the only survivors in our family; everyone who had stayed behind in Ukraine, they believed, must have perished in the war. So I thought of myself as a Consider all of the ways in which sisters Vera and Nadia are different. How do they define themselves and each other? What influence does Getting married would be a convenient way of obtaining one, and Nikolai Mayevsky is amenable to the idea. A. One of the wonderful things about writing is that the idea you start out with is not necessarily the one that gets written. The characters have a way of taking over, and that’s what happened in my novel.

Unsure of quite what it wants to be -- an ugly little tale of aging and dependence, or a more ambitious look at the émigré-experience -- A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian is an occasionally amusing but overall very unpleasant novel. A wise, tender and deeply funny novel about families, the belated healing of old wounds,the trials and consolations of old age and - really - about I was acutely aware of the difference between the way my parents saw themselves, as educated and professional people, and our actual circumstances, which were quite poor. But like many immigrants, my parents believed that hard work and education were the keys to success in our new world. I am so sorry that my mother died before she could know about the success of my book. Nadia’s father becomes embroiled with Valentina for a variety of reasons, including his loneliness, romanticism, and generosity. Make a list of his motivations. Which do you think are most important to him? Is her considerable—and oft-advertised—sex appeal her primary attraction, or do you think it might be something else? What do you learn about his attitudes towards life and people from his book on tractors?

READERS GUIDE

What do you think Valentina's real motives are? Does she really want the best possible life for her son, is she simply after money, or does Your narrator Nadia struggles to understand Valentina, and to resist her worst impulses towards her. Was it hard to find the right tone In the end, I wrote a different novel, but my mother’s story is in there, threaded in among all the other stories. The descriptions of Ukraine are based on the stories my mother told me about her childhood. To me, the country was always like the “blue remembered hills,” a place of mythical beauty. Of course, like all myths, it owes much to the imagination—both hers and mine. A. You know, in real life, we often think nasty and uncharitable thoughts about people that we are much too nice to ever give voice to. What I really enjoyed about writing this book is being able to put all those unacceptable thoughts into words: the rows and arguments, the uninhibited 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 unbridled dottiness. Each of the characters indulges in uninhibited bad behavior—and bad language—and that’s what I most enjoyed writing about. A. I had grown up in England thinking of myself as essentially English, though with a name that most people couldn’t pronounce, and a few family eccentricities—well, everyone has those, don’t they?

He has it all worked out. She will care for him as he grows older and frailer. He will put a roof over her head, share his tiny pension with her until she finds that well-paid job. Her son - who, by the way, is an extraordinarily gifted boy - genius - plays piano - will get an English education. They will discuss art, literature, philosophy together in the evenings. She is a cultured woman, not a chatterbox peasant woman. He has already elicited her views on Nietzsche and Schopenhauer, by the way, and she agrees with him in all respects. She, like him, admires Constructivist art and abhors neo-classicism. They have much in common. A sound foundation for marriage.fest, kétféle bevándorló van. Az egyik már bevándorolt, ott ül a jó ölmeleg Angliában, viszonylagos létbiztonságban, és már csak rossz emlék neki, hogy egykor olyan ország polgára volt, ami rendszerszinten falta fel gyermekeit. A másik viszont még csak most akar bevándorolni, a perifériáról áttenné székhelyét a centrumba, hogy ott zsákmányolják ki. Igen, akarja, hogy kizsákmányolják, szar melót lőcsöljenek rá, olyasmit, amit a született angol a világ minden pénzéért sem végezne el, csak annyit kíván, hogy mindez helyileg az álmok földjén, a kapitalizmus bölcsőjében történjen. És hogy ezt elérje, semmiféle piszkos trükktől nem riad vissza. As the novel opens, eighty-four-year-old Nikolai tells his daughters that he has fallen in love and is going to get married. The object of his affection is Valentina, an illegal immigrant from Ukraine whose main appeal appears to be her youth (she is thirty-six years old), her dyed-blonde hair, and her enormous, voluptuous breasts. How does Nadia’s vocation as a sociologist influence her approach to her family and to Valentina? Does it help her see the situation more clearly than others? Consider some of the times in which she seems to analyze circumstances more as a professional and others in which she responds less rationally. What does this suggest about the benefits and limitations of our attempts at logical explanation, particularly as regards our families? near me in Sheffield. You can have such fun with language once you realize that you can break the rules. Apparently, she re-imagines them from her father's accounts -- but he is presented as, if not completely doddering so certainly extremely manipulative and selective in the information he conveys.