1
Jun
2009
Maus I & II by Art Spiegelman
I remember my sister having the first one over fifteen years ago. She was still living at home and going to college, which would make me… Let’s say 8. I wanted to look at them because they were cartoons, and she explained to me that they were about the Holocaust. I tried to read them anyways, but soon grew bored.
Probably because cartoons they may be, but they aren’t for children.
Unless you’re into showing your children sketches of the Auschwitz victims.
Like Persepolis, the two volumes have now been combined into one “complete” addition, thereby saving you a couple of bucks. Or half the library fines if you’re late with them.
Regardless, if you read one, you’ll probably read the other. I suggest you do get them together or in the “complete” edition, because graphic novels go by so fast–even with a serious subject.
Art Spiegelman’s father and mother were Auschwitz survivors (take that Ahmedinejad & Mel Gibson). Spiegelman depicts his father’s stories, through drawings of animals. All of the Jews are mice, the Nazis are cats, the French are frogs (natch) and the Polish are pigs. I kind of didn’t like Polish as pigs, but hey, I didn’t live through it.
Interwoven with Art’s father’s story is Art’s struggle to have a meaningful relationship with his father. His father is stingy and kinda a jerk. Their relationship is further complicated because Art’s mother committed suicide in 1968.
Part of what makes this story so interesting, besides the animals and treating a horribly scary subject with cartoonish delight, making it a sort of comic noir (anime noire?), is the brutal truth Art writes and sketches. And I don’t mean just the brutal truth of the Holocaust, but the necessary ways of survival in the Holocaust. Sharing vs. not sharing, helping vs. not helping, friends vs. self, and countless other conflicts come up time and again.
The first book ends with Art’s father’s arrival to Auschwitz. If you think the first book was devestating, needless to say it goes downhill from there.
If you like this book/author, you might like:
Animal Farm (F) by George Orwell
Persepolis (CNF) by Marjane Satrarpi
American Born Chinese (F) by Gene Luen Yang
Palestine (CNF) by Joe Sacco
The 9/11 Report: A Graphic Adaptation (CNF) by Sid Jacobson and Ernie Colon
The Book Thief (F) by Markus Zusak
Night (F) by Elie Wiesel
Survival in Auschwitz (CNF) by Primo Levi
Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl (CNF) by Anne Frank
Fire on the Water: Porgess and the Abyss (F) by Arnost Lustig
The Good War: An Oral History of WWII (NF) by Studs Turkel
This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen (F) by Tadeusz Borowski
Poland (F) by James Michener
The Apple (CNF) by Penelope Holt
Other works by Art Spiegelman:
Breakdowns: From Maus to Now, an Anthology of Strips (F)
The Wild Party: The Lost Classic by Joseph Moncure March (F)
Open Me, I’m A Dog (F)
In the Shadow of No Towers (CNF)
Breakdowns: Portrait of the Artist as a Young %@&*! (CNF)
I’ve heard of this! I wonder if I could find a copy in Australia…
Check the library. If they don’t have it, maybe they could get it from another library. Since it’s a graphic novel, you could try comic book stores. If they don’t have it they might be able to order it for you, but I’d hate to see you pay an arm and a leg for it. Other than that… Amazon? If all else fails, I’ll fly over to Australia and loan you my copy.
Hahaha thanks, I tracked one down! complete version, 30 bucks, i’m so excited. graphic novels are hard to get used to if you’ve been reading books all your life but they’re a completely different experience, in my opinion.
I really enjoyed reading these. Well, enjoyed is the wrong word becasue they were devastating. I can’t imagine reading them at separate times. They are one story, I feel.
It really is brutal, and not just in its depiction of the Holocaust. I think Art’s relationship with his father was what I found the most interesting. It’s so honest, so… not over-simplified. A brilliant book.
Brutal seems to be a good way to put it, but like Nymeth I saw this extending beyond the Holocaust. Those couple of pages in the middle that Art includes from Planet Hell (or something such) were just as heartwrenching–and including these illustrations which focus on humans rather than mice was an interesting juxtaposition. Makes you wonder just how haunting and horrifying the book would be if drawn in similar style!
Oooh…yeah, if the whole thing weren’t animals it would be a lot creepier than talking animals ever could–even for those who don’t like anthropomorphism.
We posted your review on War Through the Generations.
Anime Noir! Love it. Reading the others’ comments makes me wonder if the story could even be told in this form if the characters weren’t animals. Could this book be written/drawn with human images? I can’t tell if that would increase the horror or not. There was something powerful about the anthropomorphism in this novel.