Strawberry Fields: A Novel by Marina Lewycka
This was my little splurge for the 30 hour trip back. However, I ended up reading a tattered '80's paperback family saga that my grandmother passed along. I never can focus on anything serious when I'm flying. Lewyka won great acclaim for her previous work, A Short History of Tractors in the Ukraine (nominated for the Orange and Booker Awards) - That is the book that I indeed wished to purchase a few days before my departure. But this was her only title in stock. This tale focuses on the lives of a group of migrant workers in England from Eastern Europe, China and Africa as they flee a bad situation. Some fall by the wayside, recruited into jobs by corrupt middlemen that sound too good to be true... middlemen that hold the passports of the women they sell into prostitution. Sounds serious? Well, those stories are merely mentioned and the stories become central are the ones with more hope and elements of stubborn pride, redemption, humour and a touch of romance.
One character reflects after the horror of working in the filth and gore of a chicken factory...
"Is he freer here in the West today than he was in Poland in the years of communism, when all he dreamed about was freedom, without even knowing what it was? Is he really any freer than those chickens in the barn, packed here in this small stinking room with five strangers, submitting meekly to a daily horror that has already become routine? Tormentor and tormented, they are all just damned creatures in hell. There must be a song in this."
And later on the same page, we touch base with another character and the tone changes entirely:
"Yola was in a foul mood. She had discovered that morning, don't ask how, that the Slovak women who shared their hotel room had no pubic hair. How could this be permitted? Presumably they were not born this way, but acquired it in the natural course of things, and had taken steps to remove it. There are many bad things that can be said about communism, but one thing is for certain, in communist times women did not abuse their pubic hair in this way - a practice that is unnatural, unsightly, undignified, and, without being to specific, potentially dangerous."
The characters are rich and believable in all their messiness. The story itself may be a bit unevenly paced and sometimes stretches the believable. But the essential humanity and struggle of diverse people all seeking something far from home strikes a chord. All sides of human nature, the selfish and the selfless, the romantic and the vulgar, Lewyka spins a good yarn.
This was my little splurge for the 30 hour trip back. However, I ended up reading a tattered '80's paperback family saga that my grandmother passed along. I never can focus on anything serious when I'm flying. Lewyka won great acclaim for her previous work, A Short History of Tractors in the Ukraine (nominated for the Orange and Booker Awards) - That is the book that I indeed wished to purchase a few days before my departure. But this was her only title in stock. This tale focuses on the lives of a group of migrant workers in England from Eastern Europe, China and Africa as they flee a bad situation. Some fall by the wayside, recruited into jobs by corrupt middlemen that sound too good to be true... middlemen that hold the passports of the women they sell into prostitution. Sounds serious? Well, those stories are merely mentioned and the stories become central are the ones with more hope and elements of stubborn pride, redemption, humour and a touch of romance.
One character reflects after the horror of working in the filth and gore of a chicken factory...
"Is he freer here in the West today than he was in Poland in the years of communism, when all he dreamed about was freedom, without even knowing what it was? Is he really any freer than those chickens in the barn, packed here in this small stinking room with five strangers, submitting meekly to a daily horror that has already become routine? Tormentor and tormented, they are all just damned creatures in hell. There must be a song in this."
And later on the same page, we touch base with another character and the tone changes entirely:
"Yola was in a foul mood. She had discovered that morning, don't ask how, that the Slovak women who shared their hotel room had no pubic hair. How could this be permitted? Presumably they were not born this way, but acquired it in the natural course of things, and had taken steps to remove it. There are many bad things that can be said about communism, but one thing is for certain, in communist times women did not abuse their pubic hair in this way - a practice that is unnatural, unsightly, undignified, and, without being to specific, potentially dangerous."
The characters are rich and believable in all their messiness. The story itself may be a bit unevenly paced and sometimes stretches the believable. But the essential humanity and struggle of diverse people all seeking something far from home strikes a chord. All sides of human nature, the selfish and the selfless, the romantic and the vulgar, Lewyka spins a good yarn.
2 comments:
Can you find the entire poem of The Grasshopper ? "There was a little grasshopper, forever on the jump..."
I am lost trying to find it!
Lorie
mrsbalman@frogville.com
There was a little grasshopper Who was always on the jump. And because he never looked ahead, He always got a bump.
It's a short ditty, and goes great with a grasshopper puppet.
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