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

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Doesn't she realise that some things must be covered up and buried, so the shame of them doesn't taint the next generation? So many of the reviews which have gone before show how much reading pleasure can be ruined by expectations from hype and other reviews. Although it is set within a Ukrainian British family and it takes hilarious advantage of this fact, it reveals a lot about families generally.

A Short History Of Tractors In Ukrainian is advertised as being an extremely comical take on family drama. You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie preferences, as described in the Cookie notice. Blinded by three primary things, physical infatuation, his desire to have a son (Standinolov, her son, has come from Ukraine with Valentina), + his perceived obligation to save those from his country (Ukraine is still currently in communism rule, impoverished communities), their father continues alternating, sometimes simultaneously, proclaiming his love for her and/or expressing his fear that she will murder him.Moving back in time to war-time Europe, we’re given insights into what faced inhabitants of occupied countries; the horror of camps, of having loved ones torn from your side and the constant fear that becomes a part of life – fear of loss, of dreams unfulfilled and so much more.

And I was struck by how little this turbulent area of human relationships is represented in fiction. The other one is, of course, its quirky title - I just couldn't pass a book titled like that, even though I profess absolutely no knowledge of even the most rudimentary Ukrainian. The novel describes the reactions of two daughters when their widowed, 84-year-old father Nikolai marries a highly sexual and much younger Ukrainian immigrant, Valentina. 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. Even when, presumably, the people speaking would be doing so in Ukrainian and would have no reason whatsoever to sound like they're two days off the boat.

Later labeled "War Baby" by younger sister Nadezhda ("Peace Baby", of course), was also a victim of these sad circumstances in her earlier years. The roots of the story reach to the Revolution, the Ukrainian famine in the 30's and the WW2; the contemporary story moves swiftly and the tractors appear only infrequently as a historical metaphor.