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A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian

By Marina Lewycka

(198)

| Hardcover | 9780670915606

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Book Description

When their recently widowed father announces that he plans to remarry, sisters Vera and Nadezhda realize that they must learn to put aside a lifetime of bitter rivalry in order to save him. The new woman in his life is Valentina, a voluptuous gold-digger from Ukraine, fifty years his junior, with fabulous breasts and a proclivity for green satin underwear and boil-in-the-bag cuisine, who will stop at nothing in her single-minded pursuit of the luxurious Western lifestyle she dreams of. But separating their addled and annoyingly lecherous dad from his new love will prove to be no easy feat-in terms of sheer cold-eyed ruthlessness, the two sisters swiftly realize that they are rank amateurs. As Hurricane Valentina turns the old family house upside down, all the old secrets come falling out, including the most deeply buried one of them all, from the war, the one that explains much about why Nadezhda and Vera are so different. In the meantime, oblivious to it all, their father carries on with the great work of his dotage-a grand history of the tractor and its role in human progress, giving due credit to the crucial Ukrainian contribution. The story carries us back to prerevolutionary Ukraine, through wartime Germany, to contemporary England, taking in love and suffering, tanks and tractors, bitchiness, sibling rivalry, and, above all, the joys of growing old disgracefully.

A funny, enchanting novel about the belated healing of old family wounds under the most unlikely of circumstances and the trials and consolations of old age, A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian manages both to transport us somewhere entirely fresh and to echo what we ourselves know in our hearts about how families work (and don't). Written with great and well-earned wit, empathy and grace, it is a debut worthy of full-throated celebration.

A wise, tender, deeply funny novel about an eccentric elderly Ukrainian widower in England and the struggles of his two feuding daughters to thwart the voluptuous young gold-digger from the old country who sweeps him off his feet

Critics

Human traffic

A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian by Marina Lewycka 336pp, Viking, £12.99 There is something fascinating about any minority ethnic group and, therefore, a great interest in novels about them. In this case, for example, we might want to find ou ... (read full critics)

guardian.co.uk published on Sat, 25 Sep 2010

Tractor fan? Read this

In the beginning there was wind and water power. And the people were sore and heavily callused. Then there was 1750ish, when the Industrial Revolution came upon them, and with it James Watt and his steam engine. And lo, there were smoke-belching fact ... (read full critics)

guardian.co.uk published on Sat, 25 Sep 2010

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13 Reviews

3 people find this helpful

Supposedly an uproariously funny book. I found myself annoyed at the way it was written though. A bit too contrived for my taste.

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annemarie said on Apr 26, 2007 about the Paperback edition | Add your feedback

3 people find this helpful

Hilarious with an intriguing plot. The characters are funny and the prose fluid. You would have attended a lesson on Ukranian history after finishing the book.
Ukrania is not a fun place to live though ...

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Tracy W said on Apr 12, 2007 about the Paperback edition | Add your feedback

1 person find this helpful

So, the cover of this edition sells the book to you as hilarious and funny... I must say I don't agree that much. Maybe it's me, maybe I don't have a good sense of humour, but I actually found this novel bittersweet and melancholy. True, there are some funny moments - but they always have this sort ... (continue)

So, the cover of this edition sells the book to you as hilarious and funny... I must say I don't agree that much. Maybe it's me, maybe I don't have a good sense of humour, but I actually found this novel bittersweet and melancholy. True, there are some funny moments - but they always have this sort of lurking background sadness.
That said, it's very intelligent, a very interesting description of old age and senility, of greed, of family relations and of the importance of memory. I liked it. it's thought provoking, and the writers masters language very well, occasionally creating very funny scenes with it.
So, I do recommend it, but not if you just read another sad book and are in search of something lighter, like I was ;)

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natalia said on Oct 17, 2009 about the Paperback edition | Add your feedback

Una piccola saga familiare resa in modo divertente, che ha il pregio di trattare un tema solitamente lontano dalle cronache.

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Il Cocco said on Feb 1, 2012 about the Paperback edition | Add your feedback

It's worth it! Never mind if it's funny or not. It's likeable.

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jelabino said on Aug 1, 2011 about the Paperback edition | Add your feedback

Maybe not as funny as I expected, but I enjoyed it very much.

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Bedo said on Mar 23, 2011 about the Paperback edition | Add your feedback