I'm grappling with Amos Oz's "My Michael" even as I type this. Is that the way I start every reading response? I think it might be. Well it's true again, I'm not just making it up.
We had a discussion in class where a dearly beloved friend of mine proclaimed her utter dislike for the main character of the novel, Hannah. I can't say I completely disagree with her distaste for Hannah. As I began the novel, I didn't have any real, tangible problem with her. That might be solely due to the fact that the book is written in first person, and I have a tendency to sympathize with first person, to really get inside the head of a novel written in first person. It's like we're reading Hannah's diary. Of course she's going to be really vulnerable to us and of course she's going to sound like a bit of a douche bag at times. But I can sympathize, maybe even empathize with that.
But as things went on, instead of gaining more insight into why Hannah is the way she is, I honestly began to dislike her, to become more confused about her actions and to become more infuriated by the way she was treating her husband, her family. I want to say this in a contained, responsible-sounding, literary and sophisticated manner but all I can really come up with is this dialogue in my head and it's sort of like a rant and it sounds something like this:
Hannah starts off this sweet, virginal university student. She studies, she wears dresses made for by her loving mother, she's earnest, she's just nice. Maybe she's not actually these things, but this is the way I'm perceiving her at the start. And it seems like a neat, cute little love story, you know. In the movies they literally call it the "meet cute". Girl trips on the stairs, boy reaches down to help her, and they go to a little cafe, have a walk in the rain and their love story is basically already written for us. Why bother even reading on?
Because Hannah is actually a bitter, psychotic mess of an individual whose poor kind husband will spend his life attempting, and failing, at making her happy.
And you know what annoys me the most? I should've known. I should've known from the way she calls the things he says "trite", from the way she belittles him by describing his pathetic attempts to be funny or make her laugh, and never succeeding. She has nightmares right before they get married. She goes to meet her fiance's friends and leaves feeling as though she doesn't even know the man she is engaged to at all. She spills wine on her wedding dress- not only does she spill wine on it, but it happens as a result of her startled reaction to her bridegroom's uncomfortable attempt to sweetly deliver a surprise kiss on the back of her neck.
Foreshadowing much?
So yes, to say I should've known where this was going would be a huge understatement. But it only really gets worse from here. I can understand a woman feeling trapped, feeling depressed, feeling, especially, that the man she is supposed to love, is maybe...too nice and that it makes her crazy, and makes her feel suffocated. I don't know if she ever says that in so many words, but I sort of feel like she tried to marry her father, or she tried to fulfill some paternally-inspired, childhood invention of what she thought married life should be like. She always wanted to marry a professor; perhaps when she met Michael and discovered his profession, the question was answered as simply as that. Marriage to her, made sense. Her fantasy would be fulfilled. It was all natural.
So she only has herself to blame if her marriage lacks passion- and I feel like that's a lot of what her problem is, although she never writes that in quite such direct terms [though she hints at it several times.] When her son is born, she turns into an absolute horror and the whole time I was reading, I kept thinking, this is so obviously post-partum depression, seriously, someone get this girl to a doctor and some happy pills and some help.
But her bitter attitude towards living, toward her family members, her constant confusion, her sort of...displacement within her own life...seems to suggest something deeper than just depression specific to post-partum. I think what the real problem is, is that Hannah has found herself living a life that she didn't even realize she was signing up for. She did what seemed natural, appropriate, expected of a maiden in Jerusalem. But she is not happy. She has never been happy with Michael. And that is where the problem lies. She- Hannah- the true spirit of Hannah- is a suppressed shadow within her own body. It's classic depression, but it happened so slowly, and really, she brought it upon herself, when she married "her" Michael.
So the story leaves me angry a little bit, unsatisfied, for sure. How can it be titled "My Michael"; what makes him her Michael? The fact that he was so good to her while she was so cruel to him? The fact that she never once appreciated him, never even tried, that she always felt like he was lacking something in every single way. If she could go back, would she have married him?
I see- just a small part of myself in Hannah- in that, as lovely as Michael seems, I don't think I would have been satisfied with him either. But the difference between me and Hannah is, I would rather live a life alone and non-conformed to the expectations of my family and society, than be married, yet a shadow of myself, forever.
