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A review by santreads
The Complete Maus by Art Spiegelman
5.0
There have been many accounts of the holocaust by now. The atrocities that were waged upon humanity were uncalled for and...I actually have no words for them.
I’ve had Maus on my shelf for a long period now and I kept eyeing it never to pick it up. However, with words like ‘Fascism’ and ‘Nazi’ being echoed in the air and my streets, I thought there will never be a better time.
Maus is a graphic novel in two parts and it’s autobiographical. Art Spiegelmen puts his conversations with his Jewish Polish father in the comic strips. His father tells him about his time in Poland, how he fell in love with his mother and how they endured the Nazi rule till they landed up in Auschwitz and where they went from there. It’s a story of survival with no frills. It’s just what it was.
All this with sprinkles of real life conversations that they were having. For example, his father is narrating something about Auschwitz and suddenly he starts screaming at Art for using a matchstick to light his cigarette or when he’s talking about hiding from the Gestapo but they reach the bank so they pause the story there. It felt like I was there and amidst all the tragedy, I couldn’t help but smile at the father-son dynamic. There were certain moments where it hit so close to home for me and I’m sure it did for a lot more people.
The interesting part about this graphic novel is the fact that the characters are depicted as animals - with the Jews being mice and the Nazis as cats. I haven’t done my research to know exactly why this was so but to me, perhaps, the author thought that depicting them as animals would show that a) at that time it really was a time where they all behaved like animals and b) because it personified their lives - Jews trying to be eradicated, having to go underground, put into cages and fed poison? I don’t know. But it makes sense.
Overall, this was a quick read which made me gasp, cry and smile. Definitely recommended.
I’ve had Maus on my shelf for a long period now and I kept eyeing it never to pick it up. However, with words like ‘Fascism’ and ‘Nazi’ being echoed in the air and my streets, I thought there will never be a better time.
Maus is a graphic novel in two parts and it’s autobiographical. Art Spiegelmen puts his conversations with his Jewish Polish father in the comic strips. His father tells him about his time in Poland, how he fell in love with his mother and how they endured the Nazi rule till they landed up in Auschwitz and where they went from there. It’s a story of survival with no frills. It’s just what it was.
All this with sprinkles of real life conversations that they were having. For example, his father is narrating something about Auschwitz and suddenly he starts screaming at Art for using a matchstick to light his cigarette or when he’s talking about hiding from the Gestapo but they reach the bank so they pause the story there. It felt like I was there and amidst all the tragedy, I couldn’t help but smile at the father-son dynamic. There were certain moments where it hit so close to home for me and I’m sure it did for a lot more people.
The interesting part about this graphic novel is the fact that the characters are depicted as animals - with the Jews being mice and the Nazis as cats. I haven’t done my research to know exactly why this was so but to me, perhaps, the author thought that depicting them as animals would show that a) at that time it really was a time where they all behaved like animals and b) because it personified their lives - Jews trying to be eradicated, having to go underground, put into cages and fed poison? I don’t know. But it makes sense.
Overall, this was a quick read which made me gasp, cry and smile. Definitely recommended.