My Michael
by Amos Oz 
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"Thoughtful, self-assured and highly sophisticated, full of the most skillful modulations of tone and texture. A modern Israeli Madame Bovary."— New York Times Book Review Set in 1950s Jerusalem, My Michael is the story of a remote and intense woman named Hannah Gonen and her marriage to a decent but unremarkable man named Michael. As the years pass and Hannah's tempestuous fantasy life encroaches upon reality, she feels increasingly estranged from him and the marriage gradually show more disintegrates. Gorgeously written, profoundly moving, this extraordinary novel is at once a haunting love story, and a rich reflective portrait of a place. "A dazzling, very beautiful, splendidly conceived and composed book." — New York Review of Books show lessTags
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1968 novel. The narrator is a woman who is telling the story of her meeting and marrying Michael. Hannah meets Michael, she likes Michael, distrusts Michael, marries Michael. Then she gets pregnant, gives up her own career. At times it feels as if she is not mentally stable. She slips more and more into a world of fantasy and has a hard time relating to husband and even to her son who is much like his father. The novel's setting is in the early 50s and the nation is young and is fighting for its survival. The story was difficult to engage in. There is little plot to it. It really is more of a character study and themes include fear, mistrust, duality.It felt odd to read this story of this depressed, disturbed woman written by a male author.
55. My Michael by Amos Oz (1968, 289 page Paperback, read Aug 13-19)
translated from Hebrew by [[Nicholas De Lange]] in 1970
Amos Oz's first book. The opening 50 pages are brilliant. Just dreamy wonderful perfect prose (in translation) of Hannah telling us about her history with Michael, her husband, "a geologist, a good-natured man. I loved him.". I had read them earlier this year when I was sick, then I got better and stopped there. Re-reading them recently, I think what stopped me is that the dreamy prose started to feel like work. The book really slows down afterword. Maybe I was just waiting for somethings to happen that never actually happened.
Oz seems to be working on several different themes. One is a delicate exploration of show more personalities, and the disconnect between Michael and Hannah that is misunderstood by both. But also Hannah begins studying Hebrew literature and Michael is a geologist and Oz explores the disconnect between science, which is seen to progress and to promise practical rewards, and art which arguably doesn't make progress or contribute to development, but looks at the world in different kinds of ways. Art was a maybe a bit out of place or neglected in the at-the-time struggling 1950's Israel. Hannah has problems with what is missing in her life and has trouble as her mindset gets farther and farther from the more practical mindsets of those around her.
2015
https://www.librarything.com/topic/191940#5250984 show less
translated from Hebrew by [[Nicholas De Lange]] in 1970
Amos Oz's first book. The opening 50 pages are brilliant. Just dreamy wonderful perfect prose (in translation) of Hannah telling us about her history with Michael, her husband, "a geologist, a good-natured man. I loved him.". I had read them earlier this year when I was sick, then I got better and stopped there. Re-reading them recently, I think what stopped me is that the dreamy prose started to feel like work. The book really slows down afterword. Maybe I was just waiting for somethings to happen that never actually happened.
Oz seems to be working on several different themes. One is a delicate exploration of show more personalities, and the disconnect between Michael and Hannah that is misunderstood by both. But also Hannah begins studying Hebrew literature and Michael is a geologist and Oz explores the disconnect between science, which is seen to progress and to promise practical rewards, and art which arguably doesn't make progress or contribute to development, but looks at the world in different kinds of ways. Art was a maybe a bit out of place or neglected in the at-the-time struggling 1950's Israel. Hannah has problems with what is missing in her life and has trouble as her mindset gets farther and farther from the more practical mindsets of those around her.
2015
https://www.librarything.com/topic/191940#5250984 show less
Depressivo, irrazionale, cupo, maniacale, claustrofobico, monumento all'incomunicabilità, ma molto, molto ben scritto.
Infatti sono arrivata in fondo solo a causa della fascinazione delle parole.
Infatti sono arrivata in fondo solo a causa della fascinazione delle parole.
מזמן ואולי מעולם לא התרגשתי כל כך מספר. החלטתי לקרוא אותו (שנית? כנראה שלא) בעקבות מותו של עמוס עוז וקראתי אותו בשקיקה. ספר עצוב מאוד, מורבידי מאוד, נושא טרגדיה, אפרוריות ואבל. דמות אשה של תישכח. ציור של תקופה שרבים כבר אינם זוכרים ובי היא חרותה כמו היום. יציאה אמיתית.
As far as literature goes, this is a fascinating tale of a disintegrating marriage, a marriage which fails mainly because the two people are so different that they seem to have no chance to ever emphasize with each other. The father is a geologist, firmly rooted to the ground, and the mother is an imaginative dreamer, constantly striving towards her fantasies - even to the point that she makes herself get a fever so high she hallucinates. It's a literature achievement, which, rightfully, put Oz on the map as a great writer. However, for me personally, it was quite painful to read. Hannah is not quite as bad as (what I consider) her literary "sibling," Emma Bovary, but it's painful to read about this woman who makes such poor decisions show more and then is unhappy when they don't pan out. Great literature? Without a doubt. Enjoyable read? For me, not really. The fact that the characters are based on Oz’s own parents doesn’t really help the issue. show less
I liked the writing and character portrayal in this book that takes place right after Israel became a state. Oz seems to have excellent insight in to the mind of a woman with a brain disorder. Her attempt at control may be a metaphor for Israel, or it may be a representation of his mother, who I believe had a brain disorder. Parts of the book were tedious, and it could have been shortened, but most was interesting. I remember liking other books of Oz's better.
I read it in a fit to understand Israel better and he is a famous Israeli author, and this is supposed to be a classic. I was disappointed. It was more a stream of consciousness of a depressed woman. I could tell it was literary and lyrical, just not very enjoyable.
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ThingScore 88
In his introduction to this new edition of My Michael, written more than 40 years after the book's original appearence, Amos Oz describes how Hannah, his intelligent, bored and increasingly unstable narrator, would "dictate" the words that make up her story to him as he sat in the cramped lavatory of his kibbutz home, writing late into the night.
Hannah tells of how she met Michael, an show more unassuming geology student who becomes her husband, and of their life in Jerusalem in the 50s. They are both young – too young – and are not emotionally prepared for marriage. Limited financially, lonely and uninterested in her immediate world, Hannah is forced to abandon her study of literature while Michael goes on, in his prosaic way, to become a university lecturer and to fight in the Arab-Israeli war.
It is not, perhaps, a book to read for its plot. What stands out, rather, is Oz's strident lyricism as Hannah's bipolar tendencies take her in and out of feverish fantasies about a pair of twins she knew in her youth. In her imaginings, the three of them are warriors against an unnamed enemy, playing violently in the desert and the sea. These passages are tucked in among descriptions of mundane reality, which Oz vividly conveys. show less
Hannah tells of how she met Michael, an show more unassuming geology student who becomes her husband, and of their life in Jerusalem in the 50s. They are both young – too young – and are not emotionally prepared for marriage. Limited financially, lonely and uninterested in her immediate world, Hannah is forced to abandon her study of literature while Michael goes on, in his prosaic way, to become a university lecturer and to fight in the Arab-Israeli war.
It is not, perhaps, a book to read for its plot. What stands out, rather, is Oz's strident lyricism as Hannah's bipolar tendencies take her in and out of feverish fantasies about a pair of twins she knew in her youth. In her imaginings, the three of them are warriors against an unnamed enemy, playing violently in the desert and the sea. These passages are tucked in among descriptions of mundane reality, which Oz vividly conveys. show less
added by kidzdoc
"My Michael" is anything but a provincial achievement; it has nothing to do with noble kibbutzim, Sten guns and sabras, nor with the Talmudic dryness of Israel's Nobel Prize-winner, the late S. Y. Agnon. It's quite the last kind of book one expects from a young writer living in the midst of a melodramatic political situation, for "My Michael" is an extremely self-conscious and serious show more psychological novel, slow, thoughtful, self-assured and highly sophisticated, full of the most skillful modulations of tone and texture. On the surface it is very much what used to be called a "women's novel"--the story of a disintegrating marriage told from the unhappy wife's point of view. In a way it's a modern Israeli "Madame Bovary," a finely wrought portrait of a woman that is also a critique of a superficial "masculine" society. But unlike Emma Bovary, the heroine doesn't flee to romantic infidelity but to schizophrenic inner depths.
The political implications are not hard to unravel: Amos Oz is suggesting that in her heart Israel is going mad dreaming of Arabs, while on the surface emotionally stunted "new Israelis" are going about their nation's business cut off from self and history. It's hardly surprising that the book caused controversy and was a best seller in Israel.
For American readers, though, "My Michael" is distinguished by its warmth, its lyricism and remarkable technical control, its fluent pattern of repetitions--threads of words and associations that weave and interweave a vast underwater net. In this Mr. Oz resembles such young American writers as William H. Gass and Joseph McElroy. Intelligent, heartfelt, perhaps a bit too small and self-enclosed, "My Michael" is undoubtedly one of the most accomplished foreign novels to appear here in the last few years; it is a most impressive American debut for Amos Oz. show less
The political implications are not hard to unravel: Amos Oz is suggesting that in her heart Israel is going mad dreaming of Arabs, while on the surface emotionally stunted "new Israelis" are going about their nation's business cut off from self and history. It's hardly surprising that the book caused controversy and was a best seller in Israel.
For American readers, though, "My Michael" is distinguished by its warmth, its lyricism and remarkable technical control, its fluent pattern of repetitions--threads of words and associations that weave and interweave a vast underwater net. In this Mr. Oz resembles such young American writers as William H. Gass and Joseph McElroy. Intelligent, heartfelt, perhaps a bit too small and self-enclosed, "My Michael" is undoubtedly one of the most accomplished foreign novels to appear here in the last few years; it is a most impressive American debut for Amos Oz. show less
added by kidzdoc
Lists
Jewish Books
367 works; 24 members
BBC World Book Club
261 works; 5 members
Author Information
119+ Works 12,268 Members
Amos Oz was born Amos Klausner in Jerusalem on May 4, 1939. As a young teenager, he moved to Kibbutz Hulda, where he completed his secondary education and worked on a farm. After he completed mandatory military service in 1961, the kibbutz assembly sent him to study at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where he received a B.A. in philosophy and show more literature. After graduation, he moved back to Hulda, where he wrote, did farm work, did guard and dining-room duty, and taught in the kibbutz high school. He fought in the 1967 and 1973 wars and spent a year as a visiting fellow at Oxford University. He wrote novels, collections of short fiction, works of nonfiction, and essays. His novels included My Michael, Black Box, and The Gospel According to Judas. His memoir, A Tale of Love and Darkness, was adapted into a movie in 2016. His last book, Dear Zealot, was made up of three essays on the theme of fanaticism. He was an advocate for peace and believed in a two-state solution, meaning the establishment of a Palestinian state alongside Israel. In the late 1970s, he helped found Peace Now. He received several awards including the Goethe Prize, the French Knight's Cross of the Légion D'Honneur, and the Israel Prize. He died after a short battle with cancer on December 28, 2018 at the age of 79. (Bowker Author Biography) show less
Amos Oz is a LibraryThing Author, an author who lists their personal library on LibraryThing.
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Common Knowledge
- Canonical title
- My Michael
- Original title
- מיכאל שלי
- Original publication date
- 1968; 1972 (English translation by Nicholas de Lange in collaboration with the author) (English translation by Nicholas de Lange in collaboration with the author)
- Important places
- Jerusalem
- Related movies
- Michael Sheli (1976)
- First words
- I am writing this because people I loved have died.
- Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)And on the vast expanses quiet cold calm descends.
- Blurbers
- Miller, Arthur; Byatt, A. S.; Bragg, Melvyn
- Original language*
- Hebreeuws
*Some information comes from Common Knowledge in other languages. Click "Edit" for more information.
Classifications
- Genres
- Fiction and Literature, General Fiction
- DDC/MDS
- 892.436 — Literature & rhetoric Asian Literature Afro-Asiatic literatures Jewish, Israeli, and Hebrew Hebrew fiction 1947–2000
- LCC
- PJ5054 .O9 .M513 — Language and Literature Oriental languages and literatures Oriental philology and literature Hebrew Literature Individual authors and works
- BISAC
Statistics
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- 658
- Popularity
- 43,635
- Reviews
- 14
- Rating
- (3.69)
- Languages
- 20 — Catalan, Chinese, Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hungarian, Italian, Lithuanian, Norwegian (Bokmål), Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Swedish
- Media
- Paper, Audiobook, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 59
- UPCs
- 1
- ASINs
- 16
