A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian (Penguin Essentials)

This is a very clever, amusing book which contains some quite serious themes behind the jokes and witty dialogues and outrageous characters. Behind the story of the 80-something widower who marries the luscious blonde from his home country of Ukraine, there is a long history of how he escaped from Ukraine to the UK when he was young. Marina Lewycka could have written a serious story with a few funny bits thrown in but the way she did it is much more suited to current tastes. The bit that appealed most to me was the strangling relationship between the widower's two daughters - who loathe each other but have to enter into an alliance with each other to tackle the new enemy in the form of their busty, easy-living step mother.

Maybe that is the description that best sums up my response to this book. Original: at times certainly gently humorous, but always reflecting very credible people and their - often idiosyncratic- ways. Gradually it reveals not just the tale of the present, but also increasingly harks back to the struggles and suffering of the past that account for the current events most convincingly.

This book made a friend of mine laugh, I shudder to say it, out loud! As someone who dabbles in the art of the written word I know comedy is not only enormously difficult to write, but also only funny to some of the people some of the time. This book could have been amusing but I found it quite tragic. I felt for the characters involved in the story, from the sparsely drawn husband, Mike, to the pub owner; the fact that I can't remember his name is key to one of the problems with this book; there were a lot of people in it! Yes, we meet lots of people in our lives, but when we read about someone else's life, be it fact or fiction, they need to be culled. The other problem was genre; it never quite got there as either a comedy or a tragedy, it seemed, instead, to sit on the thin line which separates them, not really sure which way to fall. I like to finishing reading a book with a feeling of satisfaction for a job well done by both the author and the reader, but in this instance it just, well, finished and with a pop rather than a bang. What a shame.

The somewhat staccato almost journalist style takes a bit of getting used to, but is also effective in resembling a native Ukrainian speaking English. It's a great tale of a Ukrainian family in England, built around a very entertaining narrative of the 84 year old widowed grandfather (the tractor expert) getting entangled with a young female Ukrainian would be immigrant.

Quite a good read, but not exactly a four. I found this entertaining and at the same time nerve-racking, not due to the author's writing, nor the story, but to one manipulating character that I grew to strongly dislike. I guess that may make a book a more engrossing, when you have strong feelings regarding one or more of the characters, but I quickly got tired of her behaviour and persona. The descriptions of the characters and the episodes were highly vivid and even pretty humorous at times. My "problem" with A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian was that the last quarter of the book seemed to drag on, or perhaps I had had more than enough of that certain obnoxious character and was anxious to see the back of her, and as a result of this book itself, which was actually not bad at all.

I found this book funny, tragic, and even irritating at times. Sometimes it seemed like tragi comedy, sometimes I just wanted to tell the characters to get a grip. It wasn't so comical that I could presume it was all meant to be kinda tongue in cheek humour so I was basically left feeling that I hadn't grasped the intent of the book. I'm sure it's just me as it's done really well!

You can hear the Ukraine in their voices. The characters are well drawn. I laughed out loud several times. Its not riotous and some parts tedious. Especially those about Ukraine and tractors!

I read this book a few years ago,I was laughing and almost crying this book has all human frailties in it,and more so now as every service is being over used,the good the bad and the ugly sides all show,I felt strongly about wanting too read it again I was a carer for many years and yet this story managed to touch a nerve with me p.s. I have read all Marina Lewycka books this one stands one it's own.

A really beautiful and disarming tale of how our childhood shapes us, Ukraine’s recent history and the significance of the tractor!

GREAT!

Great fun. A nice easy entertaining read with a few deeper levels to give it a little more meaning.

Really great read, couldn't put it down..

Good

Interesting read - buy and make your own mind up

A great and funny story improved no end by this superb reading.

Thank you

This book us funny, breathtakingly sad and yet conveys the human spirit in such a brilliant way, everyone should read it to understand so much more .Fantastic.

Such a wonderful book about the human condition- we are made to survive