Before buying this (I was attracted by the title and cover design) I read some reviews and thought it would be a funny book. You can hardly blame me. On the front cover, The Times exclaims “Extremely funny” and on the back, the Economist, “… uproariously funny, a comic feast. A riotous oil painting of senility, lust and greed.”
Whoever wrote these did not read the same book as I did (or did not read the book). Maybe I smiled a few times, but I certainly did not roll around in a fit of uproarious rollicking laughter.
That doesn’t mean to say it isn’t a good book. I enjoyed it immensely. But it is much more profound and thought-provoking than I had imagined, and deals with many issues, from sibling rivalry and misunderstanding to communism to modern life in Ukraine to German work camps, not to mention the history of tractors. Much of this family’s past is unbearably tragic; it’s even difficult to think of it as tragi-comic – and the present is often sad and squalid.
The eruption of a Ukrainian (false) blonde and (false) busty bombshell and her child prodigy (false) of a son into the life of a lonely old man not only arouses his own family ghosts, it also gave a nasty prod to some of mine. My sister and I also had to face up to our father’s re-marriage, only eight months after our mother died. In fact reading this was a cathartic experience for me; what we went through was a fairy-tale compared with the horrors that unfurl here. It has helped me let go of a lot of rancour.
The characters are very well-rounded, easy to picture. The style of the narrative is sometimes strange but only normal as it echoes the Ukrainian English of the father and other characters. Valentina and all her pink fluff and bosom is perfect.