On this rare weekend off, I settled down to complete a book that I had hastily chosen due to the limited selection of fiction books in our University library.
What at first proved attractive due to a quirky title soon unfolded to become a compelling read that has remained in my mind long after the final page was peeled shut.
A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian, by Marina Lewycka, is on the surface a light-hearted and quick-witted meander through the misfortunes of sisters Vera, Nadezhda and their father, Nikolai, following the entrance of a voluptuous gold-digger.
With her breasts “like twin warheads”, fluffy peep-toe mules and English that is mortifying and coy by turns, thirty-six year old Valentina is a splendid comic creation.
As she bullies and cajoles the besotted octogenarian Nikolai into giving her most of his savings, while taunting him with his lack of sexual prowess and parading her various lovers in front of him, one cannot but turn the pages in rapid succession as the literary telenovela unfolds.
So far, so chic-lit. But A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian did not earn the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize and the Waverton Good Read Award for occupying such a genre.
Amidst the humour and scandal unfolds a tale of darkness from a time that is still too close for comfort. As Nadezhda slowly draws the truth about her parents life and sister’s memories of life during Stalin’s rule, and the subsequent War, the reader begins to understand why the protagonists behave as they do.
Vera, a hard-hearted, cynical chain-smoker, has endured life in the refugee camps of Ukraine and Germany as a girl, and survived the infamous correction block only through sheer luck.
Ludmilla, Nikolai’s deceased wife, stored money in pots under the floor boards, and pickles and conserves of all varieties in a pantry for years due to memories of famine and limited supplies during the Communist era.
Nikolai, deemed potty by his daughters and the Ukrainian community in Peterborough, has endured perhaps the most traumatic events, yet refuses to acknowledge past hardships for fear it would render him less of a man.
Traumatised by the Soviet secret police and forced to sleep cheek-by-jowl for a month in a Jewish tomb to escape Soviet draft, his antics reveal a survivor who is unsure how to move forward, with so many ties to the past.
Even wicked Valentina, a product of the new Ukraine, bears the scars of her past. Raised in post-Communist Ukraine, she perceives Western culture as the epitome of success. From a brown cooker to a green-satin bra, each item is a symbol of social progress and a spur to follow the unsavoury path that she treads so voluptuously in her fluffy mules.
Lewycka’s panache for witty, fast narrative merges seamlessly with what can only be deemed as a tender and disturbing account of the Soviet era.
The horrific extent of the experiences endured by the protagonists, Nikolai, Ludmilla and Vera is rendered all the more pertinent as the burial of some 2,000 victims of the Soviet secret police, the People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs (NKVD) takes place near Kiev this week.
It is thought that approximately 100,000 people perished, though their demise was denied as late as the 1990s, following the fall of the Soviet Union.
While Lewycka’s work differs from tomes such as The Museum of Unconditional Surrender,by Dubravka Ugrešić, in terms of accounting the horrors of Communism and the plight of Eastern Europe, it remains a worthy romp through the minefield of family life and a perfect accompaniment for a rainy afternoon or a long journey.
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