Cabbage, Strudel and Trams

by Ivana Hruba

An almost biographical and definitely riotous tale of adolescence begun behind the Iron Curtain, continued in a West German refugee camp and coming to a glorious end in the land Down Under.

Cabbage, Strudel & Trams tells the story of a young girl’s turbulent journey from childhood to adulthood, of adolescence begun behind the Iron Curtain, continued in a West German refugee camp and coming to a glorious end in the land Down Under. Narrated by Franta, an imaginary friend inhabiting the inner world of our young heroine Vendula, this satirical coming-of-age tale depicts the trials and tribulations of an ordinary Czech family living in a small mining town in communist Czechoslovakia in the early 1980s, their escape to West Germany and their resettlement in Australia.
The story begins when the combined household of Zhvuk & Dribbler is thrown into chaos by the untimely defection of Uncle Stan to West Germany. With nothing but their damaged political profile to lose, the family decides to eventually follow in Uncle Stan’s footsteps but not before puberty, free enterprise, unrequited love and things that only happen to other people shred our young heroine’s heart. With charm, poise and a little grace, Franta navigates Vendula through the pitfalls of her teenage years, guiding her to discover her own identity. As shenanigans gather momentum, Franta’s humorous insights into Vendula’s loopy family: the assertive mother, the henpecked father, the enterprising granddad, the blissful grandma, the dissenting uncle and his circle of ‘freedom fighting’ friends build a picture of the life of ordinary folk surviving the oppressive communist regime.
Well, even straw will eventually break the camel’s back. Following a trip to the almighty Soviet Onion where rows of empty shop windows reveal the future all too clearly, the family escapes to West Germany. Unexpectedly, the refugee camp, a colourless shapeless blur on the edge of a dark, dark forest where only goblins live, is a happy kind of place in which tobacco chewing, nose picking, throat clearing, the occasional riot, and plentiful and uninhibited sexual exploits are the order of the day. Of course, life is not all beer and crackers for our heroes; having carved out some sort of an existence in the camp, new challenges arise when the family arrives in Australia.

154 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2010

About the author

Ivana Hrubá is a lovely, lovely girl and a writer of some "notable" talent, the sum of which will, just for your entertainment, be very modestly noted here. Specializing in writing bold, quirky and outrageously entertaining fiction, Ivana is what we call an undiscovered gem, an exotic island waiting to be explored or, as some people say, a territory best left uncharted.

Ivana concocted her first novel at the tender age of twelve when she was but a wee little girl wearing out her brother's hand-me-downs, chasing the geese off the village green in her native Czech Republic which was then under communist rule. Filled with poultry and very long sentences, Ivana's idyllic childhood came to an abrupt end in 1983 when she and her family crossed the Alps on foot to seek a new life free of communists and their blasted queues. After a year spent frolicking in a West German refugee camp, the family finally had a gutful of that sort of adventure, and they settled in Australia in 1984 where they've been living it up ever since.

Forward twenty years. Following the publication of her debut thriller 'A Decent Ransom' by the now defunct Kunati Inc. in 2008, Ivana developed the habit of talking about herself in the third person, a skill that comes in particularly handy when writing biographies. To this end, Ivana has also conquered her fear of appearing ridiculous due to excessive bragging as can be seen in this very intro right here.

In the tradition of all gifted folk, working for a living has never appealed to our author; therefore, Ivana has largely given up on the idea, preferring to spend her time writing books. How long she can keep it up will depend on how well her books sell... (Ivana has recently split the atom (again) when she discovered ebook publishing on the net and proceeded to convert her entire body of work into ebooks in hopes of a tremendous public response. Hint, hint, this is where you, the public, come in).

In the wake of the, dare one say, earth-shattering success of her debut novel (18 copies sold in North America alone!) published by Kunati in 2008, Ivana has retreated from her adoring public to gain some much needed perspective on her life. These days Ivana can be found traipsing around her garden practicing the ancient art of Feng Shui which, in Ivana's case, consists of pouring manure on her flower beds and cutting shrubbery into interesting geometrical shapes. Yes, a regular Edward Sissorhands, Ivana's letting her creative juices flow in many a new and varied direction. Having successfully faded from public view, Ivana has been able to spread her creative wings and work as a freelance writer completely undetected, dabbling in corporate copywriting, theatre promotion, copy editing, online blogging and wedding speeches. Finding these ventures a little more financially rewarding than her high-brow literary pursuits, Ivana has decided to seek out more of them so if you, dear reader, find yourself in need of a writer, give her a bell. She'll be delighted to get involved.

At the close of each day, Ivana likes to unwind in front of the computer where she spends time googling herself, rating her own books very highly and drawing cartoons for her own amusement. To unwind from that pleasure, she takes her dogs, cats, mice, lice, ponies, chickens and goldfish for a walk down the beach. It's a good life for everyone involved.

By the way, if you find yourself with a spare 5, 6 hours and can't get hold of a Bollywood movie, why don't you just go to Amazon.com in your country and download Ivana's books, hey? It will only take a minute and you'll be glued (she writes 'good', you know). You will make her very happy. Feel free to post reviews (only good ones) ;) Cheers, Yours Truly

P. S. This is a fan page only. Don't ask Ivana to be your 'friend'; she won't be. Friends show up as followers here on Goodreads and trust me, you don't want Ivana following your every move.

Reviews

[Zinta · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hurts so much that all you can do is laugh, it seems. The Soviet Union, or Soviet Onion, as Ivana Hrubá writes, encompasses the occupation of many European countries, marked by human rights abuses and atrocities. Laughing yet? With clever wit and satire, Hrubá finds a way to make it all tickle until you do.

In this something like an autobiography, but not quite, the author writes about a Czech family living under communism—the girl Vendula, who is the novel’s heroine, her brother Pavel, her parents, and grandparents babka Zlatka and Deda Anton. The story is told in the narrative voice of invisible Franta, a kind of wise, imaginary friend who lives in Vendula’s head. The family escapes to West Germany and later resettles in Australia.

Opening on a scene of the family discussing the unexpected defection of Uncle Stan from communist Czechoslovakia to West Germany, the reader comes to understand what it was like to live in a world based on a daily diet of propoganda. Standing in long queues outside empty shops in hopes of buying something, anything, cutting newspapers into squares to use as toilet paper, navigating adolescence through poverty and depravity, falling in love with the boy who dares to be an individual—it is all great fodder for the author to create a side-splitting circus of oppressed humanity coping in whatever way they can to live as normal lives as possible.

Between laughs, Hruba manages to insert pointedly serious scenarios without ever slipping into soapbox mode. Vendula’s adolescent friends include Marcela, the pretty Czech girl that is seduced into performing for pornography. The venture seems to start as something exciting and rewarding—all that money in a world of poverty—but ends with the young girl’s drowned and naked corpse floating up in a river, hands tied behind her back.

The point seems to be that human beings are ever so human, regardless of where we live and under what government, all of us trying to get ahead, chase a dream, find love, live in a world where we can feel some pride in achievement and hope for a little more. Wrapped in comedy, the author manages to expose human frailty and weakness while maintaining a compassionate sympathy for every character. We may all respond a little differently when pushed to the wall, but our common dreams are not so dissimilar.

When Deda calls out in a family discussion comparing communists to capitalists, black humor blooms while Babka Zlatka, cutting squares of newspaper for toilet paper, finds it easier to try to defend the madness of the world in which she lives:

“Do you have any idea what impact we’ve had on the Americans?” he called to Dad just as Vendula opened the door.

“None,” Dad answered without looking up from his pile.

“Precisely!” deda thundered. “None! No impact whatsoever.”

“And why? Why, I ask you?” he cried theatrically, pushing his deerstalker off of his forehead with his crooked finger. He looked pointedly at babka, expecting a response.

... She didn’t need it, didn’t want it and was happy to go with the official propoganda which stated that all capitalists were losers, regardless of their gross national income.

Deda Anton was not discouraged.

“We’ve had no impact on them because they don’t care! They got that much wheat they don’t know what to do with it! You think the Americans worry about our f—king five-year agricultural plan? …”

… Babka took. “Buy low, sell high,” she retorted contemptuously, waving a hand in deda’s face. “Any old fool can do that. That’s nothing to be proud of.”

Deda, delighted with the direction the conversation was taking, laid his crooked paw over babka’s scissors in a gesture of bravado. “Isn’t it? I beg to differ. The Americans know how to do business. They’ve got no housing crisis over there, darling, they don’t live eight to a room like your Soviet friends.”

… “Who walked on the moon first, Anton?” she fired at deda, confident she had him by the short and curlies… “I tell you who walked on the Moon, you silly man! The Soviets did! They landed there first!”

… To this deda eventually replied with a resigned sigh… “Who knows?” he sarcastically intoned. “This might be just the thing to end the housing crisis.” (page 72-73)

Right or wrong, good or bad, we all get attached to the places and people where we spend most of our time, and this point comes through, too, as we escape across the border with Vendula’s family. Suddenly, they enter a world of plenty. And still, they must struggle, and young Vendula longs for the friends she left behind, even if that was in a mad, mad world. Only gradually does the family readjust, and comic moments abound as Vendula learns a new language and the family finally moves into a house of their own in the land down under, Australia.

It is a story of many poignant Moments:

Things happen.

Things you would never have dreamed of.

Things you might have thought about just maybe happening on the other side of the galaxy but you’d never imagine them happening in your own life.

But they do.

There is always the Moment. (Page 92)

Hruba’s novel teaches important lessons without being obvious, subtle pointers to what matters and doesn’t matter in life. This is a window on Soviet life few Americans understand (deda Anton is right—Americans weren’t even paying attention) because it was a life nearly incomprehensible to those in the west. With quaint pencil drawings that appear to be the scribblings of a bored adolescent, the novel is rich with, as Vendula would say, Moments.

The format of the book can be off-putting, as the novel is printed on 8" x 11" pages in a fine type that fills the page from margin to margin. It can be difficult to read and uncomfortable to hold. Typos and errors are too frequent, calling out for another proofing. Yet with all that, I found myself so enjoying a good story wrapped in a good laugh, that I read the novel more quickly than I had anticipated. It is the second work I’ve read by this author, and her vivid imagination and wit come through as well in this as in her first adult novel, A Decent Ransom: A Story of a Kidnapping Gone Right.

As did her character Vendula, Ivana Hrubá was born in the Czech Republic, lived under communist rule, and then walked across the Alps with her family to escape to the free world in 1983. After living in West German refugee camps, her family resettled in Australia, where she lives now with her own family.

[Bonnie · Rating 4 out of 5]

What grabs me, keeps me reading, in Cabbage, Strudel, and Trams is the use of language (follow the link to read an excerpt and see some of the illustrations I mention further down). It’s the language, the descriptions, the play with words, and that Ivana Hrubá not only tells a story in a unique way, but also has fun with what could otherwise be a morose tale in the reading.

If someone else told this tale, of course it would be different, but so many people would tell it in a straight matter of fact way or in a pain wrenching way. Hrubá still shares difficult times, doesn’t make less of them, but she makes them lighter to read. After I finished it I took a moment to let the story set in, to absorb it, and I really feel her writing style is the winning factor. I found the story entertaining and humorous, the characters uniquely portrayed and fleshed out enough to be planted in one’s memory, and just enough depth in description of surroundings to paint a picture. The last was not what I was expecting because in stories like this you expect more detail of what is going on around that person or perhaps background into the places they are from or pass through, but in reality Cabbage, Strudel, and Trams is not about those places, but about the person and the people around her.

I think the only real downfall for me, and this may be attributable to a pet peeve, is the use of other languages without explanation. There were a lot of times where it just made sense what the translation would be anyway, given the context (it did help that I recognise German in written form), but there were times when I would be distracted from the story because I was trying to figure out what the word was.

In the end, even though it was enough for me to notice, it was really only a small thing and in a way played up to Hrubá’s playfulness.

I also really enjoyed the use of narration with the story not being told via first person in the sense of Vendula (the person we are following), but instead in Franta who appears to be an imaginary friend. I don’t always believe Franta is an imaginary friend though, I think Franta might be just that voice in your head when you question things.

And to top it all off; the illustrations. There’s illustrations all through the book to show and emphasis the characters and the story itself. Some of them are quite comical, setting off the wonderful sense of humour, and some are just plain cute. Even my Mum made a comment on them when she caught a glimpse of one when I was reading.

I think Cabbage, Strudel, and Trams is something I’d recommend to those who have an interest in biography, Communist communities, and what it’s like to immigrate to a new culture, but only if those people appreciate a sense of humour and don’t want something that dwells on the downside. Instead it’s for the people who want to read about someone’s story (because this is based on someone’s actual life), but see upsides to certain situations and colourful characters.

[Ivana · Rating 5 out of 5]

A hilarious peek at recent European history full of awkward moments, and featuring the occasional incorrect punctuation …

Available to download to your kindle on Amazon worldwide.

[Ivana · Rating 5 out of 5]

Seriously, readers? I see this soooo differently one wonders whether we're on the same planet... Still love 'ya.

[Ivana · Rating 5 out of 5]

Hanging out at the refugee camp was fun ... in so many ways.

[Ivana · Rating 5 out of 5]

After communism and the West German refugee camp, coming to Oz was a breeze ...

[Ivana · Rating 5 out of 5]

I grew up there.