“As Romeo and Juliet found to their cost, marriage is never just about two people falling in love, it is about families.”
Families are never perfect. There’s a universal relatability in the quirks and sometimes messy dynamics that come with families that novelists have tapped into since time immemorial. They lean on those recognisable traits and tropes to create reads that feel both relatable and moving to all of us. One such book that taps into this is Marina Lewycka’s A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian, a black comedy novel that presents a fresh spin on the usual family tale by presenting a family full of eclectic, eccentric characters with an added spice of being immigrants navigating a rapidly evolving, often confusing world. With a story that transcends history, culture, language and love, join us today at What We Reading as we put Lewycka’s book under the microscope and present our A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian book review!
Date Published: 2005
Author: Marina Lewycka
Genre: Fiction, Humour
Pages: 326
Goodreads Rating: 3.45/5
A Short History Of Tractors In Ukrainian Summary
Marina Lewycka’s debut novel opens with eighty-four-year-old widower Nikolai announcing that he’s going to be marrying a glamorous thirty-six-year-old Ukrainian woman named Valentina. His two estranged daughters – practical Vera and idealistic Nadezhda aka. Nadia is horrified. Valentina sweeps in loud, brash, and clearly interested in Nikolai’s money and visa status. The sisters, who haven’t spoken much over the years, begrudgingly unite to protect their father and stop the marriage.
As the family drama unfolds, so too does a deeper story about their pasts. Flashbacks to the Second World War and their parents’ lives in Ukraine reveal long-buried family secrets, painful histories, and a legacy of trauma carried across generations. Interspersed throughout the novel are excerpts from Nikolai’s eccentric manuscripts – a “short history” of tractors in Ukrainian, which offers a quirky counterpoint to the family’s tensions.
What Worked
The biggest highlight of A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian for us was the characters. Each one introduced by Marina Lewycka is outlandish, larger-than-life and all exceptionally distinctive. They are bold and often absurd, yet there’s something exceptionally relatable about them all that makes them strangely endearing, even if you find yourself rolling your eyes or shaking your head at their actions. Lewycka does a stellar job of infusing all of these characters with enough backstory and motivation to make their actions stand up, and that makes us readers sympathise with them.
There’s a good balance between the humour, the farce of the present drama between Nikolai and Valentina, and the family’s scary, desperate past. The past, in particular, is handled with a quiet, understated sort of sense of trauma, which definitely gives A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian an underrated emotional punch that did hit us harder than we were expecting at times.
The dynamic between Vera and Nadia was an element of the book we really enjoyed – Vera being the War baby, Nadia being the Peacetime baby. Lewycka demonstrates how the two sisters’ upbringings in different eras of history and parts of the world (i.e. East versus West) have profoundly shaped their views, personalities and outlooks on life. Both characters are shown to be both right and wrong at times, and it makes their feuding and issues with one another incredibly convincing and understandable.
Finally, one of the funniest aspects of A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian comes from the conversations. This is a dialogue-heavy read, and the mannerisms of each character not only help distinguish one from the other but also capture the ‘hands-in-the-air-in-resignation’ type of humour the book is striving for.
What Didn’t
Whilst there is plenty to enjoy with A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian, there were a few instances where the characters slipped too fully into their caricature roles and began to feel one-dimensional. For instance, as sympathetic as Valentina eventually becomes, the blatant elder abuse she inflicts ensures that we as readers can never feel entirely comfortable fully rooting for her. The premise of the story around Nikolai’s marriage to Valentina is meant to be humorous in a tropey sort of way, but when it comes down to this sort of abuse, it’s hard to find much in the way of comedy.
There’s also a largely one-dimensional approach to life in East vs. West that we feel works against A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian. As immigrants in the UK, the Western world is constantly shown to be a utopia with technological advancements, an abundance of wealth and aspiration for anyone living outside its sphere.
One aspect of the book we found particularly irritating was the constant use of nicknames. The likes of ‘Mrs Divorce Expert’ are used constantly to refer to characters; once or twice was funny, but it soon feels quite tiresome, particularly when their names would suffice.
Verdict
A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian is a quick and easy read that is both witty and humorous, and the perfect book to turn to if you’re looking for a vivid depiction of the relatable tropes and quirks of families through the lens of a very different sort of culture. For us Western readers, it’s a wonderful caricature of Ukrainian customs and culture. Unlike other books that present the painful realities of Stalinism, Communism and the horrors that come from wartime, much of the emotional resonance in Lewycka’s tale comes from the loud, eccentric cast of characters, none of whom carry an especially depressed outlook.
Nevertheless, from the grudges held by each member of the family, exposed by the lingering death of Nadia’s mother, who had held the group together, to the depiction of ageing and loneliness, there is much more sad humour to the book than the eccentric and ridiculous characters may lead you to believe.
Overall, A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian is a chaotic but underrated approach to caricatures and the absurdities of families. Lewycka’s ability to capture the unique Ukrainianisms in the speech of the characters does much of the heavy lifting in the humour department. However, as petty and vicious as all of the eccentric characters are, Lewycka also gives them all an opportunity to demonstrate their alternate take, making this cast surprisingly layered, convincing, and sympathetic.
Our Rating: 4/5
Part-time reader, part-time rambler, and full-time Horror enthusiast, James has been writing for What We Reading since 2022. His earliest reading memories involved Historical Fiction, Fantasy and Horror tales, which he has continued to take with him to this day. James’ favourite books include The Last (Hanna Jameson), The Troop (Nick Cutter) and Chasing The Boogeyman (Richard Chizmar).
