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With this wise, tender, and deeply funny novel, Marina Lewycka takes her place alongside Zadie Smith and Monica Ali as a writer who can capture the unchanging verities of family. When an elderly and newly widowed Ukrainian immigrant announces his intention to remarry, his daughters must set aside their longtime feud to thwart him. For their father’s intended is a voluptuous old-country gold digger with a proclivity for green satin underwear and an appetite for the good life of the West. As the hostilities mount and family secrets spill out, A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian combines sex, bitchiness, wit, and genuine warmth in its celebration of the pleasure of growing old disgracefully.
1. Two phone calls and a funeral
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.
It all started with a phone call.
My father’s voice, quavery with excitement, crackles down the line.
“Good news, Nadezhda. I’m getting married!”
I remember the rush of blood to my head. Please let it be a joke! Oh, he’s gone bonkers! Oh, you foolish old man! But I don’t say any of those things.
“Oh, that’s nice, Pappa,” I say.
“Yes, yes. She is coming with her son from Ukraina. Ternopiol in Ukraina.” Ukraina: he sighs, breathing in the remembered scent of mown hay and cherry blossom. But I catch the distinct synthetic whiff of New Russia.
Her name is Valentina, he tells me. But she is more like Venus. “Botticelli’s Venus rising from waves. Golden hair. Charming eyes. Superior breasts. When you see her you will understand.”
The grown-up me is indulgent. How sweet—this last late flowering of love. The daughter me is outraged. The traitor! The randy old beast! And our mother barely two years dead. I am angry and curious. I can’t wait to see her—this woman who is usurping my mother.
“She sounds gorgeous. When can I meet her?”
“After marriage you can meet.”
“I think it might be better if we could meet her first, don’t you?”
“Why you want to meet? You not marrying her.” (He knows something’s not quite right, but he thinks he can get away with it.)
“But Pappa, have you really thought this through? It seems very sudden. I mean, she must be a lot younger than you.”
I modulate my voice carefully, to conceal any signs of disapproval, like a worldly-wise adult dealing with a love struck adolescent.
“Thirty-six. She’s thirty-six and I’m eighty four. So what?” (He pronounces it ‘vat.’)
There is a snap in his voice. He has anticipated this question.
“Well, it’s quite an age difference...”
“Nadezhda, I never thought you would be so bourgeois.” (He puts the emphasis on the last syllable - wah!)
“No, no.” He has me on the defensive. “It’s just that…;there could be problems.”
There will be no problems, says Pappa. He has anticipated all problems. He has known her for three months.
Anonymous
Posted May 25, 2013
Ok. So what do you want to do. XD
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Posted May 19, 2013
*curls up in her nook to think*
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Posted October 12, 2012
Very skillfully written, this book deals with family matters, while throwing in some intrigue, politics and history. The voice of the narrator is authentic and witty.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Despite the title, there's much more to this novel than tractors. It's really more of a fable about a family coming to a realization that the past, namely their history as immigrants from the Ukraine, never really goes away. It begins with the death of the mother, a thrifty and conscientious woman with two bickering daughters. Their previously eccentric father, an inventor of sorts, becomes increasingly unbalanced and ends up marrying a blonde bombshell from Ukraine, fifty years his junior.
The storyline goes as you would expect it, and there are no real surprises. The underlying theme of identity is emphasized with tragic and comic stories from their childhood. At points it becomes a slapstick comedy of the strangest proportions with the lovesick old man and his embarrassed daughters. Things seem to resolve a little easier than would be predicted, but with a fable they usually do.
This is a fast paced and witty read. I didn't find myself particularly drawn to any of the characters, and much was left simmering at the surface without real depth. To really enjoy this, I'd suggest having a map of Europe at hand, because much is made of locations and journeys.
LMreads
Posted April 6, 2009
Maybe I just didn't get this book. It was a difficult book to finish for me. I just got bored with the content and needed to finish it for my book club meeting, so after scanning the book, decided to go back to read it. I skipped all the tractor parts. I must say there were colorful characters, and the dialect was on the mark. I just don't recommend it as a great read. If it had more detail about the relationship and the past of the sisters and their mother, I think it would have been more interesting.
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Posted March 16, 2009
The book is more entertaining than great literature. Kudos to the author for having captured and given back the Ukrainian pidgin English, the noticeable differences between the old and the new Ukraine (from before the Revolution, to communism, to post-communism). The new Ukraine is way less attractive than the old: a consumerist and opportunistic trend has taken over the Slavic souls.
Moving story on growing old, and sibling rivalry, that is less dramatic than it could have been due to the prevailing wit and humor.It also shows how a cunning and "sexy" (but in a vulgar way) woman can wrap an old man around her finger (or in this case, hypnotize him with her" boobs"), which can bring the average reader to think about the hows/ifs and whens of elderly abuse and exploitation.
Only regret: the author did not give us a total explanation of what happened to the older sister in the displaced person camps after World War 2. Is she keeping material for a sequel?
Lovely, witty and poignant story about a Ukranian immigrant family in England - one daughter, born in the old country and now upwardly mobile, a younger daughter (the narrator) is a liberal sociologist. They are forced into a strained alliance to deal with their 84 year old widowed father's sudden decision to marry a blonde bombshell gold-digger who is 50 years his junior and wants English citizenship and western appliances. The writer is deft at layering recent history into the characters' views of their world, which are each quite different - at least partly due to the rapid changes in post WW2 USSR and Europe. Hilarious at times, and also quite sweet. A good read.
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Posted August 1, 2006
The verbal interaction between the sisters in this tale is scintillating. I have not read anything so amusing since 'The Trouble with Cephae'
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.In England eighty-four years old Ukrainian immigrant Kolya Mayevska has been a widower for two years. Though he appreciates poetry and tractors, he is lonely until he meets thirty-six years old big boobed Valentina, also from the Ukraine, at the Ukrainian Social Club. Valentina falls for the elderly man because she needs him to obtain papers so that she and her teenage son, whose father she divorced, can remain in England his money is a needed bonus.------------------- His two daughters, big sister Vera and little sister Nadezhda, who have always feuded over saving the world, but stopped talking after their mom Ludmilla died two years ago, are stunned by the usurper, who is younger than both of them and has boobs bigger than theirs combined. They immediately realize that the gold digger satin undies-wearing Valentina loves western luxuries a lot more than their dad. They agree they must stop the invader, but are not sure how as their dad spends his retirement pension on helping the sex siren settle in England. Especially galling is when he pays for her to have cosmetic surgery. Still they cannot stop the marriage from happening in spite of lawyers, immigration, and pregnancy.-------------- This is an interesting family drama that is told by Nadezhda so the audience obtains only her perspective of what happened to her dad. The story line is intriguing as she and her sibling try everything to stop what they see is a disaster for their father in this May-December relationship. The frustration of failure adds poignancy to the story line though flashbacks to the death of their maternal grandmother in the Ukraine seem unnecessarily heavy-handed. Still overall this is an enjoyable look at an outsider invading a dysfunctional family causing enemy combatants to become close allies.--------------- Harriet Klausner
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Posted August 9, 2005
What particularly struck me about this book was the beginning of the opening chapter. Reading it further captivated me and the end of the book proved that it is an amazing story. A story in a story, A SHORT HISTORY OF TRACTORS IN UKRAINIAN captured the depth of characterization that produced an amazing octogenarian in love with a woman in her prime, a born survivor who is determined to make use of any advantage to secure a better future for her son and the pragmatism of two conflicting sisters who are determined to `rescue¿ their father. Enlightening, hilarious, gracious, gave and tender in turns, this fascinating story gives us an insightful view of the lives of those trying to make a new life as refugees or exiles.
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Posted May 14, 2010
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Overview
With this wise, tender, and deeply funny novel, Marina Lewycka takes her place alongside Zadie Smith and Monica Ali as a writer who can capture the unchanging verities of family. When an elderly and newly widowed Ukrainian immigrant announces his intention to remarry, his daughters must set aside their longtime feud to thwart him. For their father’s intended is a voluptuous old-country gold digger with a proclivity for green satin underwear and an appetite for the good life of the West. As the hostilities mount ...