Maus : A Survivor's Tale : My Father Bleeds History/Here My Troubles Began/Boxed

Maus : A Survivor's Tale : My Father Bleeds History/Here My Troubles Began/Boxed | Art Spiegelman | For any who doubt what graphic fiction can do, this is the revelation.

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Maus : A Survivor'...

	Maus : A Survivor's Tale : My Father Bleeds History/Here My Troubles Began/Boxed Art Spiegelman Pantheon, 1993 average customer review:based on 191 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Volumes I & II in paperback of this 1992 Pulitzer Prize-winning illustrated narrative of Holocaust survival.

Yes.

I went to a exhibition on the history of comics a couple of years ago. They had all kinds, from Little Nemo to Jack Kirby, and many things in between. One of the things featured was several pages from Art Speigelman's Maus. I was so intrigued by what I saw that I had to buy it off Amazon, and I have not regretted it. Don't be fooled by Speigelman's seemingly simplistic black and white work. His storytelling is powerful stuff, I tell you.

For any who doubt what graphic fiction can do, this is the revelation.

The Holocaust hangs over western society in the second half of the twentieth century. One man said that poetry was impossible after Auschwitz, but great artists in numerous mediums have dedicated themselves ot proving this wrong. The great crime has provided a great canvas for stories of humanity in the face of evil, such as Steven Spielberg's film "Schindler's List". "Maus" is the comics world's prime entry in this difficult field of literature. Writer and artist Art Spiegelman brings us the story of his father (and mother, by times), two Polish Jews who narrowly survived the war. Having already chosen to tell his story in the form of a comic, a medium often looked down upon as inherently childish by those who don't know any better, he further chooses to cast his characters as anthropomorphic animal, in the manner of an animal fable.

This choice has attracted some controversy (on display in many of the reviews on this site), in some cases because they believe it trivializes the subject-matter (to which I would say "Animal Farm"), or, more commonly, because they take issue with the seeming racialist use of different animals for different nationalities (Jews are mice, regardless of nationality, other Poles are pigs; Germans cats, the French frogs, Americans dogs, etc.). Spiegelman actually discusses the implications of the latter thing within the narrative, which includes an extensive b-story set in the then-present (from the 70s to the 80s), following Art, his wife Francoise, and his elderly father as Art writes "Maus". Francoise is a French Christian who converted to Judaism, and wonders what animal she should be cast as (he chooses a mouse, for the record). Spiegelman never casts all of one group as behaving the same way.

"Maus" reminds me a bit of Paul Verhoeven's "Black Book" in its depiction of wartime Europe's complexity, including the now-uncomfortable degree of collaboration or prejudice found in the occupied countries. Vladek and Anja encounter everything but solidarity with their fellow Poles on the journey through the war; fellow Jews rat them out to the Nazis, others require payment to help Jews avoid death, something that Art expresses amazement at, but Vladek seems to see as very reasonable. Spiegelman doesn't paint his father as a saint, indeed, expressing concern that his father comes across as a stereotypical miserly Jew; at one point, Vladek is shown to be strongly racist against blacks, again to Art and Francoise's amazement. The animal characterizations are never binding; for all Spiegelman's concern over France's history of anti-Semitism, the one French frog we see is an amiable fellow-inimate of Vladek's; even among the German cats we find a Polish Jew married to a German woman, the product of this union being peculiar cat/mouse hybrids.

"Maus" is ultimately a very affecting, personal work from Art Spiegelman, and does a fantastic job of communicating the life story of his father. it is a shining example of what the graphic novel form is capable of achieving.

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Graphic literature at its best

The Complete Maus: A Survivor's Tale collects both volumes of Art Spiegelman's Pulitzer Prize winning graphic novel. The complete collection is how the book called the "first masterpiece in comic book history" is meant to be appreciated. A haunting piece of work, this story is part autobiography, part family history, and part personal and historical reflection on the Holocaust. This tale relates the effect the Holocaust had on the persons who survived it as well as their descendants.

Maus tells the story of Vladek Spiegelman, the author's father, who survived the Holocaust in Poland and how his son, the cartoonist, comes to terms with his father and his tale. This is a paramount example of how the graphic form can be used more effectively to accessibly capture a horrific story. In Maus, the various persons and groups are drawn as anthropomorphic animals (the Jews are mice, the Nazi's cats, etc.) which gives the story an almost fairy tale quality, but by no means detracts from the story's haunting poignance. In some ways, the fairy tale is more painful in the fact that it all really did happen. Vladek's tale of survival, told slowly over the course of the almost 300 page novel, is layered with the author's own story of father as he knew him and his own personal feelings of guilt. Despite the use of animals as characters, the human qualities of these characters shines through and creates a tale that will linger with you long after you've finished the last page.

If you have never read a graphic novel, dismissing them as "comic book stories for kids," you owe it to yourself to read this book and to see the scope of what graphic fiction is able to accomplish. Likewise, if you are a fan of graphic novels, you owe it to yourself to read this book as it remains one of the greatest graphic novels of all time.

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Brilliant

Not to sound too cliche, but there really is no other way to describe Maus and brilliant. Using the medium of comic strips (often regarded as childish and immature) to tell a real life, adult tragedy impacts the reader in a different way from if it was just in print.

Do not dismiss this book as irrelevant because of the panels with pictures in them. A must read. However, I wouldn't recommend young children to read this very adult themed novel. Wait until they are a little older so they can fully (or even partially) understand the beauty and tragedy presented.

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