World Famous Comics: The Complete Maus: A Survivor's Tale (No 1)
The Complete Maus: A Survivor's Tale (No 1)
By: Art Spiegelman Publisher: Pantheon Average Rating: Binding: Hardcover Label: Pantheon Number of Items: 1 Number of Pages: 296 Publication Date: November 19, 1996 Release Date: November 19, 1996
Product Description: A son struggles to come to terms with the horrific story of his parents and their experiences during the Holocaust and in postwar America, in an omnibus edition of Spiegelman's two-part, Pulitzer Prize-winning best-seller. 25,000 first printing.
MAUS is even more that what you expect. I can honestly understand why this beautiful graphic novel won the Pultizer Price. It has everything you need. The images are perfect. The dialogue is amazing.The story about a man that makes everything in is power to survive the terrible "Hitler War" against the jews, told amazingly by his son Artie. Also there is the relationship of a father and a son. A father that has the scar of a war written all over his life. You can fill the suffer of Vladek in the war. You can feel the suffer of Art Spiegelman as he tries to deal with the dead of her mother, the pressure of his father, and the responsibility of telling this story. You HAVE to read this!!!! THIS IS A GREAT BIOGRAPHY THAT EVERYONE HAS TO HAVE IN THEIR SHELVES.
One of the finest examples of what the comic book medium is capable of The comic book/graphic novel medium is filled to the brim with people wearing spandex, but Art Spiegelman's Maus is one of the finest examples of what the medium is truly capable of doing. Chances are if you're on this page, you already know the story details of Maus, so all that will be said here is that it is an incredibly compelling and heartbreaking tale that delivers everything you've heard about this critically acclaimed work. Spiegelman's artwork however is the true main attraction of Maus, as there are just slight little subtleties and moments of his winking at the reader that can go unnoticed at first glance. It is moments like these that help make Maus all the more special, and only help solidify it as being one of the finest works of the graphic narrative. All in all, if you've never read Maus, comic fan or not, you owe it to yourself to give it a look at the very least. No matter how many Holocaust or survivor tales your eyes have seen, very few will have the kind of impact and lasting impression that Maus manages to leave on the reader.
To call Maus an ambitious piece of work is an understatement During my research last semester on graphic novels three pieces of information kept recurring: (1) Maus by Art Spiegelman is an amazing graphic novel that everyone--even the ones who don't like graphic novels at all--love. (2) Maus is amazing and, having won a Pulitzer Prize special award in 1992, is one of the main reasons graphic novels have gained so much more mainstream appreciation as a legitimate format for literature. (3) If you read, write, or otherwise enjoy graphic novels you should be profusely thanking Spiegelman and Maus. (In all honesty I did make up that last part, but I think it was really implied in the subtext of all of my sources.)
Hearing all of that, of course, I felt like I had to read it. Technically speaking, Maus: A Survivor's Tale can be seen as two separate books. The first book (Maus I) is titled My Father Bleeds History (1986). The second, Maus II, is called And Here My Troubles Began (1991). Eventually, the two volumes were published together as one book. I had initially planned to review the two books separately however after reading both I decided that, really, the stories are so intertwined it really makes more sense to review the titles together.
The entire Maus saga is very meta (dictionary definition: "referring to itself or to the conventions of its genre")--very aware that it is a book and willing to make readers aware of that fact. The story begins with Art asking his father to tell him about his youth, specifically his experiences during the Holocaust. The structure here is smart and possibly too complex to have been pulled off with traditional prose. Spiegelman shifts between past and present with ease, deals with time lapses, and tells a compelling story all while illustrating (literally) the process of researching and creating that story.
He also does it all with allegorical animals standing in for people.
In this book the Jews are represented by mice while the Germans are cats (get it?). There are other animals represented in the story as people from different countries. While they are trying to pass as Poles, the Jewish mice are often shown wearing pig masks (Polish citizens are drawn as pigs) in order to blend in. Later in the story, once again creating ameta moment, Spiegelman shows himself wearing a mouse mask while promoting the book in "real life" (as a man). It sounds crazy when you try to explain it, but it also makes a crazy kind of sense.
Illustrated in black and white, the panels are on the small side and jump around the page. In other words, Spiegelman plays around with the sequencing to keep things interesting and fill the page in the best possible combination of panels.
Of course, this isn't always a happy book. Much of the story deals with Vladek and Anja Spiegelman's time in the Auschwitz concentration camp and what they had to endure there. And it's depressing. At the same time, watching Vladek keep his head on his shoulders and survive disaster after disaster, the story has uplifting moments. At the risk of sounding trite, it shows that people really can triumph in the face of adversity. Not to say their experiences in Auschwitz had no effect on Vladek's later life. It does. By extension it also greatly impacts Spiegelman's life and how he and his father relate to each other.
Maus isn't the type of book I usually read, largely because its necessarily depressing. I noticed my mood dipping as I worked through the book as I became invested with the characters. I also found myself feeling guilty while reading it. Here I am, half-Jewish (in so far as anyone can be half of a religion), and I know so little about that part of myself or that side of my family. My own ambivalence might explain why I cannot love this book as much as all its praise and supporters suggest I should.
To call Maus an ambitious piece of work is an understatement. Spiegelman takes on a lot in this relatively slim volume and , for the most part, delivers.
MAUS is no mouse There aren't enough superlatives to describe this graphic novel. It's beautifully and cleverly written and illustrated. Characterization and history blend easily and realistically. MAUS really is a novel - to be read thoughtfully/carefully/even slowly. In several readings I've found new details and concepts and I'm sure this will continue to happen. Allegorical? Of course; yet I've never read a better narrative/description of the holocaust.
Graphic literature at its best The Complete Maus: A Survivor's Tale collects both volumes of Art Spiegelman's Pulitzer Prize winning graphic novel. The complete collection is how the book called the "first masterpiece in comic book history" is meant to be appreciated. A haunting piece of work, this story is part autobiography, part family history, and part personal and historical reflection on the Holocaust. This tale relates the effect the Holocaust had on the persons who survived it as well as their descendants.
Maus tells the story of Vladek Spiegelman, the author's father, who survived the Holocaust in Poland and how his son, the cartoonist, comes to terms with his father and his tale. This is a paramount example of how the graphic form can be used more effectively to accessibly capture a horrific story. In Maus, the various persons and groups are drawn as anthropomorphic animals (the Jews are mice, the Nazi's cats, etc.) which gives the story an almost fairy tale quality, but by no means detracts from the story's haunting poignance. In some ways, the fairy tale is more painful in the fact that it all really did happen. Vladek's tale of survival, told slowly over the course of the almost 300 page novel, is layered with the author's own story of father as he knew him and his own personal feelings of guilt. Despite the use of animals as characters, the human qualities of these characters shines through and creates a tale that will linger with you long after you've finished the last page.
If you have never read a graphic novel, dismissing them as "comic book stories for kids," you owe it to yourself to read this book and to see the scope of what graphic fiction is able to accomplish. Likewise, if you are a fan of graphic novels, you owe it to yourself to read this book as it remains one of the greatest graphic novels of all time.
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