Summary and Reviews of When I Lived In Modern Times by Linda Grant

WHEN I look back I see myself at twenty. I was at an age when anything seemed possible, at the beginning of times when anything was possible. I was standing on the deck dreaming; across the Mediterranean we sailed, from one end to the other, past Crete and Cyprus to where the East begins. Mare nostrum. Our sea. But I was not in search of antiquity. I was looking for a place without artifice or sentiment, where life was stripped back to its basics, where things were fundamental and serious and above all modern.

This is my story. Scratch a Jew and you’ve got a story. If you don’t like elaborate picaresques full of unlikely events and tortuous explanations, steer clear of the Jews. If you want things to be straightforward, find someone else to listen to. You might even get to say something yourself. How do we begin a sentence?

"Listen . . ."

A sailor pointed out to me a little ship on the horizon, one whose role as a ship was supposed to be finished, which had reached ...

Please be aware that this discussion guide will contain spoilers!

1. The following are intended to enrich your conversation and help your reading group find new and interesting angles and topics for approaching this novel.
   
   Discuss the idea, as reflected in the title, of the past being more modern than the present.
2. The novel opens with the words "When I look back I see myself at twenty, I was at an age when anything seemed possible." How different, if at all, would this novel been if Evelyn had been twenty-five? Thirty-five?
3. How is art in its many forms, including music, painting, and architecture, used to express the concept of modernity in this book?
4. What are possible motives for Evelyn's "Uncle Joe" to arrange her emigration to Palestine?
5. Evelyn's life—...