A Berry Nice Book (Two Caravans - Marina Lewycka)

Member Name: TheChocolateLady

Product:	Two Caravans - Marina Lewycka
Date:	16/01/09 (245 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Easy style, fast reading, good characters, interesting situations

Disadvantages: Not terribly funny, that dumb bit with the dog "speaking"

Marina Lewycka's second novel "Two Caravans" is a classic romantic comedy, which means the plot can be summed up as: boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy gets girl. In this instance, there's a slight nod to a twist on "Pride & Prejudice" with the boy Andrei being from a rural, lower-class family and the girl Elena being from the urban middle-class. That these characters are all migrant workers (one from Africa, two from China and the rest from non-EU Eastern Europe, with our heroes coming from the Ukraine), who have come to England to pick strawberries, is Lewycka's own distinctive spin.

With this slightly unique set up, and having experienced Lewycka's first novel with great satisfaction, I was fairly hopeful that this novel would be equally as enjoyable, despite it's less than rave reviews. With that in mind, I do have to say I wasn't terribly disappointed, but I cannot say that the critics of this book were far off the mark. "Two Caravans", therefore, is basically what one often observes with an author's second outing, especially after their debut novel is such a hit. That is, it isn't quite up to snuff. That said, there isn't all that much that is terribly wrong with this book, either.

Getting the biggest problem out of the way, I have to admit that I was very disconcerted to find that Lewycka resorted to a famous literary blunder under the guise of "aren't I clever/creative". I'm talking about writing a realistic story which includes using a first-person point of view from either an animal or inanimate object. In this case, we get "dog" (and yes, I mean an animal) voicing its observations and feelings - carefully set apart by paragraphs of all caps, printed in comic sans font. It isn't her fault, really. Greater and/or more famous writers than Marina have fallen into this pitfall - not the least of which was Joanne Harris. While this is fine if you're writing "Watership Down" or "I, Robot", there really is no place for something like this in a book of this genre. Yes, there are stories that mix reality with certain magical qualities, but this isn't one of them. The problem is, you can't actually ignore all the dog's thoughts, since much of what goes on in its head gives us important insights into parts of the story line. Still, I think this information could have been imparted in a less foolish way.

However, this was probably more difficult to overcome considering how the book was composed. That being, we get a jumble of first-person narratives - mostly from our main characters as well as a couple others, and of course, "dog". Had Lewycka used third person, this could easily have been avoided. But apparently, Marina likes to get into the heads of her characters - probably because she's first and foremost a sociologist by profession. I can live with that, but personally, I think this point-of-view is overrated and frankly, extremely overused. That doesn't mean that she fails in helping us become empathetic with her characters, because this is one of her strongest points. Moreover, this type of jumping back and forth can sometimes be confusing to the reader, if we aren't always sure who is narrating what. Marina solves this problem by making sure that each speaker has a distinctive enough voice - either by the style the person uses, or by changing certain physical aspects of the writing (for instance, one country would spell the Andre as Andrei, while another spells it Andrey, and I already told you how the dog's thoughts are highlighted). This makes for a very casual style in her writing - something that's very familiar feeling, if a touch voyeuristic - as if we're reading someone's diary. This makes for a read that intrigues us but isn't overly heavy, even when our heroes are facing some kind of danger.

She also has a way of pulling us into the story and these people's lives, making us feel we really care about what happens to them. That is essential for any novel and in that light, this book succeeds very nicely indeed. Here she investigates the various types of dreams these people have for themselves - both financially and emotionally, and how they go about chasing them, even when obstacles are placed in their paths. Throughout the story, we feel how these people change and adapt to their circumstances, as well as how they learn about themselves and the people they've been thrown together with. What's more, even the protagonists are well rounded, as are the more minor characters here. And while we may have our doubts regarding what is realistic and what is not about their tales and goals, we easily recognize the human conditions presented. Each person you 'meet' here is a true individual, and there's no way you'll confuse who is what, they are so carefully drawn. So at least Lewycka hasn't lost her touch for building a cast of believable people, around which she builds her tale.

This brings me, of course, to how she builds the plot, from the introduction, to the climax and conclusion. I have to say that while her characters are both interesting and varied, the one thing she's really good at is putting them into situations that are believable, realistic as well as freshly idiosyncratic. This, of course, sets up the comic aspects of this story, which though funny, aren't what I would call hilarious. Still, I'm sure the trials and tribulations of migrant workers in the UK certainly isn't a topic that happens often in fiction. As she gives us this special setting, we are also certain that nothing that these people go through is exaggerated, is a true talent. I tend to believe that as a sociologist (or in doing social work) she may actually have come in contact with just such real people during her career. In this, it surely feels that she is doing what all writers must do - and that is "write what you know". This is to say that while we're pulled in firstly by the characters, Lewycka knows how to manipulate them through the plot twists to keep us turning pages until the very end, which is also in her favour.

But as a whole, I have to say that while there is much to like in this book, I'm afraid that "Two Caravans" falls short of Marina's very special debut novel "A Short History of the Tractor in Ukrainian". We can enjoy and believe in the characters on the whole (aside from that dog business), the settings are interesting and not overly described, and the situations are generally unfamiliar to us, making us curious to see what happens. And yet, while it is still a fun and easy read, it doesn't really grab us as being something that has any huge impact on us. There are no deep insights into human nature here, nothing that strikes us as amazing prose and nothing that will have us laughing out loud. And while saying that "Two Caravans" is just an amusing novel isn't an insult, it also isn't very high praise either. So after much debate, I think I'll still recommend this book for a light summer read, but I can't give it more than three stars out of five. I can only hope that Lewycka's next novel sees a return to the quality we saw in her debut novel.

Thanks for reading!

Davida Chazan © January 2009

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Technical Stuff:

This book is available in paperback from Amazon new for £5.59 or through their marketplace from 1p.

In the USA this book is known as "The Strawberry Pickers".

Information about the author is available at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marina_Lewycka
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Summary: Lewycka's Second Novel - Not as good as her first