sussed it! team blog

(Lily) The old man didn't get on with Vera because if she hadn't stolen the guard's cigarettes in the camp, she and her mother would not have been sent to the correction block and her mother wouldn't have been raped and made pregnant with Nadia! 'You're not my daughter'...'Don't dig up the past'...It all makes sense now, lol. I have to admit I enjoyed Tractors more the second time round but only because I knew what to expect. I wouldn't describe it as an un-put-downable book or prize-winning material - too repetitive and disjointed in a 'device to keep you reading' sort of way. What does everyone else think? Read more!

right you lazy lot.... team blog

(Lily) Ok, I'll get the ball rolling. The first thing that struck me about Tractors was that some people might think the elderly father contemplating marriage with a much younger compatriot was a little far-fetched. Well let me tell you this ... when my husband's Czechoslovakian father died in his 80s (a heart attack while swimming) we discovered that he had left everything to a mystery Czechoslovakian fiancee that no-one had ever heard of until then! And as for eccentric Slavs - I will never forget the toe-curlingly embarrassing reunion at Gatwick Airport when pa-in-law met up again with his two sons that he abandoned when they were children. I'll spare you the details as its rather personal, but his tirade was delivered in exactly the same broken English as depicted in Tractors, and at full volume!

(Josephine) Wow, Lily. Sounds like you related to this book in a much more personal way than I did. That isn't to say that it didn't suck me in, though. My favorite parts were definitely the descriptions of and interactions with the father, and Nadia's reminiscence of her late mother. I loved the way the two generations (kind of three, as Vera was so much older, and more Ukranian, than Nadia) looked at life.
Her mother lived in fear based on her very real experiences with tyrants, but had no real reason to fear the British government. She used her fear, though, in productive (I would say even heroic) ways. She never spent money she didn't have to spend, she saved every peice of food she could, and she trusted the earth to provide so long as she put in the time and hard work.
The father loved Ukariane but couldn't admit what it had become. He chose to ignore the terrible history and honor the intelligence and creativity that came out of Ukraine.
Vera was haunted and therefore rigid. She loved her family but was too protective to actually protect them until she bent a little to be more like Nadia.
Nadia was a little too understanding. She was the most British of the family, and didn't understand their Ukranian ways. She finally blended the cultures a little more when she became more like Vera.
That horrible Valentina was sooo intriguing, but I also just kind of wanted her to drop dead most of the time.
All I got for now :) Read more!

donesville

ok. i am terribly sorry that it took me so long to read tractors.
but i finished last night and it was wonderful!
is everyone done?

I am. Do you fancy getting the ball rolling, Cornbread, as I think I remember your saying you had a review more or less worked out? Next week might be a good time, it would give Stitchwhiz a chance to catch up. (Lily)

i got nothin'. (cornbread)

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virtual book review

have virtual book review bubbling up in brain, but will wait for the lovely josephine to finish partying and post something.

(her semester just ended!)



("dad, please don't be such a dork.")

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is it ok if i do this, ms. lily?

hello. cornbread here. no spoilers are included and no animals were harmed in any way in the making of this post. it's more of a vocabulary thing.

when i read a book i make marks and notes in it. ((gasp)) 

pen, pencil, whatever's handy. sometimes it's just a favorite turn of phrase or line, or something i "think" might be a foreshadowing of things to come. (i'm usually wrong.) sometimes it's whole paragraphs that have a certain appeal. sometimes it's a word i either don't know or question if i know the meaning of.

this post is a list of words i came across while reading "tractors." quite a few are apparently common to the british vernacular. or maybe not. several are easy enough to get from context, but i've included them as well, along with web references and some pictures for your viewing pleasure...

like this one of secateurs (page 46 in my copy)

are you only seeing the "superior breasts"? well look again. the man is holding a pair of pruning shears. is secateurs  common nomenclature in europe? i've never heard it before. but what do i know? 

here's a clearer picture without the superior breasts. (hahaha, read the book.)

on with the vocabulary list...

j-cloth (pp. unknown) is another one i assume is british. it's basically a paper towel.

 

in "tractors", much to her sister's chagrin, nadia was partial to oxfam. (yeah, yeah, but i never heard of it before. and i bet josephine hasn't either.) maybe lily can show us which shop nadia most likely frequented. and while she's at it, show us where peterborough and selby are. (if i've done my sleuthing right, i think lily lives somewhere between the two.)

hrivna = about 20 cents american? i wonder if the dollar hasn't "fallen through the floor" (p. 33)  further by today. 

panopticon (p.150) i love this word. never heard or read it before that i remember. it's kinda like "big brother", huh?

and in more modern parlance, how 'bout this "little brother" use of the word? cool.

GCE (p.154) from context, i assume it's the 1st one in that list of acronyms.

primigravida (p.184) 

louche-looking (p.196) 

"louche - disreputable or sordid in a rakish or appealing way" (Oxford Dict)

sic transit gloria mundi (p.246) 

(SIK TRAN-sit GLAWR-ee-uh MOON-dee) Latin for “Thus passes away the glory of the world”; worldly things do not last.

here's a poem of the same name by the esteemed ms. emily dickinson.

there are too many cool images here for me to choose just one, but somewhere in there is a photo of an ice berg. 

sick (sic) transit gloria mundi, indeed...

perspicacious (p.267) no matter how many times i look this word up i never seem to remember what it means. is that a tad ironic?

DIY (pp. unknown) DIY is just stupid...this must be another english thing. clearly it means, "do it yourself," but who says that??! "DIY"?

ok. i give. apparently lots of people do. a google search for DIY shows 121,000,000! results.

even how to kiss. 

for god's sake, you idiots, DIY!!!! 

(i'm sure these diy projects will change by the time you read this, but when i looked at it there really were instructions on how to kiss, but i was laughing too hard to read them. drat!)

so that's it for now, kiddies. i'm sorry if i broke any book club rules by posting without permission. and even sorrier if you already knew all there was to know about these (to me) relative  obscurities.

p.s. i am not about to proofread this long-ass post, so just tough it out. and happy reading...

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and here we go now....

Brother cornbread has come up with the following excellent suggestions:

Life of pi by Yann Martel
"After the tragic sinking of a cargo ship, one solitary lifeboat remains bobbing on the wild, blue Pacific. The crew of the surviving vessel consists of a hyena, a zebra (with a broken leg), a female orang-utan, a 450 pound Royal Bengal tiger and Pi - a 16-year-old Indian boy. The scene is set for one of the most extraordinary pieces of literary fiction of recent years. ... Yann Martel's Life of Pi is a transformative novel, a dazzling work of imagination that will delight and astound readers in equal measure. It is a triumph of storytelling and a tale that will, as one character puts it, make you believe in God. Can a reader reasonably ask for anything more?"

A short history of tractors in Ukrainian by Marina Lewycka
"A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian is set in Peterborough, where 84-year old Ukranian immigrant Nikolai Mayevskyj announces to his daughters that he's in love and will remarry. The object of his affection is Valentina, a 36-year old old Ukranian woman with a visa about to expire and a pair of marvelous breasts. She's determined to use Nikolai to achieve the Western lifestyle she's assured she deserves, and he's willing to let her while he works on his book about the history of tractors. Meanwhile, his daughters, although markedly different in outlook and lifetime rivals, band together to thwart Valentina's ambitions. Valentina's turns their family home inside out, digging up old family secrets in the process. It's a battle of wills with all the participants shaped by their own pasts through recent Eastern European history. Marina Lewycka's novel is a comic look at family bonds and Western lifestyles and has received mostly positive reviews. The Telegraph says, "Lots more happens but the plot is really a vehicle for social satire, some good jokes and an overdose of slapstick. It adds up to a clever, touching story."

Rites of passage by William Golding
"An ancient ship of the line converted to general purposes is making her way from the South of England to Australia. She carries a few guns, some cargo, some animals, some seamen, some soldiers, some emigrants and a few ladies and gentlemen. There is a clergyman of the Church of England. There is Wilmot Brocklebank, lithographer, marine artist and portrait painter. There is a young army officer.
"Representing the higher echelons of administration is young Mr Talbot, setting out with the utmost confidence towards a distinguished career. But the voyage teaches him some unexpected things. It affords him more opportunities for observing the ceremonies that mark a progres through life - more chances for a mixture of acute observation and sheer misjudgement - than he could possibly record in his journal; though, for his godfather's entertainment, he tries his best. Though Talbot is mistaken in Deverel, instructed by Mr Summers, seduced by Miss Brocklebank, and shocked by Miss Granham, he finds it unnecessary in the event to keep an eye on Mr Prettiman. But it is a sadder and more responsible man who learns from the Reverend Robert James Colley what a bitter taste there is to remorse when it is unavailing. "

Any one of these three sounds promising. Unless anyone else is desperate to get started on a different book, all we have to do now is figure out a way to make the first choice! Any suggestions?

(Taking Cornbread's lead, we could take turns at proposing three titles each which should ensure we don't stay within our comfort zones!) Read more!