Important Educational Information with Range, Good Creativity and Comic-Style Art

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	• The Complete Maus: A Survivor's Tale Art Spiegelman Pantheon, 1996 - 296 pages average customer review:based on 188 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

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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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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Masterpiece!

As a Jew Living in Israel, holocaust related books are important to read, but it's hard to do it actually. I can remember several holocaust-era semi-biographic novels which are great but those are the exceptions. Most of the books are a bit bothersome though true.
Maus just captured me.I consider it one of the best books I've ever read in my life. It was just breath-taking, adding to that the fact that this was my first graphic novel ever, not to say first comic ever.
I gave it to my wife, her parents, brother and so on. The book came back to me after 6 month. all worn out.
The book touched me in the deepest levels, and was able to do what many other holocaust books tried to do and failed. Take you inside one of the the darkest eras of human kind. You NEED to read to. You have to read it.

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A stunning testament to survival, forgiveness, and the human spirit

Putting something as unbelievably tragic and indescribable as the Holocaust into comic book form with the Jews portrayed as mice and the Nazis as cats sounds as kitschy as it gets and even a little insulting. But Art Spiegelman manages to pull it off. The Nazi's labelling of Jews as "vermin" puts the allegory on a new level with each nationality represented by a different animal. The story is incredibly personal weaving in and out of WWII Poland and the author struggling with his irritable father in 1980s America. It also dabbles in the metafictional, referencing other comics Spiegelman has done, his mother's suicide, and his own disbelief that writing about the Holocaust will change anything, especially after so many books and films have already addressed the subject. Don't be fooled by the comic appearance. Spiegelman takes the graphic novel into new territory with "Maus." Whether or not you read comics, this is a stunning testament to survival, forgiveness, and the human spirit.

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Important Educational Information with Range, Good Creativity and Comic-Style Art

Although I am not Jewish I feel the same as the Jews that Holocaust books MUST be read. I was horrified to learn recently that a 37-year-old cousin did not know what a fascist was. This is NOT okay. Already thing are happening in the U.S. that mirror what happened in Germany before World War II, but that is not what you will find in this book.

What you will find in this book is the story from one man's experience and memory. It is both touchingly and brutally honest, written by the son of Holocaust survivors -- the story told to him only by his father.

Spiegelman's use of the comic media to draw Jews as mice, Nazis as cats, Poles as Pigs, French as Frogs, Americans as Dogs and the Swiss as Elk was ingenious. There are some VERY disturbing things that happen in this story which come as no surprise to those who have read other books on the Holocaust, and which make it so difficult to read more on the subject. Somehow reading about it through the comic medium creates an artificial distance from the topic that makes it easier to bear.

I read the whole thing in one day -- would have taken longer if I did not dedicate myself to reading the entire day, but still, that is not bad. It was "just right." I also found the depictions of some of his father's neuroses depicted as very interesting. He sure hated to spend money, but no matter how much money he had you just can't blame him when you see what he has gone through.

Good book. I would recommend this book for ages 12 and up.

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reviews: page 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10

At last! Here is the definitive edition of the book acclaimed as ?the most affecting and successful narrative ever done about the Holocaust? (Wall Street Journal) and ?the first masterpiece in comic book history? (The New Yorker). It now appears as it was originally envisioned by the author: The Complete Maus.

It is the story of Vladek Spiegelman, a Jewish survivor of Hitler?s Europe, and his son, a cartoonist coming to terms with his father?s story. Maus approaches the unspeakable through the diminutive. Its form, the cartoon (the Nazis are cats, the Jews mice), shocks us out of any lingering sense of familiarity and succeeds in ?drawing us closer to the bleak heart of the Holocaust? (The New York Times).

Maus is a haunting tale within a tale. Vladek?s harrowing story of survival is woven into the author?s account of his tortured relationship with his aging father. Against the backdrop of guilt brought by survival, they stage a normal life of small arguments and unhappy visits. This astonishing retelling of our century?s grisliest news is a story of survival, not only of Vladek but of the children who survive even the survivors. Maus studies the bloody pawprints of history and tracks its meaning for all of us.

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