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A review by erine
Maus: A Survivor's Tale. My Father Bleeds History by Art Spiegelman
dark
emotional
informative
sad
tense
fast-paced
4.75
I've read these books so many times at this point, but with a book like this it lands a little differently each time. As a kid, it was a thrilling, realistic, horror-filled tale of history. I could imagine myself doing the right thing, or being clever enough to survive the deprivations and tragedies. I read it as a comfort, confident that these horrors would not happen again. As a grown-up, I read it in the full knowledge that humanity's depths are never fully plumbed. People never get tired of cheap tricks for power, of diminishing another's humanity in order to reinforce one's own worth, of sowing chaos for pleasure. And while I also know that there will also always be beacons of humanity's light, people willing to take risks both big and small to help others, who will always reinforce another's humanity, the weight of the former knowledge is heavy.
What I like about this narrative is that it shows not only what happened during the Holocaust, but simultaneously tells of the contemporary relationship between father and son. In this context, the two timelines are somewhat reassuring: the Reader knows that Vladek will not die because he is here before us, telling his son his story. But he still has to pass through the horrors. The back-and-forth has the added benefit of showing the Reader what happens to history: how much is forgotten or lost. Art listens to his father's story, but also hungers to hear what his mother's experience would have been like. In our current time, as Holocaust survivors are lost to old age, this lesson of history hits hard.
By depicting each person as an animal, Spiegelman offers the tiniest distance between the Reader and reality. The book comes across as fantasy, to a degree, with the cats chasing the mice and the dogs coming in later to fight the cats. But the underlying tale is stark and depressing, and despite the cute animal faces, every piece of tragedy is clearly communicated. There is no mistaking the pain and suffering, even on a mouse face.
What strikes me as I'm reading this now is how lucky Vladek was. There's no questioning his intelligence and competence, but over and over and over and over again, he is saved by pure chance. A gun pointed at his head, only to have his name recognized; running into a person by chance on the street who can hide Vladek and Anja; even his bad luck ends not in immediate death but in imprisonment. In the United States, where rugged individualism and personal accomplishment is so highly prized, there's no doubt many readers who will hear Vladek's tale and think, "how clever, no wonder he survived." But there's absolutely no doubt reading his words that his sharpness only got him so far, and pure luck combined with the help of others also carried him through.
In the end, this is a highly accessible story of the beginnings of the Holocaust, as well as a clear-eyed story about the relationship between an aging father and his son.
Note: reference to depression and suicide, and Holocaust violence including executions and child abuse.
What I like about this narrative is that it shows not only what happened during the Holocaust, but simultaneously tells of the contemporary relationship between father and son. In this context, the two timelines are somewhat reassuring: the Reader knows that Vladek will not die because he is here before us, telling his son his story. But he still has to pass through the horrors. The back-and-forth has the added benefit of showing the Reader what happens to history: how much is forgotten or lost. Art listens to his father's story, but also hungers to hear what his mother's experience would have been like. In our current time, as Holocaust survivors are lost to old age, this lesson of history hits hard.
By depicting each person as an animal, Spiegelman offers the tiniest distance between the Reader and reality. The book comes across as fantasy, to a degree, with the cats chasing the mice and the dogs coming in later to fight the cats. But the underlying tale is stark and depressing, and despite the cute animal faces, every piece of tragedy is clearly communicated. There is no mistaking the pain and suffering, even on a mouse face.
What strikes me as I'm reading this now is how lucky Vladek was. There's no questioning his intelligence and competence, but over and over and over and over again, he is saved by pure chance. A gun pointed at his head, only to have his name recognized; running into a person by chance on the street who can hide Vladek and Anja; even his bad luck ends not in immediate death but in imprisonment. In the United States, where rugged individualism and personal accomplishment is so highly prized, there's no doubt many readers who will hear Vladek's tale and think, "how clever, no wonder he survived." But there's absolutely no doubt reading his words that his sharpness only got him so far, and pure luck combined with the help of others also carried him through.
In the end, this is a highly accessible story of the beginnings of the Holocaust, as well as a clear-eyed story about the relationship between an aging father and his son.
Note: reference to depression and suicide, and Holocaust violence including executions and child abuse.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Violence
Moderate: Mental illness