even though she has no way of actually knowing them.
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Overall, this book gets a solid 3.5 star rating from me. I enjoyed it quite a bit. I liked the story, but could not overlook the writing flaws. However, I really like Lewytska's narrative voice, and I will definitely be on the lookout for her other works.(less)

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Dec 10, 2011 Ian Graye rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: reviews, read-2011, reviews-5-stars

Tractor Attraction

I knew that this book existed for some time. However, something about the title didn't attract me.

I think I have always assumed that I would prefer a book about American tractors.

Then one week I saw it again, bought it and read it within a week. I was ready for it. Our lives had mysteriously moved into alignment.

Not So Secret Family Business

Although it is set within a Ukrainian British family and it takes hilarious advantage of this fact, it reveals a lot about families gener...more

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Apr 19, 2010 Harun Harahap rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: pinjem, fiksi, terjemahan

Tua-tua Keladi makin tua makin jadi

Hal inilah yang tepat untuk menggambarkan seorang kakek berusia 84 tahun bernama Nikolai. Karena seorang wanita berpayudara besar bernama Valentina, dia kehilangan akal sehatnya. Valentina adalah seorang imigran asal Ukraina yang hanya ingin mendapatkan kewarganegaraan Inggris dengan cara menikahi Nikolai. Dengan senjatanya berupa payudaranya itulah, dia mulai menipu Nikolai dengan menguras hartanya sedikit demi sedikit. Untung saja ada dua anak wanita dari Nik...more

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Jul 26, 2008 Donald rated it 1 of 5 stars

I recently picked this book up used at my local library for $1. The cover burst advertised that it was nominated for a Man Booker Prize, and the back cover copy boasted that it was an international bestseller that was shortlisted for the Orange Prize.

My thoughts on that after reading the book: What the fuck?

The quick synopsis of the plot is this: Gold-digging Ukrainian immigrant hussy latches on to an elderly Ukrainian widower in England, marries him, and tries to take his money and his house. H...more I recently picked this book up used at my local library for $1. The cover burst advertised that it was nominated for a Man Booker Prize, and the back cover copy boasted that it was an international bestseller that was shortlisted for the Orange Prize.

My thoughts on that after reading the book: What the fuck?

The quick synopsis of the plot is this: Gold-digging Ukrainian immigrant hussy latches on to an elderly Ukrainian widower in England, marries him, and tries to take his money and his house. His two adult daughters (Vera and Nadezhda) try to prevent it from happening. And that's pretty much it. There is an attempt at incorporating many zany characters along the way, and we learn about Vera and Nadezhda's strained relationship, and their relationship with their kooky father. Oh, and every single character is disgusting and hate-able. I almost found myself rooting for the hussy.

Man, this book needed an editor, or at least one more (ruthless) revision. But it was nominated for the Booker, so what the hell do I know? What I do know, though, is this manuscript as is would never have made it out alive if presented to my writer's group.

For instance, the author doesn't seem to have much confidence in her own writing. Written in the first person of the Nadezhda character, the narrative is constantly interrupted by the character's explanation of things in parenthesis. Even during dialogue! And it is a constant interruption. More than a handful of times I just wanted to scream out, "Let the fucking characters talk! Stop interrupting!"

The other no-no that the author does is to somehow allow her lead first-person narrator to know what someone else is thinking. This is after the old man's young wife is treating him particularly bad:

Maybe he would beat her if he could, but he cannot. For the first time he realises how helpless he is. His heart fills with despair.

Oh really? How do you know this, Nadezhda? My writer's group would have taken me to task if I had presented them with this.

As a writer, you are influenced by many authors and countless books. Sometimes you'll read something so good (think John Irving in his prime) that it inspires you, and shows you just how transcending the written word can be. Then you have a novel like this—which also influences you as a writer. By showing you what not to do.

I need to read some Owen Meany now to cleanse myself. I feel so dirty. But what do I know? This thing was a best-selling, award-nominated novel.(less)

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Nov 14, 2007 Paula rated it 1 of 5 stars

This book had so much going for it. First: a quirky title. Second: crazy Ukrainian immigrants. Third: a love story involving horny old people. And it managed to fail miserably on all three counts.

Quick summary: Two sisters are estranged because of a mysterious event that happened 40 years ago in the Old Country. But their mother is dead and their father has taken up with a Ukrainian hussy. Also, he is writing a book about tractors. In Ukrainian. Hussy terrorizes father, sisters must get over the...more

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Mar 21, 2011 Paul rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: novels

This reads like the author has earnestly followed some kind of How To Write a Comic Novel course.

1 - write about what you know. Check! She's British Ukrainian and this is all about British Ukrainian stuff.

2 - Decide on a strong central narrator and give them a winning personality. Check! Boy oh boy does our first person narrator want you to like her. When I was reading this today and the doorbell rang I thought that was her come round with some freshly baked pampushky. As the story rolls along s...more

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Apr 08, 2008 Kate rated it 2 of 5 stars Recommends it for: People who like tractors

I picked up this book because it had rave reviews printed all over the back and inside covers about how hillarious it was. I don't know if i'm missing something but I didn't find this book funny at all. I think it dealt with alot of serious issues, and was quite educational about the history of Ukraine and the perceptions of the west. Maybe there was some black comedy element I was missing, but to me I just didn't find an old man being abused, war and people mispronouncing English words amusing....more

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Jul 02, 2007 chelka rated it 3 of 5 stars Recommends it for: people who like Eastern European stuff...?

A librarian co-worker recommended this book to me, describing it as funny and quirky. She knows I come from a Polish family and frequently recommends Russian, Polish, and other Eastern European literature. I find it interesting to read as I was not brought up with any sense of E. European culture, and this book made me wonder what I would be like if I had experienced more Polish-ness. The story revolves around two sisters in their fifties who must sit back while their recently-widowed father mar...more

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Mar 29, 2010 Lena rated it 1 of 5 stars

Doubtful the author has been to Ukraine in her adult life and if she has she must have come away with some kind of skewed understanding of what the life is like there. And what's up with tractors? Why not pick ups, combines or cranes? We've got those in the Ukraine too.

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Jul 28, 2012 Joachim rated it 4 of 5 stars

This was a surprisingly touching book about a (very) dysfunctional family. 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.

I disagree with the reviews, however, which invariably claim that this is a hilarious book. It was funny and sad at the same time. When it was funny, it was chuckle-funny, not lough-out-loud. It's more of a real-life story about people and their problems, blown out of proportion with (slightly) oversi...more

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Oct 15, 2011 Putri rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: modern-literature

Punya Ayah yang eksentrik seperti Nikolai Mayevskyj, tentunya tidak mudah. Mungkin ini yang bisa dirasakan oleh kedua anak perempuannya Nadezha dan Vera. Dua tahun setelah kematian istrinya, Nikolai yang pada saat itu 84 tahun menikah dengan wanita berusia 36 tahun yang bernama Valentina. Setelah mengetahui bahwa Valentina menikahi ayah mereka bukan karena cinta tapi karena Valentina mengejar harta ayah mereka saja maka keduanya berkomplot untuk menjauhkan Valentina dari Ayah mereka.

Ini murni ce...more

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Jun 09, 2008 Victoria rated it 4 of 5 stars

This book sat on my shelf for months before I finally sat down to read it. There was no good reason for my hesitance – the book has glowing reviews and was shortlisted for the Orange Prize – for some reason it just didn’t appeal to me. You know the phrase ‘don’t judge a book by its cover’? Well I do this, all the time, and I think that was the reason behind my mental block. My mind could not make the link between the words 'history', 'tractors', 'Ukrainian' and the comedy that the blurb on the b...more This book sat on my shelf for months before I finally sat down to read it. There was no good reason for my hesitance – the book has glowing reviews and was shortlisted for the Orange Prize – for some reason it just didn’t appeal to me. You know the phrase ‘don’t judge a book by its cover’? Well I do this, all the time, and I think that was the reason behind my mental block. My mind could not make the link between the words 'history', 'tractors', 'Ukrainian' and the comedy that the blurb on the back promised.

I know now that I was wrong. This is a well-written, very funny story about a sad situation and some serious concepts.

Told by the character of Nadezhda, this is the tale of her father’s second marriage to the much-younger Valentina. In the book’s opening words (so much better than mine): 'Two years after my mother died, my father fell in love with a glamorous blonde Ukrainian divorcee. He was eighty-four and she was thirty-six. She exploded into our lives like a fluffy pink grenade, churning up the murky water, bringing to the surface a sludge of sloughed-off memories, giving the family ghosts a kick up the backside.’

The author has an ear for the peculiarity of English as a second language and, in the character of Valentina, has created one of the most amusing villains ever. Into this larger-than-life character are poured all sorts of wonderful insults and bare-faced gold-digging that would put this country’s Wags to shame. Nadezhda’s father is well-developed as a character as well, having the stubbornness familiar to old men everywhere, backed with a horrific personal history. He relates his slant on some of his past with his book, A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian, passages of which intersperse the main story.

Sadly, some of the deeper meaning is inevitably lost, falling victim to the comedy situations and emotional development, so that the conclusion is something of an anti-climax. I also felt that the narrator’s character remained something of a mystery to me, despite her revealing her family’s secrets she didn’t really share too much of her own feelings.

But these are minor quibbles with a very high-quality book, which should be recommended to any chick-lit-lovers who think that funny must automatically mean fluffy. This is a book with a heart, soul and funny bone all firmly in place. Although I still think the cover is terrible.
(less)

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Jan 01, 2009 Meliana rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: novel, meli-good-reads

membaca buku tentang sejarah singkat traktor dalam bahasa ukranian seperti menonton infotainment seru tentang perseteruan rumah tangga; melibatkan seorang kakek berumur 84 tahun yang nekat menikahi seorang janda muda bahenol (baca: berdada luar biasa besar, berambut pirang dan selera busana berwarna-warni) yang jelas-jelas hanya mengincar uang dan visa menetap, ditambah kedua putri nikolai (sang kakek) yang bersekongkol ingin mendeportasi ibu tiri mereka yang bermental penjajah dan rakus, ditamb...more

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May 22, 2010 Lavinia rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2010, fiction

Many times, before I read the book (or at least I had a clue what it is about), I wondered if it really treats the subject of tractors or it’s just a funky title. Well, for those of you out there who might have the same dilemma, yes, it is about tractors. But fortunately, not only. :)

We have very picturesque characters: a voluptuous & outrageous blonde, two desperate/bitchy sisters, a helpless old man, uncomfortable ironies, immigrants, family anecdotes, canned food and a lot of plum wine. A...more

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May 10, 2009 Mel rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

malam natal 1952. vera dan aku, berselubung pakaian hangat, mapan bersandar pada ibu di kursi belakang. dan seorang wanita ramah bermantel bulu yang bersandar dari seberang lorong, memasukkan uang enam penny ke tangan ibu: "untuk anak-anak, untuk natal."
"wanita yang memberi sixpence pada ibu."
Ibu, ibu kami, tidak melemparkan koin itu ke wajah pemberinya; dia menggumam, "terima kasih, nyonya," dan menyelipkannya ke dalam sakunya. betapa malunya!
"oh, itu. kupikir si wanita agak mabuk. kau pernah m...more

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Jul 21, 2012 Michiyo 'jia' Fujiwara rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

apakah ada hubungan semua masalah dibuku ini dengan traktor???
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jatuh cinta..
Nikolai Mayevskyj pria berumur 84 tahun, setelah 2 tahun kematian istrinya; Ludmilla..Dahulu.. mereka berdua beserta kedua putri mereka melarikan diri dari negeri Ukraina;yang hancur karena perang dan kelaparan karenanya..pergi kesisi sebelah barat.. ke negeri yang dikatakan lebih liberal dan demokratis serta terjamin kesejahte...more

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Apr 02, 2012 Zaki rated it 4 of 5 stars

I really enjoyed this book. The writing's crisp, the pacing's brisk, and it's really funny.

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Feb 01, 2009 Nancy rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: eastern-european, award-winner, immigrants, england

A novel that reads like a memoir, sometimes funny, sometimes sad, often outrageous. I think the characters were extremely real, I felt like I was reading a memoir and though their language and treatment of each other was on the far end of dysfunctional, there was also a lot of love and family togetherness. It basically is about two sisters trying to save their aging father from being duped by a much younger buxom Ukranian refugee. I kept thinking of Anna Nicole Smith—her outrageousness, her marr...more

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Nov 28, 2009 Punk rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Fiction. This book isn't nearly as charming as its title, which, I'll confess, is the main reason I bought it. Mostly it's about a horny, pathetic old man who is being exploited by his much younger, practically mail-order wife. I finished it, but just barely.

The characters are Ukrainian and living in England, but don't expect to learn much about what that means for them. There's a lot of family drama, elder abuse, and not much characterization. The first person narrator, the old man's adult daug...more

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Jun 09, 2009 Anarika rated it 3 of 5 stars

It was really flowing... It is indeed funny, highly entertaining and bright! I enjoyed in it, it made me constantly smile.
Through the pages of the book, I learnt to love Nikolaj, Nada, Vera, Stanislav and even Valentina! I wonder how do her high heeled fluffy pink slippers look like?! Ha ha ha ha It is a warm comical book, with some grotesque elements, lots of family secrets.
I imagined a different closing, just because I am soooo romantic. It is still warm and positive.
It could be a good base fo...more

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Jan 26, 2009 eL rated it 4 of 5 stars

ini buku gak sengaja saya temukan di dekat biografi nya Bob Marley.. gak ngerti deh siapa yang naruh di situ. Judulnya itu loh, menunjukkan seolah-olah bukan novel fiksi.. duh, hebat deh si marina ini merumuskan judul. kayaknya itu deh alasan kenapa saya beli buku ini kemarin sore, dan langsung saya lahap habis malam tadi.

cerita nya sendiri, tidak terlalu luar biasa, tentang laki2 jompo (nikholai) yang jatuh cinta pada perempuan yang jauh lebih muda (valentina). padahal si laki jompo ini punya 2...more

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Mar 12, 2008 Andrew rated it 3 of 5 stars

We have a family friend who smuggled cameras into Soviet Russia. He was a mathemetician or engineer at MIT at the time, something like that, and he and his teachers heard their colleagues in Russia were being blacklisted under Brezhnev, and that being blacklisted meant not working, and that not working meant being on the street, and that being on the street meant being shipped to a labor camp. So under who knows what excuse, these MIT nerds flew to Moscow—multiple times—with American-made camera...more We have a family friend who smuggled cameras into Soviet Russia. He was a mathemetician or engineer at MIT at the time, something like that, and he and his teachers heard their colleagues in Russia were being blacklisted under Brezhnev, and that being blacklisted meant not working, and that not working meant being on the street, and that being on the street meant being shipped to a labor camp. So under who knows what excuse, these MIT nerds flew to Moscow—multiple times—with American-made cameras around their necks, gave them to Soviet nerds for them to sell on the black market—each camera could be worth a year’s pay—and thus saved their lives.

This family friend is fairly ordinary. He’s quite smart and has travelled a great deal, but his wikipedia entry wouldn’t be any longer than yours or mine. And that’s what makes the bit above, and the two books under review here, stay with me: good stories always seems to come out of a combination of ordinary characters and huge backgrounds.

David Bezmozgis is a Torontan but from Riga, Latvia. That is, the Soviet Union. He has published the story collection Natasha, a debut doubtless to earn comparisons—well here, I’m doing it—to Aleksandar Hemon, another English-as-a-second-language stunner adopted by New Yorker types as both a curiosity and, like, lover almost. But Bezmozgis, like Hemon, is a pretty ordinary guy by any measure other than circumstance. Same goes for the Bermans, the characters at the center of Natasha. They are Russian Jews. The father is a masseur, the mother a housewife. The son, who narrates each story through his advancing ages, loves a pet in one story, an athlete in another, a teenaged girl in a third. But against the background of flight from a killing-empire, against his parents’ and Jews’ memory and hope, and against acclimation to Canadian/American opportunities and demands, the characters’ stories project much grander shapes.

Bezmozgis tells these sorts of stories successfully by exploiting tricks in structure—positioning the small, personal elements next to the transcendent ones. The story “An Animal to the Memory” works well in this respect. Bezmozgis writes it such that a character’s very personalized rage is confronted, story-wise, by his principal’s teaching on the Holocaust. Watching Bezmozgis fit the elements of person and history together and capping them with a last, cathartic line (”Now, Berman, he said, now maybe you understand what it means to be a Jew.”) is the primary thrill of the collection Natasha.

Another immigrant tale is A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian, the new debut novel by erstwhile sociologist Marina Lewycka. Different in setting, style, and tone from Natasha, Lewycka’s novel nevertheless ploughs similar turf, namely, how do the ordinary products of extraordinary circumstance deal with ordinary problems? Lewycka’s characters are, like her, of a Ukrainian family living in England and dealing with the challenge of elder care. Nadia is a professor, her sister Vera a hard-edged divorcee, and their widower father a mess. He has fallen in love with a bosomy youngish Ukrainian mother, whom he imports and supports to his own financial and near-physical ruin. Nadia and Vera see the scam but can hardly do anything about it without destroying their father.

Again, a seemingly inward-facing crisis has its sources in big-h History. Their father loves this woman who ruins him almost simply because he can let her, because he can finally be wasteful and self-centered after a life of scrimping and fear and misdirection in Soviet Ukraine. It’s a poor decision on his part, but we understand it, even if his children don’t:

We arrive well before one o’clock, hoping to catch her, but she has already gone out. The house looks neglected, dispirited. When my mother was here there were always fresh flowers, a clean tablecloth, the smell of good cooking. Now there are no flowers, but used cups, piles of papers, books, things that have not been put away.

Nadia chalks up the mess of her father’s life to depression, but only initially. As she learns more, his sins of necessity, of survival against a regime that hardly wanted him, come to the fore, and the story becomes more compelling, if also sadder. Lewycka’s writing, on its own, isn’t terribly engaging, and her insistence on forcing the story-telling entirely into dialogue is a certain weakness, but her ability to place the structure of the common, important issue of caring for one’s parents within the structure of the immigration tale will win her many doting readers.

Our family friend is still ordinary, by the way. He went into business briefly with my stepfather and has started or invested in various companies with varying success. I rather hope the same for Bezmozgis and Lewycka. Unless you’re Joseph Roth or Graham Greene, books of this type are notoriously difficult to follow up, at least not without degrading the endeavour into a pulpy little-man-vs.-the-world formula. I wonder even if we’ll see another book of fiction from the sociologist Lewycka. But Tractors and Bezmozgis’ Natasha, like those cameras, will be gifts that last us long enough.(less)

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May 10, 2008 Shannon (Giraffe Days) rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, humour, favourite, 2007

I was so happy to finally get a copy of this book, after coming across it in little Cosmos bookshop in St. Kilda about 2 years ago, even though I couldn't get an edition with the nicer tractor cover. I just find it tacky to print the first two sentences on the front cover, even though it is a catchy beginning.

It was certainly not quite what I was expecting - because it was nominated for the Man Booker Prize last year, I guess I was expecting something a bit heavier, more depressing. But this boo...more I was so happy to finally get a copy of this book, after coming across it in little Cosmos bookshop in St. Kilda about 2 years ago, even though I couldn't get an edition with the nicer tractor cover. I just find it tacky to print the first two sentences on the front cover, even though it is a catchy beginning.

It was certainly not quite what I was expecting - because it was nominated for the Man Booker Prize last year, I guess I was expecting something a bit heavier, more depressing. But this book is hilarious. It's heavily ironic, surprisingly dialogue-based, yet so much is revealed in subtle ways.

Nadezhda (Nadia for short) and her Big Sis, Vera, lost their mother two years ago and have been fighting ever since over the will. Now they are brought together by a common goal: to prevent their 84 year old father, Nikolai, from marrying a Ukrainian gold digger with big boobs. Their words, not mine. 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.

This story is so neatly balanced between the humour and farce of the present "situation" and the scary, desperate past. The past sections are not told in a morbid fashion, though. It's hard to put my finger on what it is exactly, but the narrative has that almost stale taste you acquire when telling a story not your own: Nadia was the Peace baby, Vera the War baby, and Big Sis is very tight-lipped. Nadia has to piece together the past, and Vera's account doesn't always match their father's.

Another thing I loved was the familiarity of the English world: although I have never been, I found great heart in the fact that the text had not been altered for a North American readership. Words like "capsicum" are still there, little golden nuggets to stumble across in the story. (For anyone who doesn't know, capsicum is the "real" word for "pepper", as in, bell pepper. The capsicum family, it is. It's the word we use in Australia, too.)

I loved this book, but I'm having trouble getting past my positive reaction to really understand it. I'm sure there's more to it than what's on the surface.(less)

5 likes · like · see review

Mar 23, 2007 Sandy added it Recommends it for: Engineers and those interested in Russian history

This is a book that can be read on a plane ride, short. The story is about the partnership between two estranged sisters who try and prevent the marriage of their 84 year old Ukranian immigrant father from marrying a 36 year old gold digger. The older sister was born in the Ukraine during war time in Russia. The younger is peace time baby born in England. They have a view about life influenced by their respective early years and the socio-political times of their birth. The father was an enginee...more

1 like · like · see review

Jan 11, 2008 Osho rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2007

Ultimately, a rather disturbing and tragic novel that is superficially about elder abuse, and more abstractly about the legacy of culture-wide trauma. Themes include reconciliation/redemption (of the kind that makes it a contender for Oprah's Book Club), connection and disconnection, stinginess and generosity, optimism and fear, and innocence and cynicism. It nicely illustrates how position in a family influences one's perspective on the family, as well as the oblique ways that family history is...more

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Dec 28, 2012 Gerard rated it 2 of 5 stars

This is becoming somewhat disappointing--too stereotypical and superficial in its humour and somewhat too flat in the language (even though there are exceptions)... I'm heading for two stars at most, I think ...

The overall idea of this book is great, with the connection between mid-twentieth century European disaster and present-day society, including Lenin´s view of capitalism extending into contemporary global greed and local or individual experience of its consequences. The counterpoint of a...more

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Jun 15, 2008 Cecily rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: overrated

Adult sisters warring over parent(s), money, step mother etc. The extracts about the history of tractors are a gimmick that ought to have more relevance to justify its inclusion; the characters and plot are unoriginal and superficial and the attempts at humour feel lame.

I can't figure out the target audience, how was it shortlisted for the Orange prize (just a pun on Ukraine's Orange Revolution?) or selected as Radio 4’s Book at Bedtime?

An adult plot, but written with limited vocab (except for...more

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Aug 31, 2007 Jamie rated it 1 of 5 stars Recommends it for: people who like overhyped things

This book, despite all of its stars and reviews and etc etc was a huge disappointment. It's rare that I don't finish a book but I became so apathetic to this one that by page 180 I just left it on the floor of my room and later returned it to the library. I have no interest to know how it ends. The characters ply you for sympathy in maudlin fashion and cliches drip off every page.

Here is a summary of the book: Hey! We're Ukrainian! We have a dark family past! But we're really sardonic too! Hey!...more

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Apr 11, 2013 Kieu-Anh Tran rated it 4 of 5 stars

This book came free with a fashion magazine so I'd thought it was another silly romance novel. I gave it a read however and the book has been one of my favourite feel good reads.

Many may think this is a predictable easy read, but what is the harm in that? Growing up in post-war Vietnam and now living in Britain, I could recognise the life situation of all the main characters. The very frugal Ukrainian mother who had a large pantry full of tinned food and a garden growing anything edible just in...more

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Mar 29, 2013 Philip Lee rated it 3 of 5 stars

“A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian”
by Marina Lewycka

Where we to spend 30 to 40 years of our lives without meeting a single Ukrainian, and be unaware that their communities are dotted about the country, the revelation of their existence would come as little surprise. We've heard tell of Somali social clubs going back a century, personally we know shed-loads of Poles, we sit next to Brazilians on the bus or train every day. The UK is a peculiar sort of place. Funny, too. Its native humour i...more “A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian”
by Marina Lewycka

Where we to spend 30 to 40 years of our lives without meeting a single Ukrainian, and be unaware that their communities are dotted about the country, the revelation of their existence would come as little surprise. We've heard tell of Somali social clubs going back a century, personally we know shed-loads of Poles, we sit next to Brazilians on the bus or train every day. The UK is a peculiar sort of place. Funny, too. Its native humour is interlaced with the self-parodies of the Pakistani, Yahudi, Italian, Chinese and German types who over the years have made it their home. Such diversity began long long before the post-war immigration boom, by which time the UK already had its panoply of national stereo-goons: the Welsh teachers, Canadian adventurers, Irish nurses, Australian sheep farmers, English toffs, Caribbean sailors and Scottish housekeepers. So if now we've got Ukrainians too, it figures.
When people say, as they do, there's something very English about... and then go on to yak about something that is not at all English indeed, we nod and accept these as facts because so often there's truth in them. There's something very English, we say, about the Turkish kebabs on every high street, just as there's something terribly English about curry. There's something quite English about trusting a plumber because he's Polish, well they do work harder and invite you to haggle if you think they're overcharging. There's something absolutely English about the rise and fall of the Asian mini-mart; and then campaigns to save our Chinese laundries, Italian ice-cream parlours and French onion sellers are just about English as you can get. Though the English invented class snobbery, there's something utterly English about the young aristocratic lady in Downton marrying the Sinn Fein chauffeur.
Therefore, to say there's something very Engish about “A Short History of Tractors In Ukrainian” is not to annex beetroot soup, fur-lined caps or Natashas with embossed fingernails for the British Empire. It's to say that this story of Ukrainians in Peterborough is an archetype in a post-modern world of which the UK has become capital. Of course, apart from the Crimean War (1853-5) a while ago there was little to connect Britain with the former Soviet Republic, and what is least English about the book is how the Mayevskyj family became slave workers under the Third Reich, then refugees after World War Two. The British were not overly concerned in the tragedies that befell former provinces of the Romanov empire, preferring to mop up after the Ottomans. Things began to change after the fall of Poland in 1939. In the seven decades since, it's fair to say that population-wise Britain has become the most European of all EU members, leaving aside its aloofness from the Euro project. What distinguishes the UK is not simply the sheer number of emigrés it has absorbed, but their diversity and the endurance of their cultural values. With alacrity, the UK celebrates its very own Hungarian bean-fests and Romanian Independence days.
“A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian” is the story of how a septuagenarian engineer, Nicolai Mayevskyj, betroths a thirty-something Russian divorcée from the Ukraine, Valentina, and what his daughters Vera and Nadezhda - our narrtor – go through. It's partially a comic novel with the line “I have a cunning plan” - Baldrick's catchphrase from “Black Adder” - repeated no less than three times. The fun-poking at Nokolai's one-foot-in-the-grave search for companionship and Valentina's boil-in-the-bag modernity is interspersed with chunks of family history, sibling rivalry between Vera and Nadezhda, and memories of their dead mother. Actually, though the writing never ceases to be light, it is seldom lightweight. Through the medium of English and English slapstick, things Ukrainian and Russian are presented effortlessly and with charm. Whenever the action descends into parody and farce - over Pappa's “squishy-squashy” impotence for instance - the narrative takes a sudden twist and we're treated to a chapter from his on-going manuscript history of Ukrainian tractors.
Marina Lewycka's use of tense is subtly done. Most of the action is told in present tenses, which gives the story-telling a button-holed, in-your-face quality. Some writers, Andrew Miller for example, carry the use of present tenses to extremes. Lewycka, however, frequently reverts to past tense narrative, sometimes even in the same scene, and once again the effect looks effortless. I had only a few quibbles with the text; sometimes there were double line-breaks between paragraphs in the same scene and I couldn't see why. Also, as with the Baldrick line, there is occasional over-use of repetition: “Disgusted of Tunbridge Wells” pops up two or three times more often than originality demands. And occasionally you get lines which could only be of benefit to non-native speakers, for example: “Now he is spent up – he has no money left.”
This is an easy and rewarding read which leaves me feeling intrigued and keen to read on. If I ever come across the volume advertised on the back cover - “Caravans” - I'd certainly consider buying it, if only to see if Lewycka extends her reach, or branches out beyond the world of Ukrainian emigrés.(less)

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About Marina Lewycka

Marina Lewycka is a British novelist of Ukrainian origin, currently living in Sheffield, England.

Lewycka was born in a refugee camp in Kiel, Germany after World War II. Her family then moved to England where she now lives. She was educated at Keele University and works as a lecturer in media studies at Sheffield Hallam University.

In addition to her fiction, Lewycka has written a number of books gi...more

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“When I saw the car pulling into the driveway and I saw her getting out and walking towards the house, can you imagine Nadezhda, I performed involuntary excretion in my trousers.” — 6 people liked it

“Ireland, like Ukraine, is a largely rural country which suffers from its proximity to a more powerful industrialised neighbour. Ireland’s contribution to the history of tractors is the genius engineer Harry Ferguson, who was born in 1884, near Belfast.
Ferguson was a clever and mischievous man, who also had a passion for aviation. It is said that he was the first man in Great Britain to build and fly his own aircraft in 1909. But he soon came to believe that improving efficiency of food production would be his unique service to mankind. Harry Ferguson’s first two-furrow plough was attached to the chassis of the Ford Model T car converted into a tractor, aptly named Eros. This plough was mounted on the rear of the tractor, and through ingenious use of balance springs it could be raised or lowered by the driver using a lever beside his seat. Ford, meanwhile, was developing its own tractors. The Ferguson design was more advanced, and made use of hydraulic linkage, but Ferguson knew that despite his engineering genius, he could not achieve his dream on his own. He needed a larger company to produce his design. So he made an informal agreement with Henry Ford, sealed only by a handshake. This Ford-Ferguson partnership gave to the world a new type of Fordson tractor far superior to any that had been known before, and the precursor of all modern-type tractors. However, this agreement by a handshake collapsed in 1947 when Henry Ford II took over the empire of his father, and started to produce a new Ford 8N tractor, using the Ferguson system. Ferguson’s open and cheerful nature was no match for the ruthless mentality of the American businessman. The matter was decided in court in 1951. Ferguson claimed $240 million, but was awarded only $9.25 million. Undaunted in spirit, Ferguson had a new idea. He approached the Standard Motor Company at Coventry with a plan, to adapt the Vanguard car for use as tractor. But this design had to be modified, because petrol was still rationed in the post-war period. The biggest challenge for Ferguson was the move from petrol-driven to diesel-driven engines and his success gave rise to the famous TE-20, of which more than half a million were built in the UK. Ferguson will be remembered for bringing together two great engineering stories of our time, the tractor and the family car, agriculture and transport, both of which have contributed so richly to the well-being of mankind.” — 3 people liked it

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