The Complete Maus (1980)

What is there to say? It's Maus. It's a masterpiece.

I honestly didn't think it would live up to the hype when I first picked it up, especially because I know somebody who swears it's incredible and lent me their copy. "We'll see about that", I thought. Well here I am, eating crow. It's as good as people say.

You would do yourself a service to read this book a second or third time. Read each page two times before you move on, maybe. Each decision is made so thoughtfully, it's almost hard to grasp at first glance how good the book is that you're reading. It's the perfect use of visual art to compliment a piece of literature- the writing is the core component of the story to me, but it would be nothing without the drawings.

Jews and Nazis are called just that- the metaphors generally only exist in the visual medium. It's a disconnect that can feel jarring, and is rightfully controversial, but it's also a wonderful representation of fascism. What is fascist ideology if not the creation of artificial hierarchies? The goal is for one group to predate another, to instill the fear of the hunt into your own citizens. It's not just barbaric, it's primal. It's one of the most fundamental evils of our species, and reducing it to animal components brings that out in a way that is as uncomfortable as it is breathtaking.

The cover is misleading. There is no Hitler, it's not full of surreal imagery (although there is some), and it doesn't take place entirely in Nazi Germany. It's much more of a grounded biography, the story of a young man writing about his father's experience in 1940s Poland, including time in Auschwitz. There's been plenty debate about whether to consider this fiction or non-fiction, history or biography, popular art or high art. Truthfully, they are all true, as this book defies genre and is just as pure of a story as you can get. And you should get it. ( )

Very personal in the best ways. The comic style is somewhat compelling, though I expected a bit more experimentation with form. ( )

Here is one of the granddaddies of the graphic novel that helped propel the format into the mainstream. Not only is this story of Spiegelman’s parents surviving World War II harrowing, but the way it visualizes different races as different animals is really inventive. Beyond the parts from World War II, I was also interested in the comic from Art’s college years depicting him and his mother’s mental decline. Personally, I would only recommend this work to people in high school and above. Although this is an important work depicting the Holocaust, the story can get a little confusing to keep track of since it jumps between the present and past so much. Still, unlike some of the other things I read, I can actually see why this book gets the praise and adoration it does. ( )

More than once while I was reading this graphic novel, I stopped and thought "wow." Maus is the story of Art Spiegelman's father, Vladek's experiences as a Jew during World War II. It follows him as a wealthy businessman at the beginning of the war, the loss of his property, hiding out, becoming a prisoner in Auschwitz and other concentration camps. As the younger Spiegelman tells the story of his father's experiences, he also weaves in the tale of his and his father's relationship and how the war affected them. It shows little nuances his father developed as a result of his time as a prisoner and how the son became a survivor of the war through his father's experiences. To some point, it also asks whether the survivors of the concentration camps were the winners and the victims losers or was it the other way around?

Art Spiegelman's book should be required reading in school. I felt more emotion in this graphic novel than I ever felt while reading Anne Frank. And in the end, the only word I could come up to describe this book was "wow." ( )

This book should be required reading. If you haven't read it yet, why not? Can I buy you a copy?

Maus is both Affecting and Effecting. A son recording his father's story as a survivor of the Holocaust. What does it mean to be a survivor surrounded by ghosts, and how does this influence just the day-to-day of living for both the survivor and their descendents? This was all met with incredible nuance in all the relationships. I felt anger and questions as to how this could have possibly happened, and how do we stop genocide from happening ever, ever again (and it's still happening in a lot of ways elsewhere!). Spiegelman represented the stories through graphic portrayals of different groups as different animals, with Jews as mice and Nazis as cats. This book was a tough read, but those portrayals I think helped perhaps both author and reader access the horrors like Auschwitz.

Just read it. ( )