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

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Just when you think she’s the “slut” and “gold-digger” the eldest sister, Vera, is persuaded she is, the book also exposes the pathos and hardship that faces those who are displaced – through war, politics and Otherness. A. At the beginning, Valentina was more of a caricature, but as I fell in love with her, I tried to understand who she really was, and how she came to be as she was. Giovane donna piacente che arriva dall’Europa dell’est – in questo caso né badante né a servizio – la prole si agita e preoccupa, in difesa del genitore che dalla sua invece sta nascendo a nuova vita, e ancor più a salvaguardia del patrimonio familiare. And to my delight, I found there was a whole community of tractor enthusiasts out there, willing and eager to share their technical knowledge.

Try to describe the state of their sisterhood at the end of the book and make some guesses about how it might continue to grow or evolve in the future.The other no-no that the author does is to somehow allow her lead first-person narrator to know what someone else is thinking. Coupled with a slightly senile old man for a husband, two feuding sisters, and their mother, still very alive in spirit, all with colorful personalities of their own, you have a cast of characters made for a comedy show. This may be explained by the fact that behind the lightness of the book hides a very serious subtext: the author, who was born of Ukrainian parents in a German refugee camp understands history. 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.

Lewycka tells the side-splittingly funny story of two feuding sisters, Vera and Nadezhda, who join forces against their father’s new, gold-digging girlfriend.However, when the narrative switches to flashbacks from Ukraine decades ago, everything is very real and the same characters are supposed to be taken seriously, which produces a rather grotesque effect. Olyan küzdelem ez, aminek egész egyszerűen nem lehetnek győztesei, Lewycka pedig kiválóan mutatja be ennek az egész mocskos adok-kapoknak a dinamikáját. Always having a passion for tractors, especially in relation to his native Ukraine, he often reads from his text to visitors. The language is well used, characters have their own idiom (always easier when non-native half-Englishness is involved, but still) and I found the 'Tractors' inserts (a monumental history of these machines being written by Nikolay Mayevsky) a nice device too. Figlie che, prima di questa minaccia, non filavano esattamente d’amore e d’accordo: ma la maggiore, Vera, è esperta di divorzi, e anche se la minore, Nadia, è piena di ideali umanitari, le sorelle fanno squadra per salvare il salvabile, denunciano l’usurpatrice, assoldano avvocati.

A. I had grown up in England thinking of myself as essentially English, though with a name that most people couldn’t pronounce, and a few family eccentricities—well, everyone has those, don’t they? I was acutely aware of the difference between the way my parents saw themselves, as educated and professional people, and our actual circumstances, which were quite poor. I found the nicknames annoying: Big Sis, Bogeynose, Mrs Divorce Expert, Mrs Flog 'em and send 'em home. 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. Q.Valentina is a remarkably forceful character, both for the people in your book and for the reader.Along with the old man's story, I gathered considerable knowledge on the history of tractors in Ukrainian, and also an inkling of its political situation. In fact, it is one of those book that I would love to read again, simply because I am going to miss this family a lot.