false 182197 6 In April 1946, a 20-year-old East End London hairdresser named Evelyn Sert sets out for Palestine. "This is my story," she writes in <I>When I Lived in Modern Times</I>, which won Linda Grant the 2000 Orange Prize. "Scratch a Jew and you've got a story." Her account is no less complicated than that of any other displaced European Jew in the postwar years. Separated from her family, she searches for some kind of reliable identity in an inhospitable new land--and in shining, Bauhaus-influenced Tel Aviv, she finds that she is more English than Israeli. Lo and behold, she becomes Priscilla Jones, a peroxided Londoner with an absent policeman husband. She is at her most "real," it seems, when pretending, and revels in her ability to be entirely accepted among the English women whose hair she cuts and curls. Outside of their petty and casually anti-Semitic circle, meanwhile, she struggles with Hebrew, the heat, the unfamiliar food, and an alien way of life.<p> In Palestine, of course, the English are the enemy. Evelyn is soon drawn into a world of shifting identities, lies, and secrets by her passionate Zionist boyfriend, Johnny. Even then, she is never quite sure which side she is on, or where she belongs. All of this makes her a prototypical inhabitant of Linda Grant's Tel Aviv, a city of contradictions and of hope. More to the point, Grant's heroine is a fully believable figure, a chameleon of a kind readily recognizable to those of us who grew up as part of the seismic displacement of peoples that accompanied World War II--and, alas, to anyone who has been caught up in the more recent exoduses from Bosnia, Kosovo, and Albania. <I>--Lisa Jardine</I> 841407 2000 When I Lived in Modern Times total:86|5:8|4:26|3:42|2:10|1:0| 86 290 149 15 4 0 false false Thu Feb 26 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Thu Feb 12 09:34:39 -0800 2009 Thu Feb 26 08:44:02 -0800 2009 more...]]> 3 0 false false Tue Feb 12 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Sun Feb 10 09:31:16 -0800 2008 Wed Feb 13 13:09:34 -0800 2008 more...]]> 3 0 false false Mon Nov 09 05:16:19 -0800 2009 Mon Nov 09 05:18:43 -0800 2009 3 0 false false Sun May 31 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Fri May 29 01:22:57 -0700 2009 Tue Jun 02 01:16:36 -0700 2009 3 0 false false Wed Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2003 Wed Aug 13 18:55:03 -0700 2008 Wed Aug 13 18:58:31 -0700 2008 more...]]> 3 0 false false Sat Apr 18 13:33:02 -0700 2009 Sat Apr 18 13:34:18 -0700 2009 4 0 false false Tue Jul 14 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Tue Jun 16 14:01:01 -0700 2009 Fri Jul 17 06:01:20 -0700 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Tue Nov 11 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Mon Nov 10 08:22:58 -0800 2008 Wed Nov 12 06:01:09 -0800 2008
I think the best thing about this book is that I learned a lot about the history of Palestine, Tel Aviv and Jewish history. In general, the book was really easy to get sucked into and I went through it really quickly. I think there w...more...]]> 3 0 false false Sat Mar 01 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Fri Mar 14 16:40:16 -0700 2008 Fri Mar 14 16:43:17 -0700 2008 more...]]> 3 0 false false Sat Jul 12 13:08:56 -0700 2008 Sat Jul 12 13:09:57 -0700 2008 3 0 false false Tue Apr 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Sat Jul 14 08:42:58 -0700 2007 Tue Apr 01 20:08:37 -0700 2008 5 0 false false Mon May 19 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Tue May 20 09:22:15 -0700 2008 Tue May 20 09:25:13 -0700 2008 5 0 false false Wed Aug 01 00:00:00 -0700 2001 Sun Jun 17 12:57:54 -0700 2007 Sun Dec 30 21:14:37 -0800 2007 3 0 false false Sat Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2005 Fri Jun 15 10:12:53 -0700 2007 Fri Jun 15 10:13:19 -0700 2007 4 0 false false Fri Sep 12 07:23:39 -0700 2008 Tue Jun 16 06:49:27 -0700 2009 0 0 false false Wed Nov 11 04:42:12 -0800 2009 Wed Nov 11 04:42:12 -0800 2009 0 0 false false Sun Nov 08 06:32:40 -0800 2009 Sun Nov 08 06:32:40 -0800 2009 0 0 false false Fri Nov 06 18:21:37 -0800 2009 Fri Nov 06 18:21:37 -0800 2009 0 0 false false Thu Nov 05 18:17:16 -0800 2009 Thu Nov 05 18:17:16 -0800 2009 0 0 false false Thu Nov 05 16:01:02 -0800 2009 Thu Nov 05 16:01:02 -0800 2009