January 2010

Sitting around in Sheila's living room we deconstructed When I lived in modern times.
We discovered that all 5 of us have ancestors far away - 4 in Eastern Europe.
This book is about identity and in particular being Jewish - at least 3 of us have jewish forebears - did we know that it had been pragmatic for some of them to convert sometimes to Catholicism, were the Jews a Race - we think probably yes.
The Bauhaus style of Tel Aviv was news to some.
As with so many novels we didn't think the author had really thought how to end the book. The character's final deception when she actually meets a nice guy in Nice doesn't ring true and tells us that she hadn't learnt anything at all from her time in Israel.
We also talked about the type of women whose husbands filled the posts of civil servants in foreign parts - how adaptable and unflappable they were.