A short history of tractors in Ukranian: a novel with a short-lived buzz about it. For a quick period it won prizes and it’s cover was everywhere from shops to shelves. And somehow I couldn’t get my hands on it. It was an enigma - the cover art remained imprinted in my mind.
But when I finally smuggled the unattainable novel into my suitcase I realised the cover held an image I'd never actually seen before. The colours were all what I remembered but I'd never before recognised the cartoon image of a headscarf'd female aboard a ploughing tractor. I'd mistaken it for a "cool" postmodernist graphic of colours. This wasn't the only realisation I'd have.
The novel was trash. A chick-lit tale attempting to discuss "real" issues but to afraid to do anything except skim over them with quotes and careful illusions.
The fantastic talent of Marina Lewycka is swamped by petty squabbles between stereotypical female characters who refuse to push boundaries. The links between modern philosophy, the rise of tractor engineering and eastern European politics are brushed off as the rambling outlet of an increasingly senile old man (the anti-climactic ending only reinforces this theory). But these excerpts are the cataclysmic parts of the novel. The sources for the great revolutionary writing I believed I would find within the misleading cover.
Lewycka would have been better off actually writing a short history of tractors in Ukranian. It would have been an insightful and fascinating piece of literature, whether embellished with fiction or not. I was caught between mind-blowing passages of captivating non-fiction and a poor articulation of a second-generation family's issues with ageing non-natives.
Ultimately Lewycka's half-assed attempt at a border crossing, boundary pushing, genre bending novel, left me fully disappointed.
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