Product Description

Set in Jerusalem at the time of the Suez crisis, this is a study of a woman's retreat from an unhappy marriage into a private world of fantasy and repressed desires. Her subsequent mental breakdown is mirrored in the local scenes of disruption and violence caused by the coming war.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #118312 in Books
• Published on: 1992-02-20
• Original language: Hebrew
• Binding: Paperback
• 222 pages

From the Publisher
'A moving love story' Arthur Miller
'A remarkable, percipient picture of the nature of women' A S Byatt

My Michael, first published in 1968, established Israeli writer Amos Oz as a major international novelist. A love story set in Jerusalem before the Suez crisis, it tells of Hannah Gonen’s marriage to Michael, and her gradual withdrawal from him into a private world of fantasy and suppressed desires.

‘My Michael is a beautiful work of great depth and lingers in the mind as a lyric song to his country’s people as much as a moving love story’ Arthur Miller

‘He has that mixture of lyrical intensity, utter seriousness and capacity for describing life in a few words which characterises some of the best Russian classical authors’ Melvyn Bragg

Customer Reviews

Great book, a strange tale in a strange time!
This book was the first book I read that I couldn't stop and that I didn't stop feeling strange for it also. The all story seems to be a dream, our dream. Is an amazing view of what is our mind, how we see our love ones as strange peoples. Most of the time I related with Anna, but Michael is also me.
The book is also unique for the description of Jerusalem after the WWII where a young couple tries to build is own world. And where the Israel State is begginning.

"Deception always gives itself away. It is like a blanket which is too short."
Hannah Gonen, thirty years old and living in Jerusalem in the late 1950s, has been wife for ten years to a man she pursued and married when she was in her first year at the university and he was a graduate student. Michael, who describes himself as "good...a bit lethargic, but hard-working, responsible, clean, and very honest," eventually earns his PhD. in geology and begins work at the university, but Hannah, who has given up her literature studies upon her marriage, soon finds married life--and Michael himself--to be tedious.

Writing in short, factual sentences, which come alive through his choice of details, author Amos Oz, often mentioned as a Nobel Prize candidate, creates the story of a marriage which may or may not survive. Hannah and Michael married in 1949, shortly after Israel gained its independence, and the author often uses Hannah's battles for independence and control to reflect the growing pains of a new land determined to defend itself. As their family backgrounds unfold, the behavior of Hannah and Michael within the marriage are seen in a wider context. Hannah yearns for excitement, often drawing on her store of vibrant childhood memories to escape into a dream world. Michael, hard-working and pragmatic, remains a geologist, firmly connected to the earth.

Mnired in depression after the birth of their son, Hannah gradually becomes more and more unstable, depressed, and hysterical, until she becomes ill, a condition which she sees, ironically, as offering her freedom. As the marriage and Hannah's sanity deteriorate, the author's use of symbols gives depth and universality to the story. Hannah often imagines a glass dome over herself and her family. She remembers, as a child, bossing around Arab twins in her neighborhood, and she now fears they will wreak vengeance on her. Her relationship with an innocent Orthodox teenager turns into a power struggle, and she creates a new personality--that of Yvonne Azulai, a young woman who leads an exciting life. Even the changing seasons parallel Hannah's state of mind.

Rich with imagery, dense with symbols, and psychologically true, the novel is as pertinent today as it was when it was written in 1968, achieving rare universality, even though the reader may not empathize completely with the self-indulgent Hannah, or with Michael, who, though reliable and honest, has little imagination. Beautifully realized, My Michael, which shows Hannah's need for control even in the title, depicts an immature woman who does not know herself when she joins her life to that of someone else. (4.5 stars) n Mary Whipple

Not quite a love story
Having read the rave reviews of the books and Amos Oz's work overall, I was disappointed by this book.

Maybe it's because I'm used to a different style of writing but my issue here was that nothing ever happens....

This book is a sometimes tender - sometimes cruel, but mainly sad recounting of a couples' life together, against a backdrop of Israeli history.

According to one of the characters of the book she [the narrator] is a "poetess, except she doesn't write poems", and he's "Her" Michael, but to me they just seem like a couple who have agreed to spend their life together, without ever really knowing each other. Does she love him? Unless my cultural references are very off, I don't think so. She is distant from both her husband and her son has an imaginary / dream world she likes to disappear into every now and again - perhaps in our day she'd simply be referred to a psychologist to help her work through her depression, while in this story she is left to cope on her own, but I'm sorry to say that her story left me cold.