novel generated much controversy for its allusions to Arab-Jewish relations. Critics described the novel as "politically dangerous and subversive". In a 2010 article in Al-Akhbar, As'ad AbuKhalil called the portrayal of Arabs in the book "racial profiling at its worst". The Arabs are "silent", "dirty", and "are about to commit 'pogrom', even though the word is Russian and it was formulated to portray the actions of non-Arabs against Jews in nineteenth century Russia". On the other hand, the main character, Hannah, was accused of being "anti-Zionist" and an "Arab-lover". The novel did receive praise for addressing "the deep but often unacknowledged psychological connections between Israeli Jews and their Arab neighbors". Oz himself said in an interview: I think that the implications of the Israel-Arab conflict, indirect as they are, enraged some readers and at the same time legitimized certain attitudes which were around, but were not expressed before—anyway, not in literature. The Boston Globe reported in 1995 that upon the novel's release in Arabic in Egypt in 1995, "nearly every critique has been negative" – but the book was also in its second printing. Elon observed that the novel puts the lie to the Zionist dream of "a new, achievement-oriented society", conveying instead "a bleak, depressive pessimism" in its portrait of modern Israeli life. Eric Silver of The Guardian agreed, saying that the novel "challenges the pioneering simplicities and immigrant aspirations (My son, Herr Doktor) that underpin Israeli society". The Chicago Tribune similarly noted the perceived abandonment of Zionist ideals, calling the "unsympathetic" portrait of Hannah "a caustic repudiation of the cherished conception of the young sabra as invariably vigorous, dedicated and brave". Following the publication of the translation in England and the United States in 1972, overseas reviews focused on the novel's "literary strengths, especially the rich detail and suggestive imagery by which it traces Hannah’s slow mental erosion". The Guardian, for example, complimented Oz's ability to overlay passages of "strident lyricism" with vivid "descriptions of mundane reality". Many reviews note that the novel lacks a plot, being a straightforward account of courtship, marriage, pregnancy, birth, and daily life. But praise was given for the psychological character study of Hannah. Richard Locke of The New York Times describes My Michael as "an extremely self-conscious and serious psychological novel, slow, thoughtful, self-assured and highly sophisticated, full of the most skillful modulations of tone and texture". Locke favorably compares the novel's