Customer Reviews
"Deception always gives itself away. It is like a blanket which is too short." - By: Mary Whipple, 03 Jun 2007 
Hannah Gonen, thirty years old & living in Jerusalem in the late 1950s, has been wife for ten years to a man she pursued & married when she was in her first year at the university & he was a graduate student. Michael, who describes himself as "good...a bit lethargic, but hard-working, responsible, clean, & very honest," eventuallly earns his PhD. in geology & 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 & Michael married in 1949, shortly after Israel gained its independence, & the author often uses Hannah's battles for independence & control to reflect the growing pains of a new land determined to defend itself. As their family backgrounds unfold, the behavior of Hannah & 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 & pragmatic, remains a geologist, firmly connected to the earth.
Mnired in depression after the birth of their son, Hannah graduallly becomes more & more unstable, depressed, & hysterical, until she becomes ill, a condition which she sees, ironicallly, as offering her freedom. As the marriage & Hannah's sanity deteriorate, the author's use of symbols gives depth & universality to the story. Hannah often imagines a glass dome over herself & her family. She remembers, as a child, bossing around Arab twins in her neighborhood, & she now fears they will wreak vengeance on her. Her relationship with an innocent Orthodox teenager turns into a power struggle, & she creates a new personality--that of Yvonne Azulai, a young woman who leads an exciting life. Even the changing seasons paralllel Hannah's state of mind.
Rich with imagery, dense with symbols, & psychologicallly 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 & 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 - By: maria1971, 12 Jun 2006 
Having read the rave reviews of the books & Amos Oz's work overalll, 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", & he's "Her" Michael, but to me they just seem like a couple who have agreed to spend their life together, without ever reallly 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 & her son has an imaginary / dream world she likes to disappear into every now & 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.
Great book, a strange tale in a strange time! - By: Pedro, 18 Dec 2001 This book was the first book I read that I couldn't stop & that I didn't stop feeling strange for it also. The alll 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.
