The Complete Maus in Around the Year in 52 Books

Jul 09, 2013 CrystalIsReading on StoryGraph rated it really liked it

Shelves: around-the-world-challenge, non-fiction, graphic-novels-comics

These two volumes just blew me away. It's not that I haven't read Holocaust stories before. It's not that I didn't know that people can be evil, and that horrific things were done during the Holocaust. But something about this story made it all feel so rivetingly horrible that I couldn't look away. Maybe it was the brilliant use of (frightened) mice to represent Jewish characters, and (cruel) cats to represents the Nazis/ Germans (also dogs as Americans, pigs as Poles, and frogs as French). Mayb These two volumes just blew me away. It's not that I haven't read Holocaust stories before. It's not that I didn't know that people can be evil, and that horrific things were done during the Holocaust. But something about this story made it all feel so rivetingly horrible that I couldn't look away. Maybe it was the brilliant use of (frightened) mice to represent Jewish characters, and (cruel) cats to represents the Nazis/ Germans (also dogs as Americans, pigs as Poles, and frogs as French). Maybe it was Art Spiegelman's genius with both words and pictures in general, or the way he seamlessly intertwined his present-day experiences with his father into his father's stories of the past. It wasn't that any one character in this story was a wonderful person--everyone in the story is flawed and struggling. Vladek is especially difficult to like, despite or perhaps because of his compelling story. Only Artie's wife Francoise, who is rarely in the story, comes close to being simply a nice person. Even fragile Anja seems more selfish and weak than good and kind throughout much of the story. And yet I was compelled by their stories, drawn to read to the last sad word.
I felt along with Artie his frustration with his father, as well as his love, and his sadnes. I felt along with his father's stories, told in his own wonderful Old World accent and sentence structure (It was like listening to older Jewish friends of mine talk. I loved the sounds of it.), the fear, the grief, the loss, and the absolute darkness of so many of his life's experiences. I felt like the second volume lagged a little, for me. Reading about Vladek's life, health, and troubled marriage spiraling out of control, and Artie struggling to come to grips with it, and help his father as much as his own sanity would allow--it's in some ways the saddest part of the story. Broken people trying desperately to do the best for each other than they know how, and grappling with the fall out when it's not enough. So in volume two, I felt like I was distracted more from the Holocaust narrative by Vladek and Artie's drama. The story itself was, if anything, more horrific, though, as Vladek relates in detail his experiences in the camp.
This isn't fun reading, but it's amazing reading, compelling on emotional levels, brilliant on artistic levels, and eye-opening on historical levels. Those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it, and God forbid we should ever again repeat such a dark time in human history. ...more

6 likes · Like · see review

Dec 20, 2016 Nadine in NY Jones rated it it was amazing

Shelves: classic, history, non-fiction, era-world-war-2, memoir-and-autobiographical-essays, biography, graphic-novels-and-comics, non-fiction-graphic-novel

I've been meaning to read this book since approximately 1986 or '87, when my boyfriend's dad gave him a copy of volume I, and boyfriend told me it was really good. I meant to read it. I was more into comics than he was, but I was busy reading more ethereal fare, such as Moonshadow and The Sandman and so on. I didn't really like Spiegelman, I associated him with R. Crumb and that whole Raw ... Commix scene, and that wasn't for me. Plus, I worried that Maus would be too upsetting. So I never got a ...more

3 likes · Like · see review

Aug 13, 2017 Maggie rated it it was amazing

Shelves: non-fiction, biography-memoir, war, graphic-comics, history, guardian-1000, family-drama, usa

In this graphic novel, Art Spiegelman relates his father Vladek’s experiences as Polish Jew in WWII as told to him interview-style. Vladek and his wife Anja go through numerous trials, eventually both ending up in Auschwitz. Vladek’s resourcefulness and shrewdness helps them to survive, over and over. In the frame story, Art relates his present-day struggles with his father, who is uptight, miserly, instils harsh discipline on himself and tries to impose them on those around him, including his n In this graphic novel, Art Spiegelman relates his father Vladek’s experiences as Polish Jew in WWII as told to him interview-style. Vladek and his wife Anja go through numerous trials, eventually both ending up in Auschwitz. Vladek’s resourcefulness and shrewdness helps them to survive, over and over. In the frame story, Art relates his present-day struggles with his father, who is uptight, miserly, instils harsh discipline on himself and tries to impose them on those around him, including his new wife Mala, all the while missing Anja who committed suicide several years prior.

I wasn’t too attracted by Spiegelman’s drawing style (I’m more of a Lucy Knisley fan), but I was pleasantly surprised by this book on many accounts. For one thing, it is deeply and painfully personal. Art’s relationship with his father is complex. He cares for his father, but he cannot stand to be around him. His father loves him, and wants Art to live with him, yet he admonishes Art and blames him for various mishaps all the time. Art thinks that his father’s character is a result of the war, but he sees other war survivors who more generous and amiable than his father, and he wonders why his father is not like them. At the same time there is an undercurrent of inferiority and guilt that his life is better than his father’s. His feelings touched me deeply. I too have a father who is loving but authoritarian, whom I love but struggle to be alone with, with whom I am always disagreeing but not daring to voice my opinions. I can understand what it must have cost Art to portray his father honestly, and I applaud his determination to portray both the good and the bad in his father. In recording his father’s memoirs, he honours his father, and demonstrates a desire to understand his father, impossible as it may be.

And there is plenty of good in Vladek. His accounts of the war show him to be immensely resourceful. There was of course an element of luck, but he also had a will to survive, courage for the present, and future-mindedness, combined with a overarching love for his wife, that enabled him to survive.

Yet, as Francoise, Art’s wife, says, Vladek came out of the war alive, but he didn’t really survive the war. All his future character and actions were influenced by the horrors he faced in the war. He had to scrimp and save in the war, so in peace, he scrimps and saves too, recycling trash from the streets and returning half-open boxes of cereal to grocery stores. Perhaps Art is the one thing he really has to show. Because, while Vladek’s soul may not have survived, he produced a son capable of living in the modern world like Vladek never could, and the sheer existence and life of Art is perhaps the best testimony to Vladek. ...more

Like · see review

Jan 11, 2020 Libscigrl rated it it was amazing

Shelves: read-2020, mayday-resistance-booklist

What a fantastic set of graphic novels.
It doesn't matter how or in what matter these stories are told, they are always each that much more horrifying.
Humans are TERRIBLE to each other.
These novels remind me to always be kind and keep an eye on leaders. ...more

Like · see review