Valeria's Last Stand: A Novel

By Marc Fitten

Don't miss Marc Fitten's newest book, Elza's Kitchen, available in July, 2012.

When it comes to the sizes of fishes and ponds, Valeria is a whale in a thimble. She harrumphs her daily way through her backwater Hungarian village, finding equal fault with the new, the old, the foreign and the familiar. Her decades of universal contempt have turned her into a touchstone of her little community - whatever she scorns the least must be the best, after all. But, on a day like any other, her spinster's heart is struck by an unlikely arrow: the village potter, long-known and little-noticed, captures her fancy, and Valeria finds herself suddenly cast in a new role she never expected to play. This one deviation from character, this one loose thread, is all it takes for the delicately woven fabric of village life to unravel. And, for the first time in a long time, Valeria couldn't care less.

Valeria's Last Stand is a joyfully wise small-town satire that takes an hilariously honest look at later-in-life romance and the notion that it's never too late to start anew.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bloomsbury USA
• Release date: Sep 5, 2010
• ISBN: 9781608191437

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.

Book preview

One

One

Valeria never whistled. Nor did she approve of people who did. In sixty-eight years, what Valeria had learned to be a truth about character was that people who whistled were crass. Whistlers were untrustworthy and irresponsible. They were shiftless. They were common. Butchers whistled. Peasants also. When they were supposed to be tending to their fields or completing any number of tasks peasants are meant to complete, Valeria was certain she could find them instead with their chins wet from a half liter of beer, sitting in the village’s tavern, whistling at the slutty proprietress, and telling off-color jokes.

As for the butcher, he was the worst kind of whistler. He whistled right into his customers’ faces. Blew his fetid breath right into the nostrils of anyone who visited him. Certainly, a visit to the whistling butcher on Monday was a trip to the health clinic by midweek.

Valeria thought about it while scrubbing the grout of her portico floor early in the morning. She was certain that the queen of England did not whistle. The Hungarian president did not whistle either. She followed a line back through Soviet history: Trotsky may have whistled; Lenin, certainly not; Stalin only whistled in madness. Subsequent leaders of the Soviet regime never whistled, not even Gorbachev. Yeltsin? Valeria’s stomach turned when she thought about Russia’s head of state. Yes, Yeltsin probably whistles, she decided.

And prior to the Communists, or reformed Communists, or whatever they called themselves these days, the aristocracy they had replaced had never whistled either. The Hapsburgs certainly never had. Valeria scoffed just imagining it. A whistling ­Hapsburg!

She brushed away a stray leaf with the back of her hand. She remembered hearing the village’s mayor whistle and she swore.

True, it had only happened once, and in his defense, he did not know he was being spied upon. Still, Valeria was watching him. She did not like him. She did not approve of his flashy German car and flashier young bride. She considered the mayor to be nothing more than a cleverly trained chimpanzee, though more gauche and obtuse than any chimpanzee could possibly be.

Valeria sighed. The mayor was who he was, like everyone else of his generation. The young were all too gauche these days. Since the Soviets had exited Hungary—unceremoniously, she might add—the country had sidled up to the West like a cheap moll. In fact, self-respect seemed to have deteriorated. Adolescent men appeared from nowhere. They drove expensive cars and kept company with expensive, long-legged women, women who were useless in all capacities save sex, who lacked any apparatus that might make them useful to society’s betterment. They certainly were not revolutionaries, these women. What with their narrow hips and small breasts, these simple-minded, androgynous-looking sexpots could not even breed tomorrow’s revolutionaries. Valeria thought of the mayor’s bride giving birth and laughed. Ornaments! That’s all the new woman was good for these days—decoration. Why, just imagine it, Valeria thought, allowing oneself to be treated with the same disdain children have for holiday ornaments when they are rushing to get to their sweets and presents. Just imagine it—allowing oneself to be set aside casually, or thrown to the ground violently, or shattered against a wall, or, at best, if they were very, very lucky, to be stuffed in a box until the next holiday season. Valeria shook her head. Imagine it! A generation of women reared to turn off everything within them except the capacity for easy compliance to wet sex.

Valeria scrubbed more vigorously. Her face flushed.

Meanwhile, she thought, meanwhile, the mayor and his cronies slapped one another on their backs. They filled their bank accounts ... blew smoke at the citizenry ... had the nerve—the audacity, really—to call the whole stinking flea circus a democracy. Why, the Communists were philosopher kings when compared with the backslapping capitalists in charge of Hungary’s new and improved free-market system.

Valeria spat at a speck of white bird shit and scratched it with a short fingernail.

She wiped her brow. Nothing was sacrosanct anymore. Ultimately, that was her problem with this new system. It bred contempt. The masses need the inviolable. Even Stalin knew that. The proper care and feeding of the masses requires and demands opiates! But the capitalists ran roughshod over everything. They left nothing untouched or undefiled. Even the insignificant succumbed to market pressure. Things as inconsequential as her favorite Brazilian soap operas were being interrupted with screaming ads for French douches and toilet paper! Why? Who allowed that? What was the point of it? How did screaming commercials—decibels louder than the program itself, so loud she couldn’t escape them even when she went to the wash closet (yes, she even heard them in there)—how did screaming commercials (four times during her last program) make a democracy? It made no sense...

And then to top things off, the mayor was a whistler!

Thank goodness, she thought to herself. Thank goodness they lived in a small village, deep in the prairie, in the middle of nowhere—and oh how Valeria was thankful for this point. She could rest assured that even the mayor’s whistling, loud as it was, would fall on deaf ears. If the mayor—only the cleverest of peasants—wanted to whistle, it did not matter; no one of importance would hear him and think less of the village. In fact, if, from afar, the queen of England or the Hungarian president happened to hear the mayor’s whistling as they were writing one another letters, they might look up for a moment and wonder, but then they would shrug and write the faint whistling off as wind stirring a distant crop of sugar beets; the mayor’s tinny whistle would be as insignificant to their ears as leaves falling on forgotten hunting grounds—as insignificant a sound to their cochleas as the candelabra flickering in their studies.

Except lately, the mayor himself had started bringing foreigners in. As though he had intuited that he needed an audience. Investors, he called them. Hardly any outsiders had ever come through their village before, and it had been that way as long as Valeria had been alive. In fact, Valeria remembered watching German tanks as a young girl along with her friends as the machines sped along the horizon making their way to Russia. Then, later, on the horizon again, she watched as British tanks arrived. The phalanxes hammered one another for days. And still later on, as a teenager, she watched the horizon for three days as a parade of Russian tanks made their way to Budapest. None of the tanks ever turned in their village’s direction. They were always heading toward coordinates more valuable, toward more interesting or important places to occupy. While this should have been cause for great relief, to some it was almost an insult. Indeed, it damaged the psyche of the villagers so much, this sheer ­disinterest by the tanks—by anything really—that when the new expressway was built, the villagers insisted that the signs not mention their village at all.

Reaching us isn’t really worth anyone’s petrol, some said.

We only have one thermal spring anyway, said others. Tourists would be better off at Balaton.

The Gypsies working on the road crew shrugged and offered the villagers the blue road-sign, which was quickly mounted in the village’s tavern.

Things change, however, and the mayor had his hand in all of it. Foreigners were visiting all the time now, it seemed.

Valeria looked at her handiwork and nodded. The blue tiles were clean. They sparkled. The grout was bone white. She moved her bucket to the concrete steps. A child had offered to paint them for her, but she had refused. Clean was good enough for her. She pulled her brush from the sudsy water and attacked them. She couldn’t help but think of the mayor, and she cursed again.

It was the people’s fault, what this village was becoming. After all, they had voted the mayor in. The people of her village had put him where he was. Her neighbors! The most immoral, unreliable, uninformed, uninspired, and insane group of has-beens, alcoholics, pedophiles, perverts, unwed mothers, sissies, and Gypsies she had ever known. Her thoughts on this point were not exaggeration. She had lived in the village her entire life. She knew the village’s citizens intimately for what they were—a shiftless group of malcontents, maladroits to the last scruffy-necked man, overweight woman, and unclean child. And all of them smiling and nodding as they pulled the lever that put in power a man she would not have trusted with her trash.

She washed up.

Valeria did not consider herself a killjoy. Not in the least. In fact, she kept a ring of keys at her side, like a jailer, and sometimes she liked to shake them. When she felt pleased or content, instead of whistling or smiling she just tugged at the string around her hips until the dangling keys—nearly one hundred of them—started to shake. She felt this act to be supremely appropriate to a woman her age. It was fun.

She left her cottage and headed for the market while it was still dark out. As she had for many years, she reached its entrance with her chin jutted forward and her eyes owlish just as the sun was peeking out. She clutched her basket ahead of her like a battering ram. She marched through the throng of shoppers and thought nothing of ramming her meaty elbows into the ribs of other women, or against the jaws of loud children, or against the backs of slow old men. If it meant she could save a few forints on the last of the tripe, or if it meant she might be able to purchase a fresh carp, so fresh that its tail still smacked against crushed ice, she would elbow her way through a crowd or ram them with her basket and then shout in her victims’ astonished faces to boot.

She ignored the mongers hawking junk on the sidewalks out front. She had no regard for Chinese boom boxes, Polish electronics, German cassettes, or aluminum pans. She ignored the counterfeit sneakers piled high in assorted colors. She preferred to pass them as quickly as she could and head, instead, into the belly of the market, toward the stalls, where her neighbors displayed their fruits and vegetables.

Inside, she was like a raptor. She scanned the great hall, walked about, and investigated each and every cranny. The market was a place of commerce and Valeria acted accordingly. She allowed herself even fewer pleasantries while there. She haggled and harangued like a magnate and then bought little or nothing.

She jabbed her fingers into her neighbors’ stockpiles, poking and handling their orange carrots, white carrots, turnips, rutabagas, tomatoes, parsley, pears, and asparagus. Most of these foodstuffs Valeria grew herself. She had no reason to buy anything. She was merely inspecting, checking for quality.

Her neighbors shook their heads at her. It was the same scene every day. Some even shooed her away.

Leave my food alone, they said. Why are you touching that?

Valeria ignored them and continued inspecting.

It is always the people with the worst-looking vegetables who complain the most, she answered.

When Valeria found something she did not like or that she felt should not have been sold, she looked up at the vendor, focused on the sheepish face staring back, and shook her head.

You’re not selling this, are you?

The vendor turned red. Whether out of anger or embarrassment one couldn’t say.

Regardless, they all responded the same way.

You’re crazy. Get away from my vegetables.

But you can’t possibly mean to sell this?

Why not? Go away.

I wouldn’t feed this to my pigs, Valeria said. You’ll poison somebody with this.

A few shoppers would stop and listen. The vendor would shake her head and smile at them.

Valeria, there is nothing wrong with my vegetables. I’ve grown them all in my garden. I eat them myself. The vendor smiled. Her eyes were full of rage.

Valeria then sniffed the vegetable in question and shook her head.

How old is this?

The vendor was speechless.

Why does it smell like urine?

The vendor shrugged.

Are you letting your cat pee on these? You should be imprisoned, Valeria said and tugged at her keys.

She ruined sales. Villagers, though they didn’t like Valeria, never questioned her knowledge. Every morning word traveled quickly through the market about who was selling rotten produce.

It was rare when Valeria found a fruit or vegetable grown better than one she could grow herself. In those instances, her eyes again focused on the vendor. Then she nodded her head in appreciation before asking, Who are your parents? The vendor answered and Valeria nodded, trying to remember. Then she congratulated the vendor, bought the vegetable, took it home, and examined it. When she could, she would save the seeds and crossbreed them with her own near-perfect vegetables.

Valeria was just as knowledgeable about the fish and meats. In fact, no one in the market was safe from her. Even the women who sold spices made sure to hide their older bags of seasonings when Valeria was walking by. Since the country had opened up to the West, even in Zivatar, new fruits and vegetables had been introduced. In what was once a room of potato browns and spinach greens, colors like orange and red stood out like Christmas lights. In the first heady days of capitalism, when exotic fruits were still a novelty, people who hardly ever went shopping made special visits to the market just to look at pineapples. Valeria wasn’t interested in foreign fruits and vegetables, mostly because she could not grow them, but also because of their blatant sensuality. Tropical fruits were swollen with flesh and juice. They were sticky. They were uninhibited. The first time she held a banana, Valeria was offended.

How can you sell such vile things at the market? she asked.

It’s a banana, Valeria. You know that. Taste it.

Valeria peeked at it and shook her head.

I will not. It’s for monkeys.

It’s not. The mayor buys them all the time. It’s good. Here, just have a bite.

Valeria tasted it. She had to admit that it was good. Still, tropical fruits disturbed her and, except for the occasional banana, she left them alone. Besides, they were ridiculously expensive. Only the young capitalists could afford them. Valeria noted that besides the mayor’s love of bananas, the mayor’s bride was always buying bags of oranges. Bags of them. Ostentatious is what it was. In the old days, families only shared an orange at Christmastime. One orange. It was a treat. Valeria was certain that for most families that was still the case. How long would it take a stick-like woman to eat a bag of oranges, Valeria wondered. And how could the mayor allow his wife to leave the house wearing more makeup than clothing? A woman with a slippery mouth, long legs, and no hips to speak of, carrying an expensive bag of Valencia oranges ... what had the world become?

Even American vegetables were suspect. Valeria examined the vegetables from America closely. The label on one crate read: california red peppers. She bought one, just to see what an American pepper tasted like. She wasn’t impressed. The pepper looked nice enough, it was big and clean, without a mark on it, grown in a hothouse, no doubt; but when she took it home and cooked it in a stew she was disappointed with its blandness—no tang at all, nothing but nitrogen.

Sometimes, when Valeria had an abundance of anything in her garden, she would arrive even earlier in the morning, set up a stall of her own, arrange her vegetables by color, and sell them at a fair but high price. She always sold out. Though the villagers didn’t like Valeria, when it came to the quality of her goods, they could not question her. Her fruits and vegetables were never too soft, never tasted like rot had just set in, and never, ever smelled like cat urine.

Valeria grew them on her two hectares of land. That was three hundred hectares less than what her grandfather had owned before the Communists took everything, but it was more than enough land to carry her through the winter and support her livestock. Everything else was profit. Valeria felt she could afford to be caustic. She was often caustic.

But then one day, as she was checking brown spots on a young woman’s cucumbers, something made her look up. Two aisles across from her, standing directly in front of her, facing her, she spied a man whose face she recognized but had never looked at. It was the village potter—a widower. He was eating a banana. He was holding it in a strong hand with long tapering fingers. With his other hand, he was snapping the heads off of mushrooms and handing them to the vendor, who dropped them into a brown paper sack and weighed them. Valeria nearly gasped when she saw how gallantly he carried himself. She wondered why she’d never noticed that before, why she’d never noticed him before.

Darling, she said too loudly.

The woman selling cucumbers breathed a sigh of relief.

Did you hear that, everybody? Did you hear what Valeria thinks of my cucumbers? The price has just gone up five forints.

Valeria scowled. I said noth—

But you did, the woman interrupted. I heard you. You were holding it. You were looking at it. You looked up. You said, ‘Darling,’ just like that. Like you were in love.

Valeria glared at the woman and cleared her throat. She dropped the cucumber and walked toward the potter, examining every inch of him. His hair was white and crept out from under his hat. It covered his ears. His moustache was also white ... and clean. He looked like an old Prussian officer. He even carried his satchel with the strap crossing his chest. Valeria felt her face flush. She thought herself ridiculous—a blushing spinster. The potter looked up. His eyes caught hers. He nodded his head and smiled widely. He must have recognized her, she thought. She held her breath when he headed in her direction, but then he brushed right past her. Valeria stood still for a moment. Afraid he would disappear without her having said anything, she decided to follow him out of the market. In doing so she left early. It was the first time in twenty-five years. People noticed.

Well, did you see that? She’s gonna have to polish up a bit to get her claws into him, one woman said.

You’re right about that, but there isn’t anything wrong with her that couldn’t be fixed with the right wardrobe, curlers, and some cold cream, another woman said. This was true. Over the years, Valeria had made herself unattractive. Villagers were accustomed to seeing her grimace, seeing her sneer, and then hearing her curse before being pelted with a handful of chestnuts or whatever else she could get her hands on. It would have taken a stranger to town to appreciate any beauty Valeria might have had hidden behind her scowl or underneath her apron. It would have taken someone without the slightest knowledge of her history. History was really all that stood between Valeria and the people of Zivatar, after all. Over the years, Valeria had made herself an easy target of contempt by being so contemptible.

It was said, for example, that Valeria had cut down the church bells in a rage. This would have made an outcast out of anybody. Nobody knew this for certain, but most everyone agreed that it could not have been anyone else. The incident occurred in the late forties, just after the war had ended. In fact, they had only recently started ringing again.

It was said that the reason why she cut them down was because of her battle with her young lover—the butcher’s son.

She was a beautiful girl, the old men remarked with a wink when they told their grandsons. With a reputation, if you know what I mean.

Most of the young men in the village, having never seen a young Valeria, didn’t believe the stories. They couldn’t believe that the old hag who had stung them with chestnuts and curses had been as attractive or lively as their grandfathers insisted.

I don’t believe that, one young man or another would say.

She was a lovely young woman, their grandfathers insisted.

Valeria? You must be getting senile in your old age.

It’s true. It’s true. She was a lovely girl. She had rosy cheeks. She was healthy and long limbed. She had a firm bosom. She had the butcher’s son arrested when the war just began. Who knows? He might have been conscripted eventually, but Valeria wouldn’t even allow him the chance to die honorably in battle as cannon fodder against the British.

That’s right, another grandfather said. And somehow, the Soviets got to him.

The Soviets?

It was horrible. They sent him away to a gulag with Poles, Czechs, and Germans. That poor whistling butcher suffered terribly and he never returned.

Imagine having to slurp down bowls of greasy soup and fight over crusts of bread, said some of the older men. When you were raised on the choicest cuts of meat.

Those were the same prisoners who repaired the railroads after the war.

All because he wouldn’t marry her.

I heard it was because he had killed her grandfather in the old tavern.

No, no, you are both wrong. Her grandfather found out about their affair and became furious. He went to the butcher and insisted that the two lovers get married. The butcher agreed, but his son refused. He was a handsome boy. He boasted all the time. I remember. Finally, Valeria’s grandfather confronted him. He was so furious he was shaking. He pushed the butcher’s son. The butcher’s son pushed him back. The old man had a heart attack right in the middle of the pub.

The men stopped speaking and shook their heads. They listened to the wind far off in the fields and thought some more about the butcher’s son.

Hard labor, someone whispered.

He liked to dance those goddamned Italian tarantellas, remember? said another.

When you think on it, it probably served him right.

The men imagined hard labor: laying railroad track across the country or digging holes and standing telephone posts upright, even during winter, even when the earth was cold, the wind was cold,

Reviews for Valeria's Last Stand

[sasham-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

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

[whitreidtan · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

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.

[akreese · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

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.

[binniebee · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

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!

[norabelle414 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

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.

[pbadeer · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

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.

[mojomomma_1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

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.

[kathy_h_8 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

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?

[labfs39 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

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.

[majorbabs · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

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. :)

[suuze_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

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.

[dlong810 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

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.

[rhshelver · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

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.

[elliezann · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

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!!!

[lisahgolden · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

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.

[the_awesome_opossum · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

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.

[cameling_2 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

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.

[auntmarge64 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

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.

[almigwin · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

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.

[brigitte64 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

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.

[tadad_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

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.

[awolfe_40 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

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.

[billpilgrim_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

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.

[dulcibelle · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

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.

[marieburton2004 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

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.

[kcaroth1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

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.