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| Two Caravans | 
 enlarge | Author: Marina Lewycka
Publisher: Fig Tree
Category: Book
List Price: £12.99
Buy Used: £2.49
You Save: £10.50 (81%)
New (8) from £5.00
Avg. Customer Rating:  38 reviews
Sales Rank: 115194
Media: Paperback
Pages: 320
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.8
Dimensions (in): 9.2 x 6 x 1
ISBN: 1905490321
EAN: 9781905490325
ASIN: 1905490321
Publication Date: October 4, 2007
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews: Read 33 more reviews...
 Good Idea but it Got Silly June 26, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I couldn't wait to finish this book, but sadly not because I was enjoying it but because, whilst wanting to know what happened, I really wanted to move onto something more entertaining.
Having found her previous book A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian interesting if slightly unedifying, I had at least some hopes of this follow up.
Lewycka certainly hit upon a good idea - the plight of immigrant workers in the United Kingdom. But she can't quite make up her mind whether she wants to produce biting satire, a serious study or a comedy and it falls horribly somewhere in the vague region of all three and that makes for a very disappointing read.
The book ambles and rambles - suddenly moving off at a tangent where characters are dropped or just seem to go missing. In the end it develops into a kind of Ukrainian love story that becomes more and more implausible as it continues. It could have been a novel about the plight of immigrant workers - it isn't. It could have been a novel about the gang masters - it isn't. It could have been a study about the triumph of good over evil - it isn't.
Lewycka seems to insist on making her characters zany - we even have one of the main characters from her previous novel turn up in a Peterborough nursing home. When at the end some of the central characters come together in Sheffield I was left with the feeling of 1/ just how did they get there and 2/ so what.
Earlier parts of the book are sharp and at times well penned but by the end the whole thing has degenerated into a kind of pastiche. There's even a dog that has thoughts and these appear in the novel in capitals - and that's just plain silly.
 Depressing June 25, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
I read the blurb and as this was described as being a humourous novel, I selected the book as light holiday reading. I found the humour such as it was, to be extremely contrived and barely smiled once! The story was extremely depressing and the bit about the chickens was just awful! We have all heard the horror stories but in a book described as comical......could have done without this book. Certainly not light holiday stuff!
 Funny and moving June 21, 2008
I think this is a great novel - and I enjoyed it more than her first novel. To combine comedy with a story exploring the downsides of global capitalism (people trafficking, factory farming, labour exploitation) is no mean feat. If this makes the novel sound off putting, don't be; it's also the story of two young people learning to cope, and learning about themselves, in a global society. And yet the story is very much rooted in recent UK history; and the references to 'Vloonki' are hysterical. I can't imagine this book will translate so well into other languages (or even to the US), but that's their loss!
Disappointing June 5, 2008
I liked the Tractors very much, but I found Two Caravans to be a let down. The story goes all over the place and is not particularly funny. Some characters seems to disappear from the storyline whereas others keep coming back. Bits of the story are told from the Dog's point of view in "Dog language" others through the letters that a young African man send her sister, in his own quirky English. It just didn't work for me. It feels that throughout the story the writer was trying to hard at being funny. One good point about the book is that it gives a good insight as to what the (under)world of illegal workers is like in England these days.
 A fresh read May 20, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I havent read the other book by Marina Lewycka but i will definately look it up after reading this little gem!. I liked the interwoven stories about the different characters and especially loved the dog! as other people have mentioned the desciption of the chicken farm is very harrowing but i guess true. I have dropped a star purely because i'd liked to of known what ultimately happened to the Chinese girls and i thought it was a bit convienant how some of the characters came face to face again at the end (i wont mention specifics as i dont want to ruin anything). Go on read it, you'd be glad you did.
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