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A review by nincrony1
The Complete Maus by Art Spiegelman
dark
emotional
informative
sad
medium-paced
5.0
Current world events got me thinking about Maus and returning to this masterwork as an adult (I think I first read it when I was a late teen) has been an overwhelming experience. Make no mistake - it is worth the hype and is a possible contender for one of the top 10 best books I’ve ever read; graphic novel or not.
The genius really is in the framing - Maus is at once an account of Vladek and Anja Spielgman surviving the Holocaust. The framing device is then about their son (Art himself), decades later, interviewing his elderly (often difficult) father to piece their story together to create a comic. It’s a story about the Holocaust, yes, but also about memory, inter-generational trauma, and the creative process.
Spielgman’s careful art style with its seemingly simple character designs belies that this a true master at work in its restraint, giving us the reader some distance from the harrowing real world events. That’s not to say it doesn’t shy from the horrors of the Holocaust - it just makes it more palatable. I also appreciate the book’s unflinching honesty - it must have taken some real guts to put this out into the world. Vladek is an incredibly complicated person - resourceful, quick-thinking and resilient but also overbearing, difficult to be around, and frustrating in his daily ways. He isn’t a saint - he’s honestly someone who got incredibly lucky and somehow survived this awful tragic thing. He’s a person (or a mouse but whatever).
This is required essential reading for all.
The genius really is in the framing - Maus is at once an account of Vladek and Anja Spielgman surviving the Holocaust. The framing device is then about their son (Art himself), decades later, interviewing his elderly (often difficult) father to piece their story together to create a comic. It’s a story about the Holocaust, yes, but also about memory, inter-generational trauma, and the creative process.
Spielgman’s careful art style with its seemingly simple character designs belies that this a true master at work in its restraint, giving us the reader some distance from the harrowing real world events. That’s not to say it doesn’t shy from the horrors of the Holocaust - it just makes it more palatable. I also appreciate the book’s unflinching honesty - it must have taken some real guts to put this out into the world. Vladek is an incredibly complicated person - resourceful, quick-thinking and resilient but also overbearing, difficult to be around, and frustrating in his daily ways. He isn’t a saint - he’s honestly someone who got incredibly lucky and somehow survived this awful tragic thing. He’s a person (or a mouse but whatever).
This is required essential reading for all.