Maus II: A Survivor's Tale: And Here My Troubles Began
by Art Spiegelman
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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 June, 2008
recommended to booklady by:
Melissarecommends it for: anyone
This second Maus book finishes up the story of Vladek and Anja Spiegelman's experiences in Auschwitz and Birkenau at the end of WWII. 'Maus' is the German word for 'mouse' and Art Spiegelman -- the son and author -- chose to portray the Jewish people in his cartoon as mice because of a disparaging German newspaper article in the mid-1930s which belittled Mickey Mouse as the most miserable ideal ever revealed and upheld the Swastika Cross as the highest. His Nazis are therefore cats. In...more
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Read in January, 2008
recommends it for:
anyone
I see why Maus won a Pulitzer. It's incredible from start to finish.
In this, the second part of the story, Spiegelman intensifies the father/son story, adding more layers of complexity to the reader's experience. I appreciated the fact that the author didn't sugar-coat his father's image. It would have been tempting to characterize Vladek (the father) as nothing but a victim, someone to be pitied. Although it's clear that Vladek was a victim, and although we are rightfully asked pity...more
In this, the second part of the story, Spiegelman intensifies the father/son story, adding more layers of complexity to the reader's experience. I appreciated the fact that the author didn't sugar-coat his father's image. It would have been tempting to characterize Vladek (the father) as nothing but a victim, someone to be pitied. Although it's clear that Vladek was a victim, and although we are rightfully asked pity...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 really d...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 really d...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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Read in December, 2007
recommends it for:
people interested in humanity, the Holocaust, history
I think again it's interesting to read a graphic novel of this subject and it's vital to preserve life stories this vital. I felt badly for the fact that the son of the man whose life story is being told (who survived the Holocaust) has all kinds of issues with his father and coping with his mother's suicide and his father's continual lack of function and dependence. I get the feeling that he's willing to sit and listen to his father's life story for hours and try to make sense of it but feels ...more
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Has a copy to sell/swap
This book was alright for me because I found it to be a bit intense. Like, this main character has been through a lot in his life. It's like a roller coaster life where he has his ups and downs. I think the troubles shape who we as individuals are. Without troubles or anything, life wouldn't be as great because perfect lives aren't as fun. This book sort of connected to me because it speaks of survival and I survived a car accident. To get off that topic, I think this book just helps a lot of pe...more
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Maus II is more intense than Maus I, namely because Maus II is the story of Vladek Spiegelman's time in the concentration camps. Art Spiegelman spent over 13 years working on these two books, and the result is a beautifully painstaking work of art that is heartbreaking and unfathomable in content.
So often we get the survivors' stories of the 1930s and '40s without any insight into their current lives. Spiegelman broke this standard, weaving his contemporary struggles with his father into the...more
So often we get the survivors' stories of the 1930s and '40s without any insight into their current lives. Spiegelman broke this standard, weaving his contemporary struggles with his father into the...more
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This graphic novel was really well done. I've always been interested in WW2 and my husband has always been interested in comic books. He had this on his comic book shelf, and craving something "different," I picked it up. I really enjoyed the two part story of these mice. However, from reviews I read and word-of-mouth, I really was set up for a lot more than what it gave me. If you've read extensively about WW2, don't expect the harrowing details that the reviews claim. While the conte...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 gra...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 gra...more
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Read in May, 2008
This book is truly remarkable, even better, I thought, than Maus I. I took a course about the Holocaust in college, and Maus did a better job of explaining and portraying the Holocaust than most of the much longer, much more conventional books and essays we read in my class. Perhaps the most moving part of Spiegelman's two Maus books is the way he portrays the complex, maddening relationship between the Holocaust-survivor father Vladek and Art the guilt-ridden, angry son. Fascinating. Would be g...more
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Read in January, 1992
In my opinion, the Maus books are among the most significant works of art about the Holocaust. They are searing, moving, at times shockingly funny.
Posted re: Maus I: Art Spiegelman's comic books about his parents' experiences in Auschwitz and beyond were not only groundbreaking in their use of the form to explore the Holocaust, but also are the harrowing story of the horrors they were forced to endure, their canniness and luck that allowed them to survive, and the revelation that the story d...more
Posted re: Maus I: Art Spiegelman's comic books about his parents' experiences in Auschwitz and beyond were not only groundbreaking in their use of the form to explore the Holocaust, but also are the harrowing story of the horrors they were forced to endure, their canniness and luck that allowed them to survive, and the revelation that the story d...more
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Read in December, 1991
Maus I is the "comic book" retelling of the experiences of author Art Spiegelman's parents during the time of the Nazi atrocities of the WWII era, and the action in that book covered events leading up to their incarceration in a concentration camp. Maus II continues on to cover the camp experience. For those wanting more detail, see my brief review of Maus I, and be assured that these two books constitute a unique and moving reading experience. The Maus chronicles are my preferred way ...more
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Read in March, 2008
I read this yesterday in one sitting - I simply could not put it down. It's kind of hard to collect and express my thoughts about the book in way that does justice to how amazing and powerful it is -both of Speigelman's Maus books are so emotionally affecting that I'm a bit at a loss for words. Vladek's story of survival is riveting, and the parallel story of Art gathering the information and writing the book is so well-crafted. Art's visit to his therapist, and his exploration of how his parent...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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Read in December, 2007
Maus I and II tell the emotional, phenomenal, nitty gritty story of survival by a Polish jew during WWII. Whats really amazing is how the story is passed on from father to son and told within the context of their current lives and relationship in ny. Its told as a graphic novel aka cartoon format which really helps tell the story. There are so many other excellent stories, such as Primo Levi's, that describe the incredible experiences of survival in the concentration camps, but this story is ...more
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(Same review for Maus I)
Another pulitzer winner, but this one is illustrated in a comic book fashion! Not surprisingly it is an easy read, but that doesn't mean the content itself is simplistic. It Art Spiegelman's biography of his father's survival of the Holocaust.
My sister (12 yrs old at the time) could not put this book down! Once I noticed her addiction, I bought her a hard copy of it. It is a captivating story for adults and kids alike!
There are very few books that I think ...more
Another pulitzer winner, but this one is illustrated in a comic book fashion! Not surprisingly it is an easy read, but that doesn't mean the content itself is simplistic. It Art Spiegelman's biography of his father's survival of the Holocaust.
My sister (12 yrs old at the time) could not put this book down! Once I noticed her addiction, I bought her a hard copy of it. It is a captivating story for adults and kids alike!
There are very few books that I think ...more
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Read in July, 2007
These two Maus books are the first graphic novels I've ever picked up to read. Once I started them, I couldn't put them down. This is a great story of a son trying to understand his father and the time he spent in Auschwitz during World War II. One of the things I loved about these books is how Art portrays the relationship between he and his father. The frustration of dealing with a stubborn and demanding old man is very real and honest. He wants to know his father's story and in digging throug...more
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Read in April, 2008
recommends it for:
fans of history, graphic novels
I enjoyed Maus II more than Maus I. When reading the first book, I was overwhelmed and annoyed with the son's guilt about whether or not to tell his father's story. The second book still had a lot of the guilt, but I was more absorbed in the father's tale and survival than in the author's angst. I actually got a tear in my eye when the author's daughter was born and he lost his father. The drawings are wonderful in both books and both are a necessary and insightful addition to the record of ...more
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