Broccoli and Other Tales of Food and Love--Lara Vapnyar

Perhaps it would be wise to preface my remarks with a caveat--there is much in this collection that I have grown fatigued with--the modern insistence on our inability to communicate, our inability to sustain love, our inability..... you get the drift.  And were this were merely another visit to the bleak urban/suburban landscape of the divorced and the adulterous, I would find myself unable to review, much less recommend a book like this.  Yes, we're revisiting very tired territory--ultimately vicious-cycle territory--however, we enter it with such a new and delightful perspective and with such a vivacious sense of story and language that much would otherwise be unendurable is not only pleasant, but on occasion delightful.

Lara Vapnyar is from Russia, living in America, and as such she captures a real feel of "Russian" New York.  I was fortunate enough to have a New York native take me to Coney Island and then lead me through a tour of Brighton Beach, Sheepshead Bay and other associated parts of Brooklyn.  Ms. Vapnyar's light-handed touch captures my (admittedly brief and sketchy) perceptions of the area.

from "A Bunch of Broccoli on the Third Shelf"
in Broccoli and Other Tales of Food and Love
Lara Vapnyar

On the street with the unimaginative name Avenue M, they walked through narrow stores that all looked alike to Nina, no matter what they sold: food, electronics, clothes, or hardware. After a while, it seemed that they were walking in and out of the same store over and over, just to hear the chime of its bell.  The February morning was cold, and the sunlight was pale. Nina hid her reddened nose in the fur collar of her Russian coat. She clutched her husband's elbow and carefully stepped over piles of garbage, reluctant to look up or sideways at the ashen sky or the motley signs of the shops.  She felt dizzy and a little nauseated from the flight and the all-night talk with her sister. Only one place attracted her attention: a small Korean grocery with fruits and vegetables set outside on plywood stands--colorful piles of oranges, tomatoes, and cucumbers, almost unnaturally clean and bright. Nina read the sign on the box of tomatoes: SUNRIPE.  She was still learning English, and every new expression seemed exciting and full of great meaning. SUNRIPE brought to mind a vegetable patch on a summer afternoon, the smell of the rich soil heated by the sun, pale-green branches sagging under heavy tomatoes bursting with juice. SUNRIPE reminded her of her family tiny vegetable garden when she was little. Nina wanted to touch the tomatoes in the box, hoping that their surface would still be a little warm from all the sun that shined on them while they ripened. She was reaching for one when her husband dragged her away to another store.

It is this sort of detail that helps to take the too-tried storylines to new places.  Suddenly, there is something new under the sun.  Yes divorce is always divorce, unhappy is always unhappy (and in this I suspect that Tolstoy was wrong--see Anna Karenina), but Ms. Vapnyar breathes new life into them through her juxtaposition of food and love.

**** Recommended--delightful, interesting, quick read