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 PrintableVersion Shelf lifeLooking at secular booksA SHORT HISTORY OF TRACTORS IN UKRAINIAN Imagine your widowed 84-year-old father takes up with a blonde Ukrainian in her 30s. She wants a visa and he wants female company. How do you react? Horror? Indignation? Compassion? This wackily titled novel takes this scenario and develops it with humour and insight. Nikolai fled the Ukraine after the Second World War with his wife and two daughters. He has worked hard to integrate into Leicestershire and to achieve security by hoarding and scrimping. The younger daughter, Nadia, narrates the story, recording her feelings about her father’s relationship with Valentina, a recently-arrived Ukrainian with a penchant for consumer goods and short skirts. Valentina’s appearance shakes Nadia’s liberal politics and forces a reconciliation with her hard-nosed sister as they work together to oust Valentina from the family home. The plot has many twists and turns, involving a broken-down Rolls Royce, stewed apples and a paternity suit. Attitudes to immigrationIn this situation a number of attitudes to immigration are seen, tapping into very current concerns about the benefits and problems of large-scale immigration. And while the novel errs towards stereotypes, such as the hard working, law abiding Nikolai and the illegal benefit-seeking Valentina, the sections detailing Nikolai’s family history and the turmoil of Ukraine give the characters a deeper dimension. So the reader can empathise with the dilemmas of all these characters, father, daughters and gold-digging wife. But it does appear that everyone is devious in this novel; exploiting or deceiving each other, the question we are left with is, which exploitation is the most valid, does any one character deserve more sympathy than any of the others? The temptation the readers face is to shrug our shoulders and say that it is all too difficult, but as political parties harden their attitudes, we as Christ’s followers must think hard, and have our hearts open to the strangers in our society. Popular and funThere are more issues crammed in here; among them, aging, romance and family relationships. The novel remains comic and yet manages to engage, with a light touch, in these weighty matters. It’s no wonder that A Short History of Tractors in Ukranian has achieved great popularity in its short life so far. It is a fun and easy read, which faces up to the uncomfortable realities of family, and immigrant life. Sarah Allen© Evangelicals Now - December 2006 |
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