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    Valeria's Last Stand
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    Valeria's Last Stand
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    Valeria's Last Stand
    Ebook303 pages3 hours

    Valeria's Last Stand

    By Marc Fitten

    3.5/5

    ()

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    About this ebook

    A sparkling, debut novel celebrating late-flowering love in a Hungarian village

    'There's a bit of Chocolat ... a little Anita Brookner ... even some Peter Mayle ... The book is written like a fairy tale.' Observer

    In sixty-eight years, Valeria has never minced her words. Harrumphing through her isolated little village deep in the Hungarian steppes, she clutches her shopping basket like a battering ram and leaves nothing uncriticised - flaccid vegetables at the market; idle farmers carousing in Ibolya's Nonstop Tavern; that gauche chimpanzee of a mayor and his flashy, leggy wife; people who whistle.

    But one day, her spinster's heart is struck by an unlikely arrow: the village potter, with his decisive hands and solid gaze. Valeria finds herself suddenly dressing in florals and touching her hair, and what's more, smiling at people in the street. The potter makes her the most beautiful vase she has ever seen. The farmers buy a celebratory round.

    The problem with all this is that Ibolya (herself at least fifty-eight) has been romancing the potter for months and vows to win him back. And then there's Ferenc, the sugar beet farmer, red-headed and married but all the same hopelessly in love with Ibolya. Meanwhile the mayor has his own problems, mostly involving foreign investors and a non-existent railway.

    And then a roving chimney sweep arrives in the village, to make a quick buck and bring some good luck - or perhaps bad luck; no one can really decide. All anyone knows is, there's never been such a hullabaloo, which just goes to show it's never too late to try something new.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBloomsbury Publishing
    Release dateJun 1, 2009
    ISBN9781408803165
    Unavailable
    Valeria's Last Stand
    Author

    Marc Fitten

    Marc Fitten was born in Brooklyn in 1974 to Panamanian parents. He spent much of the 1990s living and travelling in Europe, based in Hungary. He's been published in Prairie Schooner, The Louisville Review, and the Hogtown Creek Review, and has published a napkin online at Esquire. Marc is a PhD student at Georgia State University and received the Paul Bowles Fellowship for Fiction. He is currently the editor of The Chattahoochee Review, Atlanta's oldest journal.

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    Reviews for Valeria's Last Stand

    3.5/5

    84 ratings26 reviews

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    • 4/5
      A good quick read. Read it in about 6 hours I liked the characters and the story moves along well. It could have been set in any number of small towns in any number of countries but the author clearly knew some of Hungry's history. Every person was trying to create a connection and a legacy weather they were aware of it or not
    • 4/5
      Some people don't like change. Some are so averse to it that it infects their characters, making them crochety, bitter, and unpleasant. We use the names of these sorts of people as insults: troglodytes, Luddites, and more. But even when we are resistant to change, it comes into all of our lives whether we invite it in and embrace it or not. In Marc Fitten's novel Valeria's Last Stand, there is an entire Hungarian village being modernized at seemingly warp speed but there's also a grumpy, grouchy older woman, the eponymous Valeria, who, because life has not gone the way she wanted, refuses to concede anything to progress until she finds herself falling in love late in life and having to bend and adapt if she wants to have a chance of finally living the life she has long desired.Set in a small town in Hungary post-Communism, this novel captures provincial life and the assorted characters who populate this place forgotten by progress and innovation. Now that the people and the town have access to modern conveniences, the mayor is determined haul their little corner of the world into the twenty-first century. No one is a bigger symbol of the insularity and aversion to change than curmudgeonly Valeria who has been taking her own bad mood out on the other villagers for 40 years. She is a thoroughly grumpy woman, contemptuous of everyone around her. But when she spies the village potter making a purchase at the market, she falls for him and has to revamp herself as appealing and desirable, especially since the potter is already involved with the rather buxom, Ibolya, the local bar keep. The love triangle is comical, and made even more so by the arrival of the itinerant chimney sweep to make it a love square. But there are very serious issues in play in the novel as well: progress simply for progress' sake, xenophobia, insularity, love, change and adaptation. It's a unique and unusual comedy of manners really, although threaded with some appalling violence and mob mentality.The novel is well written and deadpan. The characters are not entirely likable but they are all the more human for their faults and weaknesses. Positing a dumpy, cranky sexagenarian as a love-struck muse for the potter is pure genius and the convoluted relationships between the main characters are reminiscent of the theater. This could definitely be successfully staged. Valeria as a symbol of the closed and resistant village is well conceived and executed and her slow growth and change, a willingness to open herself up and expose herself to both the positive and the negative, renders this a readable and delightful allegory.
    • 3/5
      Valeria's Last Stand is such an odd book. That's not to say that it's bad or anything, but strange in ways that I couldn't quite put my finger on while I was reading it.For example, I was unsure of what time period the story was set in for most of the book. I assumed that it was modern day, but the Hungarian village of Zivatar is so isolated that time has virtually stood still for the villagers until the mayor starts trying to modernize everything.The village and its people seemed like they had stepped out of a fable (albeit a rather raunchy fable) where the plot revolves around the love life of the local aging potter. The Potter can't decide who he likes better - Ibolya, the local tavern owner; or Valeria, a crotchety single farmer lady.I think part of the reason I found the story to be odd was that I couldn't tell how much of the culture of the village was reflective of real Hungarian culture and how much of it was pure fiction. There were also some vague elements of magical realism (like the weather being dictated by events at least once in the story) that added to that feeling of blurred reality.At its heart Valeria's Last Stand is a love story, with love triangles that would do Shakespeare proud. Yet it wasn't a story that I really liked. The villagers seem unrealistic in how they gang up on Valeria and the potter, unwilling to let these two people find happiness together. In the end I had to take the story for what it was. Because it is fiction, and contains a feeling of magical realism, I don't judge it with the same strictness (at least with respect to cultural accuracy) that I would apply to books from other genres like historical fiction.Even after mulling over the story for days I'm not quite sure what to think of it. Was it finely crafted? Yes. Did I like it? Kind of. I think most of the problem comes from disliking all of the characters for different reasons. Even though the story was interesting, my dislike for the characters became apathy by the end of the book. That's what conflicts me - good writing that I don't want to give a negative review of, but a storyline that turned me off.
    • 4/5
      This book was very different than most books I read. I wasn't sure it was "my kind of book" but ended up really enjoying it! Thanks for the early reviewers copy!
    • 4/5
      I wasn't sure what to expect when I read a blurb on the back of this book that said "Think The Canterbury Tales crossed with Joanne Harris' magical Chocolat". However, that's exactly what I got. The characters are strange and hilarious in a way that only European villagers can be. And yes, it's bawdy. However, I did not find it in any way offensive, much like the Canterbury Tales and Chocolat. Yes, Valeria sleeps with two men, but she's 68 years old, so cut her some slack. This book isn't even about Valeria. It's about a whole village, full of unique and flawed characters. Individually they're kind of boring, just like real people. But they come together to represent a whole country, or even half a continent, that's trying to adjust to the whole new way of living that capitalism forces upon them.
    • 4/5
      Although I had received this book by request through Early Reviewers, I wasn’t really sure what to expect. Most of the reviews and descriptions highlight “capitalism” (even the quote on the front cover of the book does that) and the relationships between the characters – and even on pottery. But what I discovered is the book is about a much simpler idea – CHANGE. How does Hungary react to the change from Communism to Capitalism? How does a woman react to the change in attentions by a lover? How does another woman react when she discovers hidden desires long suppressed? How does a potter react when his work takes on the potential of more that utilitarian works? The allegories to change woven through the book were so subtle and so artfully developed, I really didn’t even notice until I was most of the way through the book. Until it hit me, the book read as good literature, and the revelation simply allowed a deeper level of enjoyment as a work of “meaning”.Fitten develops the characters and the setting extremely well; unfortunately, some of the characters themselves do not remain particularly endearing. I became more interested in the well being of the pieces of pottery (which were described in poetic detail) than some of the primary players. The book’s saving grace is that the author kept Valeria’s story as the primary motivation for the flow of the book, and in the end the book remained overall an enjoyable read. Recommended.
    • 2/5
      Our heroine, Valeria, is an aging battle-ax that everyone in her village tries to avoid. She inexplicably suddenly falls in love with the local potter, a widower. Then a chimney sweep comes into town and he decides that Valeria is his meal ticket to an easier life. A battle for the old hag ensues. Right. I just didn't have much tolerance for this fantasy. it was a testament to my own stubborness that I even finished the book. A plot that had events other than Valeria sleeping with various men would have been welcome. Skip this one. I should have known that anything with a cover blurb written by Gary Shteyngart, author of Absurdistan, would be equally dismal.
    • 2/5
      i, too, have tried more than once to start valeria, it's just not working for me. i won't give up, i'm just not in the mood for it right now. which i guess says something about it, now, doesn't it?
    • 4/5
      A baudy, funny, and charming first novel about life in small-town Hungary after the downfall of communism, the book reminded me of Chocolat crossed with Gogol's fantasic realism. In a village where everyone knows everything about their neighbors, sixty-eight year old Valerie's sudden infatuation with the local widowed potter is the talk of the town. Especially since the potter has been seeing the proprietess of the local tavern. It's spring, change is in the air, and scandals rock the small town of Zivatar ("thunderstorm"). The mayor, an itinerant chimney sweep, and the apprentice potter all figure into this unlikely love triangle.I found the first half of the book to be especially funny and touching. Everything seems to be changing in Zivatar: the beginnings of capitalism, Valerie's sexual awakening, and the potter's transformation from craftsman to artist. This latter process is described in part by the following passage:"The potter recognized that there was nothing better for a man to do--to reflect his godlike image--than create something lasting. Chastity is not God. Benevolence is not God. Honesty is not God. What is God, what is the crux and apex of man's existence, is when he reaches deeply into himself, uses his hands, his mind, his blood, his imagination, and his semen, points to a formless void, the emptiness of his surroundings, and utters the same phrase that began the entire universe: Let there be light!...The potter pointed hopefully at a bag of clay. 'Let there be turnip!'"The juxtaposition of a familiar analogy with such a humorous ending is one of the stylistic tricks of the author.The main character, Valerie, is an endearing grouch who is transformed by love. Known as the village hag, one with the cleanest pigs in town and a talent for judging vegetables and fruit, she is also intelligent and surprising self-aware. For her, love is a matter of faith, one that she knowingly acknowledges and decides to embrace. "Valerie sighed. She understood that she should have had more faith. 'But how does one ever know until they know?' she said to herself...She smiled. 'He can make me new ones (pots),' she said, 'and I'll have faith that everything can work.' She was unsure for a momet about whether she believed that or not, but she decided that she would believe it, and in the decision to do so, she found the strength to finish dressing and wait for the potter to return."Although I found the second half of the book less enjoyable, in part due to the unlikeable character of the chimney sweep, I looked forward to seeing how it all worked out. I enjoyed this light read and would recommend it particularly to those with an interest in literature set in Eastern Europe.
    • 3/5
      Fitten does a fine job of recreating the small ex-Communist village where Valeria, a local woman resides. Poor Valeria, she's got to cope with capitalism and whistling, among other things, and her community companions are also dealing with new ideas and fallen dreams. And, of course, there's love and lust to make it more interesting. The atmosphere sometimes is so gray, and so depressing, I almost felt the pages were grimy. Interesting, but maybe read when you're not depressed. :)
    • 3/5
      I found this book to be very charming and funny, as if a rustic village storyteller was relating it. It's an easy read, and there are many smiles and heart warming moments throughout the book.It's the story of love in a small, isolated Hungarian village. The characters are likable and you find yourself caring about each one....even the meanest and sorriest.I enjoyed this book. Every day when I was finished reading part of it, I closed it with a smile and knew that the next day when I read it, I would smile, too.
    • 3/5
      Marc Fitten has written a folk tale that reflects the changes in Hungary as it adjusts to a capitalist system. Many of the residents of "Zivatar" , Hungary are used to the Soviet system where rules were known and followed. The advent of capitalism has produced an atmosphere of chaos among the residents, including the main character, Valeria. She is the village curmudgeon who finds herself in a triangular love affair with a potter and chimneysweep. The characters and their antics held my interest in spite of the somewhat slowmoving plot. One couldn't help but feel that capitalism wreaked havoc but also established hope for love and the future in Zivatar.
    • 3/5
      I kept losing my copy of this book -- I think it was an unconscious reflection on the way I felt about it. Even when the book was within reach, I didn't find myself wanting to keep reading. Mainly, I didn't find any of the characters at all sympathetic, even the ones with names. Part of the reason for this was the obsession all of the main characters had with sex -- unbroken, except for a passing thought for money.I understand that Fitten intended Valeria's Last Stand to be a fable of sorts, but I have always thought that fables cannot work if the book does not work as a story first. I didn't find this story compelling enough to stretch it to a fable.As for my copy of this book, I should always be able to find it from now on -- I don't see it moving off of my bookshelf very often.
    • 3/5
      Marc Fitten's debut novel is a light-hearted look at the challenging,abrupt changes which are occurring in small countries and, more importantly, in indivduals.Though set in a newly emerging capitalist Hungary, Mr. Fitten starts the ball rolling with a nasty older woman in a town named Thunderstorm (in English).Lightening figuratively hits Valeria when she instantly falls in love with a potter. Thunder rolls when the current girlfriend tries to stop the budding romance.Craziness follows while the mayor is trying to drag his people into the new world economy.This book can be read as a zany romance but it can also stand as a metaphor of our frenetic lives. Well done and especially so for a new novelist!!!
    • 4/5
      Love this book. Fitten does a great job with dialogue and I'm a freak about dialogue. If it doesn't ring true, I can't read the book.
    • 5/5
      Valeria's Last Stand takes place in the post-Soviet setting of Zivatar, a Hungarian town that was so small as to be overlooked by invaders and untouched by war. Yet, modernization creeps in as Koreans offer a contract to build a television manufacturing company in the town, and the village marketplace becomes as filled with "Chinese boom boxes, Polish electronics, German cassettes" sold alongside the neighbors' produce.The inevitability of change also overcomes Valeria, a no-nonsense widow whom nobody would expect to embrace newness of life, as she falls in love with the gentle and even-tempered potter. As the town sorts out its romances and relationships, there remains an undercurrent of tension between routine and passion, tradition versus progress. Yet this sweet and light-hearted read does not get resolved with a resolution either on the side of tradition or progress necessarily, but rather seeking in one's life inspiration, in its many forms.
    • 3/5
      Valeria is a 60-something sour puss. She snarls at everyone in the village, has nothing good to say about anyone, and generally terrorizes them all, although they will all agree that she grows the best vegetables and her pigs are the finest. Then one day in the market, she looks up and is struck by a sight that draws her. She is bemused by the spark that simmers within her now.Into the village rides a strange grouchy chimney sweep.These two incidents seemed to have sparked off a series of other unfathomable incidents, all leading to change, positive, bizarre and funny, in the village. Some of the characters were well developed which definitely helped prop the story, because the plot was rather thin.I'd consider this a light beach read. Enjoyable and fun but at times I wanted to skip ahead just to be done with it.
    • 5/5
      A charming folktale set in a modern-day hamlet in Hungary. Valeria, an older spinster who loudly criticizes just about everything and everyone around her, suddenly falls in love with the village's widowed potter. She has a rival, however: the middle-aged barkeeper with whom the potter has been "carrying on". Neither woman is shy about manipulating the townsfolk to achieve their goals, and the arrival of a randy itinerant chimney sweep sets in motion a whirlwind of moves and counter-moves to win the potter's hand. Funny and somewhat vulgar (literally ALL the villagers are obsessed with sex and body parts), the story pulls the reader merrily along till the satisfying conclusion.
    • 3/5
      I didn't believe it for a minute. The central character, Valeria, seems never to have been interested in a romantic relationship until she is smitten with the village potter at the age of 68. The potter is quite ready to abandon his erstwile mistress Ibolya, for Valeria in a heartbeat. Valeria is described as a highly critical small farmer, who grows the best vegetables. The story revolves around the beautiful pottery made for Valeria, and the drinking, fighting, cruelty, and jealousy of the other villagers. It seemed like a fairy or folk tale, and I don't know why the characters were made so old. It was a fun, light read, but more fantasy, in my opinion, than reality, even for Hungarians.
    • 4/5
      This is a very different book. It`s about a little town in Hungary which has to change from lifelong communism into a "free market economy". This interferes a lot with the personally way of living and feeling. Outbursts of all kinds of new emotions mainly from woman. (they have names in this book, the men don`t) Sexual desires fill the whole town, And this is all about "old people" very unusual for a novel. And in the end everything erupts and brings the new way of living to a start. At first felt weird reading this book, but after a while it cached me and I enjoyed reading it. The fighting between tradition and change, even with the age of 67 it`s not to late to learn a totally new way of enjoying yourself and others, sometimes funny and bittersweet makes this book a nice read.I liked it.
    • 4/5
      Valeria is the village curmudgeon. She had no time for the mayor (a fool), the proprietress of the tavern (a slut), the butcher (shiftless) or...well...just about any other person in the town, all of them being "the most immoral, unreliable, uninformed, uninspired, and insane group of has-beens, alcoholics, pedophiles, perverts, unwed mothers, sissies and Gypsies she has ever known." Until, one day, she is struck by love in the middle of the marketplace.Since the object of her affections is not unattached, the town is soon in a tumult—sides taken, tempers flaring, all gleefully commented-upon by the chorus of old men sitting in the bar who wouldn't mind another beer or a chance to ogle the new waitress. The result is an amusing take on the village tale (though, perhaps, a bit more R-rated than most).I think the plot starts better than it ends but the characters are memorable. Some authors can spend an entire book telling you about its inhabitants and, yet, they remain two dimensional. Other authors can show you their creations in a very short space. In fifteen pages Valeria was real.For a debut novel, well done and recommended.
    • 4/5
      I liked the book, and the style reminded me of a folk tale more than a modern story. It is well written and you are interested in the various plots. It's is a love triangle that moved back and forth until the end. The end was a bit over the top, but not enough to disregard the book.
    • 4/5
      This was quite enjoyable. It is funny and a light read. It takes place in a village in Hungry that all of the invaders over the centuries had passed by and left alone. Valeria is 68 years old, never married, and does not have a good word for anyone. She goes to the market and criticizes all the vendors' produce as not being up to her quality standards. She is awakened from her meanness by the potter, who is a widow and who is inspired by Valeria to create real art. His first project for her is a ewer with peppers on it. It turns out so beautiful, but is damaged when he gives it to her. He then goes on to work on other items for her, which are as beautiful as the ewer. The owner of the tavern, Ibolya, who had been seeing the potter, is not too pleased with the potter's infatuation with Valeria, and she tries to undermine the relationship (Ibolya's hair often has a life of its own). Other characters are the mayor, who is trying to attract developers and investors, to the benefit of the town; the mayors wife, who is young and attractive, and likes fashion and spending money; the potter's apprentice, who is too shy to approach the woman he is interested in; and the final character to appear in the book, the chimney sweep, is an outsider and odious man, who just happens upon the town and sees a good opportunity to earn some easy money – the townspeople, especially the women, are taken by the sweep, seeing him superstitiously as a bringer of good luck, and overlooking or not even noticing his deficient personality.The book has the feel of a Shalom Aleichem story, even though the characters are not Jewish and the time is the present.
    • 2/5
      This is a cute enough story, but it didn't live up to the potential of the first few chapters. It started out like it was going to be a sweet love story and ended up almost as a farce. It's OK, just not what I was expecting. This could make a good movie though, and the ending would probably work better on film.
    • 4/5
      Set in a small village in Hungary, this is the story of the locals; their socializing and their meager way of life. And it is not a story that is only central to Valeria, it is about these villagers of Zivatar which is a tiny town that time and technology has left alone, save for the mayor's meager efforts. The characters we meet are interesting to read about, though not many are instantly likable. There are some female characters with names while the men simply go by their profession: the potter, the apprentice, the chimney sweep, the mayor. Surprisingly, it works. The story opens up to Valeria, a woman approaching seventy years of age and is set in her ways, having no qualms to tell you what's what. She has no friends, she does not have a purpose in life except to harass others when she sees fit. The villagers enjoy poking fun at her and ridiculing her. Oddly enough, she sees the local potter in the market and is completely mesmerized by him. At this point she seems human enough and we get to empathise with her; otherwise she really was easy to hate. We are then introduced to another strong willed woman, Ibolya, the local tavern owner. Of course these two women hate each other, especially now that they learn they both have eyes for the potter. What transpires now is an engrossing and a spicy story that wraps its arms around you and doesn't let go. We witness the growth of the characters with delight and chagrin. The third party narrative works splendidly in this book as it gives us unique point of views from each of the main characters to help add to the nuance of the village as the story develops. As opposed to a family saga, this is more of a saga of the villagers and the two women that help define it as the village reaches it critical turning point of survival of the fittest. How the villagers react to one another, and to the events that transpire, was absorbing to read. The women fight over the potter, other relationships are ruined and made, the chimney sweeper becomes a murderer - it all becomes wrapped in a strangely engaging little story about senior citizens struggling to keep up with the world around them.There is also a back story of capitalism and power that the author broaches with the mayor who is trying to bring technology and renewal to his citizens, who have mostly been stuck in their black hole of a village while the rest of world left it behind. The novel built up a lot of momentum with its provocative storyline and made my stomach churn as I was getting towards the climatic ending. The author did compose a fine debut novel, although a bit more on the crude side with some of the language, and I would have enjoyed it with a bit less sex, but I am intrigued as to the fact that he plans this novel to be the first of The Paprika Trilogy. I am definitely going to read the next one to see if it is as compelling as this one was, as this was a perfect weekend read for me. This is one of those types of books that you either love it or hate it, depending on your mood. I enjoyed it for being a quick read, the unique storytelling and the unforgettable characters.
    • 4/5
      Valeria lives in a little, out-of-the -way village in Hungary. She has impossibly high standards for herself and everyone around her (and looks very unfavorably on public whistling). She'll have to reevaluate some of her carefully held beliefs when she becomes the other woman, an artist's muse, and finds a new love in life. I really enjoyed this story with it's quirky characters, and view of the positive and negative results of transformation to post-communist Eastern Europe.