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Inherit the Family: Marrying into Eastern Europe stories by Vello Vikerkaar

 
 
Inherit the Family: Marrying into Eastern Europe stories by Vello Vikerkaar
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Inherit the Family: Marrying into Eastern Europe stories by Vello Vikerkaar

All sorts of stories about Eastern Europe circulated in the early 90s. One went that for a pair of Levi’s blue jeans you could buy a car. Another said that for a pack of Marlboros you could have anything smaller. The women were purportedly gorgeous and dangerous, capable of weaving especially wicked webs. A few years after arriving in 1992, the author married an Estonian woman. None of the warnings that circulated in the West turned out to apply. What they should have warned him about were the standard marital issues that apply in every culture. Like the fact that when you marry the wife, you inherit the family. *Inherit the Family, Marrying into Eastern Europe* is a hilarious account of West meets East in the post-Soviet era.

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Product Details:
Author: Vello Vikerkaar
Paperback: 188 pages
Publisher: BookSurge Publishing
Publication Date: October 05, 2009
Language: English
ISBN: 1439256039
Package Length: 8.9 inches
Package Width: 6.4 inches
Package Height: 0.5 inches
Package Weight: 0.75 pounds
Average Customer Rating: based on 1 reviews
 
 

Customer Reviews:
Average Customer Review:5.0
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5The true joys of Estonian life  Nov 19, 2009
I'll get the one negative thing out of the way first - the cover's a bit nondescript and the title it bears is a bit misleading, if only because it might cause those unfamiliar with Vello's work to expect one of those godawful "aren't-they-amusing-and-rather-Ruritanian" travelogues written by people from the Sunday supplements who think patronising sarcasm extended for long enough eventually forms a kind of insight.

In fact Vello's book is the exact opposite of such flimsy offerings from writers who define themselves as outside observers. He hasn't swanned into Estonia for a couple of weeks, he has committed to the place 24/7. He's an outsider trying to be an insider but only making small, slow, advances. The painful rate of progress periodically leads to massive frustration which explodes in a sort of impotent, absurd exasperation.

There are plenty of comic situations that only real life could possibly throw up, including a memorable life or death struggle over a rabbit hutch and musings on the geo-economic factors that result in a covertly homosexual companion for Barbie being foisted on Eastern Europe.

Vello also debunks a few myths. If this book actually gets into the hands of locals they may finally realise that the foreigners living among them are generally much less interesting and intelligent than they give them credit for, and that foreign journalists in particular are more likely to be hopeless hacks than secret service men.

But best of all Vello exhibits the brevity and discpline in his writing that is a direct result of being a newspaper columnist rather than a mere blogger. Vello's columns are lean, funny and quick.

The brevity of each self-contained chapter makes them perfect bathroom reading material. Saying they are the ideal accompaniment to a bowel movement may not be something Vello will appreciate overly, but honestly there is no greater endorsement I can give them as a large part of my literary education takes place on porcelain.

Ultimately I think Vello protests a little too much about his inability to fit in with a varied set of dramatis personae which includes a whores' choir, numerous semi-comatose tradesmen and the genuinely surreal unexplained acts of assorted relatives. He's much more of a genuine Estonian than he likes to let on.

Whereas Lithuanians go for slapstick and Latvians laugh at broad farce, the Estonians seem to have a dry irony that frequently manifests itself in self-deprecation and is actually rather sophisticated. And that's the attitude Vello captures so well.

Inherit The Family also has one of the best opening lines I've read for a long time, so buy it for someone you know and make them laugh on the toilet. That way it doesn't even matter if they wet themselves.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
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