This is one of those books that
comes preceded by its reputation. Nominated for the Booker, shortlisted for the
Orange prize; expectations are high. As if that were not enough, the title is
as intriguing as you are likely to find. A short history of tractors in
Ukrainian is a novel that weaves together themes of family history, war and
peace, sibling rivalry, social history, the development of tractors, and at the
centre, a story about an old man’s final fling before settling for the
limitations of old age. That’s a heady mixture, and first time novelist Lewycka
does a more than passable job of weaving these diverse strands together into a
warm and entertaining narrative.

Nikolai is eighty four, an
immigrant to England from the Ukraine. As the novel opens his wife of sixty
years has just died, and Nikolai has taken up with a younger, much younger,
woman, the voluptuous Valentina, a large bosomed blonde who "exploded into
our lives like a fluffy pink grenade." Besotted by his new love, Nikolai
is blind to her scheming and manipulations, and deaf to the pleas of his middle
aged daughters who, quite rightly, can see nothing but trouble. What follows is
a series of tragicomic adventures involving a cast of characters who would be
at home on a pantomime stage. Besides the two sisters (Nadia the dewy-eyed
socialist, Vera the cynical Thatcherite) there’s Bald Ed the barman, former aircraft
engineer Eric Pike, Valentina’s Ukrainian husband Dubov and son Stanislav, and the
deeply suspicious  Mrs Zadchuk. You wouldn’t want lot this lot together in a
room, but as the novel reaches its climax that possibility looms large.

Valentina is the seductress from
hell. If badly applied makeup wasn’t enough, she taunts, she flaunts, she wears
green satin underwear. With apologies to American readers, I couldn’t get the
image of Coronation
Street’s truly dreadful Cilla out of my head. Lewycka reminds us more than
once of Valentina’s "superior Botticellian breasts", contrasted with
the flat chests of Nikolai’s daughters. The true object of Valentina’s desire
is a British passport, and there is not a lot she won’t do to get it. When
Nikolai marries her, any hope of wedded bliss dissolves in the steam from one
of Valentina’s acrid boil-in-the-bag meals.

The intersecting themes of the
story allow Lewycka to digress into the war time and postwar history of the Ukraine, and her parents’ struggle to survive and then make a life for themselves in a
foreign land. The sisters have had very different lives and seem to scarcely
know each other, but the unfolding drama that is their father’s life brings
them together, and allows Nadia (and readers) to learn of a past that has been
all but buried.   Nikolai’s obsession with tractors (he is writing a historical
survey which he reads in page size chunks to Nadia’s husband) provides another
sideline.

Although the story is both
melodramatic and farcical, even the insufferable Valentina is shown to have
human qualities that despite her appalling behavior allow the reader to develop
a degree of empathy for her. In the dialogue between Vera and Nadia we learn of
the individual and collective suffering of the Ukrainian people under Stalin,
then Hitler, then Stalin again. The humorously rendered account of Nikolai’s
follies are not enough to mask the trauma of war and persecution; amongst the
groping of breasts and digressions about Ukrainian engineering, Lewycka is
making some serious points about political persecution. The humanity of her
characters, even if at times they are somewhat stereotyped, prevents the book
becoming mired in political preaching.

Lewycka’s writing is workmanlike,
although not elegant. There are a number of self conscious declarations to the
reader, numerous parenthetic asides, and at times somewhat strained
descriptions. But the story is engaging, even moving. Lewycka makes clever use
of the mangled syntax of the non-native speaker of English, no doubt drawing on
her own experience of hearing members of the Ukrainian community struggle for
the right word or phrase, or simply make up their own hybrid, often to comical
effect.      

 A short history of tractors in
Ukrainian is something of a page turner. Lewycka is not one to dwell on
single events, or to construct long monologues that slow her story down.
Perhaps the extracts from Nikolai’s improbable history of tractors are a little
in that vein, but at least they are laced with historical references and
Nikolai’s homespun political commentary. Cynics refer to books that are "too
good for the Booker". I’m not sure that A short history of tractors in
Ukrainian is in that category, but it is easy to see why it caught the
judges’ attention. Well worth a read, and I’ll be interested to see where
Lewycka goes with her next novel.

© 2006 Tony O’Brien

Tony O’Brien is a short story
writer, and lecturer in mental health nursing at the University of Auckland,
New Zealand: a.obrien@auckland.ac.nz

Categories: Fiction