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A review by steveatwaywords
Maus: A Survivor's Tale. My Father Bleeds History by Art Spiegelman
dark
emotional
informative
sad
tense
fast-paced
4.75
What can I add to Maus which has not already been said? Long on my TBR list, the recent nonsense around its censorship (and Spiegelman's excellent retorts) simply moved it to the top.
As many have said, if I have any criticism it is in the work's brevity. It is the nature of the memoir and the storytelling of his father, perhaps, that the waiting, the agonies, and the uncertainties are glossed over with a few waves of the verbal hand. This is part of the realism of the telling, and I embrace it. At the same time, there is more to know. At its best, for any who may not easily have found access to this vital history (for whatever reason), Maus succeeds, with enough of the smaller details (the attitudes of the Poles and many of the Jews, of the younger Jewish generations (narrator included) and of the privileged who hope to buy their way out of the horrors before the) to demand readers find more.
The Holocaust and surrounding environs are too easily found on the glib lips of politicians wishing to score hyperbolic points these days. Maus, when it is permitted to be read, might ground us again.
As many have said, if I have any criticism it is in the work's brevity. It is the nature of the memoir and the storytelling of his father, perhaps, that the waiting, the agonies, and the uncertainties are glossed over with a few waves of the verbal hand. This is part of the realism of the telling, and I embrace it. At the same time, there is more to know. At its best, for any who may not easily have found access to this vital history (for whatever reason), Maus succeeds, with enough of the smaller details (the attitudes of the Poles and many of the Jews, of the younger Jewish generations (narrator included) and of the privileged who hope to buy their way out of the horrors before the) to demand readers find more.
The Holocaust and surrounding environs are too easily found on the glib lips of politicians wishing to score hyperbolic points these days. Maus, when it is permitted to be read, might ground us again.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Death, Violence, and Child death