A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian

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was. Once I had understood how much she was prepared to sacrifice in her desire to better herself, and her commitment to her son, it was hard to E, ovviamente, le due figlie ricorrono per vie legali. Figlie che, prima di questa minaccia, non filavano esattamente d’amore e d’accordo: ma la maggiore, Vera, è esperta di divorzi, e anche se la minore, Nadia, è piena di ideali umanitari, le sorelle fanno squadra per salvare il salvabile, denunciano l’usurpatrice, assoldano avvocati. That's what he is writing, a short history of tractors. In Ukrainian. Eighty-four years old, an engineer, a chess player and a father of two daughters, he had been recently widowed. Now he decides to marry a 36-year-old blonde Ukrainian divorcee with a teenage son and a pair of superior breasts. He knows that she wants to marry him only for his money and so that she and her son can make permanent their stay in England (where he and his family had migrated a long time ago) but he looks at her golden hair, charming eyes, curves and jiggling breasts and say "so what?" His two grownup daughters, born ten years apart, and have been feuding ever since, have temporarily united against this common enemy aptly named Valentina. Vera, ten years older, is the tougher one, making fun of liberal Nadezhda, but the younger sister is soon on board with doing whatever needs be done to separate their father from the tramp. It was certainly not quite what I was expecting - because it was nominated for the Man Booker Prize last year, I guess I was expecting something a bit heavier, more depressing. But this book is hilarious. It's heavily ironic, surprisingly dialogue-based, yet so much is revealed in subtle ways.

The action takes place in Peterborough, England, and is narrated by the youngest daughter, Nadezhda, a university lecturer in Sociology. brought together by their father's apparent second adolescence, they conspire to oust the newcomer and preserve the sanctity of their mother's bitchiness with which the sisters accost Valentina and each other, the sheer brutality with which Valentina abuses the old man, and the old man's

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document into the middle of your novel? How did you come up with the idea to have Nikolai write this treatise? Did you have a prior interest in tractors? Ukraina: he sighs, breathing in the remembered scent of mown hay and cherry blossom. But I catch the distinct synthetic whiff of New Russia. Nadia’s vibrant voice, knowing, self-deprecating and witty, acts as both guide and interpreter for her complicated and sometimes outrageous family. In the end, A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian is her story, as she learns to redefine her role in a new family, one that must reconcile the loss of her mother with the new hopes and desires of her compromised father. Though all the characters at times yield to their worst impulses, their charm is that they struggle through as we all do: eager and resentful, yearning and unyielding, loving and infuriated in equal measure. Nadia in particular comes to terms with a history both personal and global, in a brilliant first novel that bears witness to the human struggle for dignity even as undertaken by the most undignified of people.

by trying not to judge, and instead diplomatically asks questions about both parties' motivations. What would you do if you had a parent or family This story is so neatly balanced between the humour and farce of the present "situation" and the scary, desperate past. The past sections are not told in a morbid fashion, though. It's hard to put my finger on what it is exactly, but the narrative has that almost stale taste you acquire when telling a story not your own: Nadia was the Peace baby, Vera the War baby, and Big Sis is very tight-lipped. Nadia has to piece together the past, and Vera's account doesn't always match their father's. There are comic elements and at least Nadezhda remains fairly upbeat, no matter how horrific things get, but that's far from enough to redeem the novel. Her name is Valentina. To get a British passport, she is prepared to marry an elderly man, Nikolai, for whom she has no affection. The marriage would also provide the opportunity of "oxfordcambridge education" for her teenage son, who has come with her to the UK. For Nikolai's part, this union inspires the return of sexual fantasies that are quite at odds with his physical capabilities. wartime experience play? What does Nadia mean when she says that she and her sister quarrel over "the inheritance of character, of nature"?Nadia is a sociologist, while her sister Vera is more of a socialite, and they haven’t spoken to each other since their mother died. Now, brought together by their father’s apparent second adolescence, they conspire to oust the newcomer and preserve the sanctity of their mother’s home and garden. Along the way the two sisters confront differences that shadowed them have throughout their childhoods and Nadia learns for the first time of the wartime events that contributed to the very different worldviews she and her sister hold, finally realizing the privilege she has enjoyed as her parents’“precious peacetime baby.” The novel begins with Nikolai’s dramatic announcement that he plans to remarry to a woman fifty years younger than he. Nadia at first responds by trying not to judge, and instead diplomatically asks questions about both parties’ motivations. What would you do if you had a parent or family member who seemed to be entering into such a flawed allegiance? How far would you go to stop such a wedding? Do you think that Nadia responds appropriately?