On February 25, 2022, natali Sevriukova reacted when he saw his house destroyed after a rocket attack in the city of Kiev. BY EMILIO MORENATTI/AP IMAGES
Wen | Li Gongming
Many years ago, when I read the British female writer Marina Lyowica's "A Short History of Tractors in Ukraine" (original title: A Short History of Tractors in Ukraine, translated by Shao Wenshi, CITIC Publishing House, Sanhui Books, 2014), when I first saw the title of this book, I had an inexplicable excitement, and I had no doubt that this was a real tractor history, and it was Ukrainian!
It's really disappointing to find out it's just a novel. For me, the tractor is an important thing from the blackboard newspaper to the propaganda poster to the young age, an important symbol of the "wheel of the times", and it is also associated with agricultural machinery stations, state farms, and even famine. I believe that a true tractor history will not be a simple history of machine production, but will be linked to socio-economic history and political history.
Perhaps because of this strong expectation, when I read in the book that the male protagonist, Old Man Nicholas, was really writing a brief history of tractors, he immediately connected the tractor history scattered in various parts, and later found that someone had already done so on the Internet. The main story of the novel is about how an 84-year-old British Ukrainian old man has become obsessed with a 36-year-old Ukrainian blonde who wants to immigrate to Britain, and how the old man's two daughters, Vera and Nadezhda, try to stop this ridiculous marriage; in this humorous and playful family defense war, fragments of the family's suffering history emerge from the shadows, and all the suffering finally condenses the words of the old father: "To live is to win." Behind this story is the history of the Russian Revolution, concentration camps, Stalin's Great Purge, the Great Famine in Ukraine, and other great eras, and there are clouds of terror, killing, and hunger in that sky. So, what kind of trajectory did tractor history emerge from between the two? Why is Old Man Nicholas so obsessed with writing such a history of tractor development?
Marina Lewycka by Shao Wenshi translated by Sanhui Books | CITIC Press, 2014
Nikolai tells us that when John Fuller invented the tractor, the tractor was seen as a tool that could liberate the toiling masses from hard, low-paying labor and enable them to appreciate the beauty of the spiritual life. (pp. 57-58) Notice the old engineer's interpretation of the meaning of inventing the tools: enabling the laborer to "appreciate the beauty of the spiritual life", which is the most perfect idealistic spirit of the technocratics. Later, in the Stalin era, tractors were the "iron horses" of collective farms, with the symbolic significance that peasants who owned their own land were regarded as enemies of the revolution, and the iron horses destroyed the traditional rural mode of life. As a result of the conflict between the agrarian countries and industrialization, rural hunger and food belong only to the cities and exports to foreign exchange, "this is a great tragedy that has not been recorded in our history". (p. 80) When we analyze the modern machinery on propaganda posters, we rarely think of such a "brief history of tractors", although in fact it has exactly the same trajectory.
Next, Nikolai continued under pressure, "The early builders of tractors dreamed of turning swords into ploughshares, but as the spirit of this century darkens, we find that, on the contrary, the ploughs will become swords." (p. 120) This is also the story we have heard since childhood, and we have spoken mysteriously with our friends, about tractors and tracked tanks. Here, once again, the floodgates of memory open, and tractors and tanks were once the subjects we often depicted in the blackboard newspapers of the primary schools of the late '60s and early '70s, representing construction and progress under the banner of the windward display. Then there are the outstanding contributions of engineers from Ireland, Britain, the United States and other countries to the history of the tractor, "Ferguson is famous for combining two great engineering achievements of our time: tractors and family cars, agriculture and transportation, both of which have made great contributions to the happiness and well-being of mankind." (p. 129) However, Nikolai speaks again of peace and war, "in terms of the transformation from peace technology to weapons of war, as far as tractors are concerned, there is nothing more blatant than the advent of the Valentina tank." (p. 135) The twin images of tractors and tanks are as inseparable as peace and war. In the end, the engineer finally rose from machine building to the height of philosophy: "Every technology that benefits mankind must be used correctly with respect." Tractors are the best example. (p. 301) After recounting the catastrophe of the blind reclamation of the United States and the totalitarian politics of Germany and Russia, Nikolai hopes to leave the reader with a line that can be summed up in one sentence: "Never let technology be your master, and never use it to dominate others" (p. 302) The author deliberately announces to the world in a read-out manner that "he waved his arm, ended the reading, and watched his audience wait for applause." (p. 303) It does deserve applause. If this short historical narrative is applied to our past statements, it can be said that it is a combination of history and theory, and the theory comes out of history.
Ukrainian soldier BY TYLER HICKS/THE NEW YORK TIMES/REDUX
Who can say why Nikolai, in a troubled old age married life, wrote this brief history of tractors? Perhaps in the engineer's memory, the tractor's plough rake raises the hopes and sorrows of Ukrainian history, and the most proud idealistic music of his life; perhaps it can also be found in nikolai's transfer from the aerospace research department full of persecution delusions to the red plough factory in 1937: the red plough factory is far from the political center, there is no paranoia, nothing can be associated with intelligence, secrecy, advanced, and is the place where scientists and engineers can breathe freely. (p. 200) Here, the author makes a sharp contrast between the tractor factory and the paranoia of brutal political persecution, so that the inner meaning of a brief history of the tractor as part of the title and part of the book is more worthy of consideration. Between the multiple tones of humor, satire, banter, compassion and warmth throughout the work, the narrative of tractor history is a solemn and firm chant, which laments the game of technological power and social system under the overlook of the eternal human spirit. Standing at the height of the human spirit, recounting history and reflecting on suffering with personal strength is actually a job worth trying for all the old men and women who have had various professional careers.
Returning to the author's casual recounting of the history of family suffering with tearful humor, the "silt that has long been sunk under the quagmire of memory" that has been turned up by the tractor, the words of her sister Vera are quite weighty: "Peace, love, labor power." It's all idealistic nonsense. You can afford the luxury of being irresponsible because you never see the darkness inside your life. (p. 10) Yes, sister Nadezhda really doesn't know what "darkness within life" is. She later felt "darkness enveloping us" and knew there was a "voice I had never heard before, a voice I refused to listen to, a voice I never thought might exist". (p. 271) She finally knows that she "grew up in a state of ignorance of the darkness lurking in the depths of the human mind," but she goes on to ask, "How did they spend the rest of their lives with terrible secrets locked in their hearts?" How can they still grow vegetables, repair motorcycles, send us to school, and worry about our academic performance? But they did. (p. 272) Yes, when we know everything, we all have this feeling: how can they still ... But they did! If we want to read the darkness of the night during the day, in the final analysis, we must return to the words of old man Nicholas: "To live is to win."
On February 25, 2022, in Kiev, Ukraine, people ran to take refuge amid sirens announcing that a new attack was about to begin. BY EMILIO MORENATTI/AP IMAGES
Marina said her story was humorous, but it was "survivor humor." This novel is to restore the survivors' memories and feelings about darkness and survival with humor. A Chinese writer once said in one of his speeches that writers live for the memory and feelings of people and human beings. "Memory and feeling," he said very precisely; "memory and feeling, making us lovers of writing", which is indeed the fundamental reason why we are still reluctant to give up writing; when he looks back on his experience, he says that one of the words he remembered earlier is boiling - "it means, suffering in the dark". Whether it's dark or surviving, boiling is a must. Are there any people today who are willing to think about the true meaning of "boiling"?
Written on 3 November 2014 in Springvale, Melbourne;
Revised on February 26, 2022, ukraine was invaded by Russia
▼
Marina Lewycka, translated by Shao Wenshi
Sanhui Books | CITIC Press
◆ Over 1,000,000 copies have been sold in the UK and sold well in 35 countries
◆ Pollinger Volkswagen Woodhouse Comedy Novel Award, Witty Novel Award, Uk
◆ Booker Award, Orange Book Award Finalist
◆ The New Yorker, The Guardian, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, Times, Independent, praise and recommendation · · ·
It's a story about big breasts, erectile dysfunction, and tractors
It is also a story about hunger, war and the human spirit
An absurd farce of an immigrant marriage, a Ukrainian family history of an English family
Fighting the absurd with humor has made countless readers laugh to tears
The 84-year-old father is about to marry the 36-year-old "Venus of Botticelli's Water", the Ukrainian special Valentina. In order to save their father's predictable life difficulties, the two daughters Vera and Nadezhda decide to put aside their long-term emotional discord and join forces to rescue the father of the immigration engineer from the plump and charming gold digger Valentina. And this fiery bride is not a fuel-efficient lamp! Unexpectedly, the war in which the two sisters expelled Valentina gradually opened up the family's secrets and a series of tragic and joyful past events...
Edited | Ashanshan