book data
6,724 ratings,
4.49
average rating, 323 reviews
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published
September 1st 1992
(first published 1991)
by Pantheon
binding
Paperback, 144 pages
literary awards
Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Fiction (1992); National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist (1991)
isbn
0679729771
(isbn13: 9780679729778)
description
MAUS was the first half of the tale of survival of the author's parents, charting their desperate progress from prewar Poland Auschwitz. Here is the c...more
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avg 4.49
editions: all | this edition
editions: all | this edition
One of those rare instances where the sequel is slightly better than its predecessor. Spiegelmen used the first installment to show us how his parents (Vladek and Anja) struggled to survive nazi occupation and evade capture. Their luck eventually runs out and that story ends at the gates of Auschwitz. We know, of course, that Anja and Vladek will survive, but we have no idea what horrors are in store for both of them - they are split up and have little idea about the others whereabouts. Quit...more
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Read in March, 2008
recommends it for:
Everyone.
When I was a boy living in Germany, my parents and I visited Dachau concentration camp.
It was horrible. We saw the ovens, the gas chambers, the graveyards. The visit drove home to me the magnitude of the horror that had been perpetrated there, and the madness of the people who had orchestrated it.
Maus II is mostly concerned with Vladek's time in Auschwitz. It reminded me of all things I had seen when I was a boy, but it also added a new perspective. This graphic novel...more
It was horrible. We saw the ovens, the gas chambers, the graveyards. The visit drove home to me the magnitude of the horror that had been perpetrated there, and the madness of the people who had orchestrated it.
Maus II is mostly concerned with Vladek's time in Auschwitz. It reminded me of all things I had seen when I was a boy, but it also added a new perspective. This graphic novel...more
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Read in January, 2009
I felt much stronger about this second installment of the Maus series, the heart-breaking story of a Holocaust survivor. While in the first book Vladek, the businessman/mouse trapped by history into the most disgusting human-killing machine ever created, is too much of a self-interested combiner, in this part Vladek becomes more than a stereotype. The Maus helps his friends and wife beyond reason and in spite of danger (contrasting the behavior described in Primo Levi's If This Is a Man), and be...more
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Read in January, 2008
recommends it for:
anyone who doesn't think of graphic novels as "real literature"
this was interesting to me because it wasn't just the story of a man who survived auschwitz. it was the story of son ("artie") telling the story based on a retelling from his father's memory, which does not always seem to serve correctly. it is subtitled "a survivor's tale" but this brings to mind the problem of who is the survivor? is it that the father is a survivor of auschwitz? or is it that the son is a survivor of his father? in the end the subtitle seems purely ir...more
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Read in February, 2008
recommends it for:
those who want to read about the Holocaust
It's difficult to review this book when my comments are similar to what I said for Maus I. There is still a negative relationship between the son (author) and his father (Holocaust survivor). This made for some uneasy moments between the two, and still in this book I felt the son was selfish, though less so. The major difference between this and the first Maus is that this book looks back on the fathers' time in the concentration camps. There are amazing stories about how the father and his wife...more
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recommends it for:
anyone
I don't know why I read the second one even before I read the first one but it's still a very...intense book I guess. I found this book incredibly educational because it's like reading a story of someone that's really been through thick and thin in the concentration camps during the Holocaust. This book speaks of great survival and trying to help yourself out of a very helpless situation. It sort of plays a role in relating back to real life where humans would try and save themselves before even...more
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Read in January, 2007
I think everyone should read this book. It is a brilliant telling of a Jewish couple at Auschwitz. Where it differs is not only in its form of graphic novel but that it tells the true story of Speigelman's father in parallel form, going back and forth between his interviewing his father in the book in the 1970s/80s and his father's experience in Poland.
This book was the OneBook that all composition teachers taught to their freshman comp courses. They loved it. Don't let the format of...more
This book was the OneBook that all composition teachers taught to their freshman comp courses. They loved it. Don't let the format of...more
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Read in February, 2008
This book handles a difficult subject of a son dealing with an aging parent. In this case, the parent is a concentration camp survivor. The son tries to record his father's account of those times. It is a creative approach to this particular subject, but I found it difficult to read, despite its graphic novel format. Maybe I missed out since I read II before Maus I. Good food for thought on our past shapes our future. Interesting themes on how parents can sometimes have a hard time communica...more
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bookshelves:
2009-bookstack,
biography,
germany,
graphic-novel,
poland,
series,
to-buy-bookstack,
world-war-ii
Read in April, 2009
Winner of the 1992 Pulitzer Prize, Maus tells the story of Spiegelman’s parents during the Holocaust from the perspective of a son watching his father with all the frustration that accompanies it. All people are presented as animals as a representation of their nationality (for example, all Jews are depicted as mice, hence the name Maus which is German for “mouse”), an ingenious way to clearly show who is who in this story.
And Here My Troubles Began is the continuation of the f...more
And Here My Troubles Began is the continuation of the f...more
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Read in March, 2009
Wow. Both part I and II were very well done. Spiegelman's choice to use the medium of the comic strip to portray such a story is an interesting yet effective choice. For the most part, the cartoons "worked" for me. Even though drawn as different animals, in several of the panels Spiegleman gave the characters very human characteristics, and reading from panel to panel the mind connects what is happening between each image. There were some moments for me that the seriousness of his stor...more
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Read in June, 2009
“Maus II” is less a sequel to Art Spiegelman's first graphic novel about his father's experiences in the Holocaust, and more a continuation of the saga. (The first book had left off just as Vladek arrived at Auschwitz after years moving from ghetto to ghetto, from hiding place to hiding place. The second book is focused on Vladek's experiences at Auschwitz, and on the time between the end of World War II and Vladek and his wife Anja's move to the United States.) “Maus II” also continues ...more
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Read in March, 2009
The second volume in Spiegelman's memoir contains far more self-conscious meta moments than the first examination of his father's life during World War II. I realize this might have been innovative and startling at the time of the work's composition, but now I look to works like Alison Bechdel's Fun Home, and see how the art of comics can be smoothly used to tell a personal story in a less mannered way. Or, at least, in a less nervous way.
The story told here is, by all means, incre...more
The story told here is, by all means, incre...more
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Read in February, 2009
(double review with In Cold Blood)
When I decided that one of my 2009 reading intentions would be to move through pivotal nonfiction--the sort of groundbreaking texts that incited change, demanded attention, and made the world in fact and on the page different--it was a thrill to think of how those guidelines still gave me an overwhelming number of books to choose from.
Reading In Cold Blood (1965) by Truman Capote and Art Spiegelman's two-part graphic novel, Maus (1986, 1...more
When I decided that one of my 2009 reading intentions would be to move through pivotal nonfiction--the sort of groundbreaking texts that incited change, demanded attention, and made the world in fact and on the page different--it was a thrill to think of how those guidelines still gave me an overwhelming number of books to choose from.
Reading In Cold Blood (1965) by Truman Capote and Art Spiegelman's two-part graphic novel, Maus (1986, 1...more
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Read in December, 2008
This book was a fascinating read, but there were some parts that I was either confused and/or jarred by (which is what gave it the four star rating).
The historical detail in the book was mind-blowing as well as gruesome (obviously.) I also found the father-son relationship to be fascinating.
What continued to bug me was the feeling that I was missing something, which in all actuality, I probably was because I did not read Maus I, so I'm guessing that the confusing parts o...more
The historical detail in the book was mind-blowing as well as gruesome (obviously.) I also found the father-son relationship to be fascinating.
What continued to bug me was the feeling that I was missing something, which in all actuality, I probably was because I did not read Maus I, so I'm guessing that the confusing parts o...more
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Read in February, 2009
As the second half in the tumultuous saga of Vladek and what he experienced during the Holocaust, I found myself really enjoying this story. It is such a poignant tale because it is historical fact and because you grow to have a fondness for Vladek even though he is miserly and stubborn. I wasn't too impressed with the ending of the book as it seemed pretty sudden, but the story as a whole more than made up for it. Writing about the personal conflict with his father seems like it must have been ...more
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Read in February, 2009
Similarly to the first book of the two, this one didn't strike me as anything mind-blowing. But I did like it, and I appreciated the more personal approach of this one. It was good to see the author's relationship with his father contrasted with his father's life experiences in the concentration camps.
As most survivor stories, this one is inspiring and powerful. But I like that you see some of the after effects of the experiences and its influence on the rest of a survivor's life. Ha...more
As most survivor stories, this one is inspiring and powerful. But I like that you see some of the after effects of the experiences and its influence on the rest of a survivor's life. Ha...more
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Read in January, 2009
recommended to Felicity by:
Leslie
Most of what I had to say about Maus applies here as well:
However, there is the added layer of Maus's success and Art's resulting...more
Maus is interesting not only for the sake of the survival story Vladek has to tell, but for the frame that surrounds it. Seeing Vladek's relationship to his son, and the lasting effects of the Holocaust on his character make this story richer and more layered. It isn't only about survival or violence, but about love and family (and the damage both can do.)
However, there is the added layer of Maus's success and Art's resulting...more
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Read in January, 2009
An incredibly moving read. Like all holocaust literature, a mixture of horror and inspiration at the will to live in a landscape of death, deception, and betrayal. This book is an amazing tribute to Spiegelman's father, who wheedled and hustled and bargained and worked and sweated and adapted and hid and generally took every opportunity to increase his chance to survive, in Auschwitz and several other concentration camps. The miracle is that his wife survived as well, and that seemed much les...more
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Read in March, 2009
These books help to put a face to the Holocaust. There are so many biographies detailing events of the Holocaust, but I felt these showed not only those events, but also how those events affected the next generation. Eventhough "Artie" didn't live through the Holocaust, the ghosts from it still affected his life. These books are easy reads. I finished both in just a couple of evenings. I think they would be outstanding for teens, so they get a deeper understanding of these events ...more
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The continuing story of the author's father's time in Auschwitz and their relationship. Again so sad and so powerful, and totally amazing that it's all in comic book format.
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