Chortles part 1 - A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian, by Marina Lewycka

Whilst I was away I read Marina Lewycka's first novel A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian, which was perfect travel fiction - entertaining, accessible and also serving to illuminate my understanding of the turbulent history of Eastern Europe. The narrator, Nadia (or Nadezhda) was raised with her sister Vera by their Ukrainian refugee parents in England and has had little contact with Vera for years. The pair are very different - Nadia a liberal sociologist who cut lose during her teens; Vera is seen as bitter and cynical by her sister, more conservative and calculating. As the story unfolds and they are reacquainted, we realise the reasons behind these differences are linked to their formative years - Nadia was a 'peacetime baby' whereas Vera - the 'war baby' - is old enough to have experienced the ghastly workcamps of eastern Europe and a prolonged absence from her parents as a child; a past which formed a survival of the fittest mindset and a lower opinion of human nature than Nadia's. Their different childhoods have formed their contrasting personalities and Nadia finds this out by degrees, as the estranged sisters are forced into contact when their widowed father Nikolai marries Valentina. Valentina is a busty dyed blonde Ukrainian in her thirties who is apparently on a mission to bleed their father dry as she demands Rolls Royce cars and electric ovens. As she and her son Staislav turn the house into a bombsite, Nikolai continues writing his magnum opus, a history of the tractor, oblivious to the carnage his new wife is creating. It's up to the sisters to save their father from penury and as they do, family secrets are revealed, differences explained, and Nadia and Vera reunited.

Valentina is a great comic creation but one with depth - she's not just a caricature. We cannot help but like her (as does Nadia, albeit grudgingly), this obnoxious brassy woman who has left a perfectly lovely husband in search of the wealth of the west and a 'better life' as she sees it, for herself and Stanislav. The cultural conditioning of two generations of Ukrainians is highlighted with a lightness of touch that has all the elements of farce. Whereas Nikolai's attitude isto keep your head down, get on with things and appreciate your lot, without drawing the attention of the authorities, Valentina's experiences in the Ukraine have forged a sense of entitlement to the more comfortable way of life she sees in the UK. The deftness with which Lewycka sets out the strange, discordant parallel between the couple risks being overlooked it's so subtle, and deserves to be singled out as it's a telling comment on the legacy of the past and the different struggles which Ukrainians have faced over the last 100 years.

Nikolai's experience as an escapee from Stalinist Russia is not denigrated as a result of the comic style; if anything the style celebrates the triumph of the human spirit in an unusual and sophisticated way, without leaning on cliched notions of heroism. The ending is an 'all's well that ends well' finale which could be argued as congruent with the stoicism of Nikolai and his first wife when they set up a new life in England, never ruminating on the past but surviving. And what better device to emphasise survival than humour? This book would make for a great TV/theatre adaptation; the characters are vividly described and seem very real for such a short novel. I can still see the hefty Valentina tottering  on her fluffy heeled slippers as clearly as if she were standing in front of me! The dialogue is also ripe for this kind of manipulation: there is much comedy in the broken English spoken by Valentina for instance. If you're in search of a book which gives you food for thought but minus the headache more earnest tomes can bring on, this is it.