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Summary: Takes comics to a whole new level
Review: This book is a comic book, and it won the Pulitzer Prize. "Why? How?" It won for a reason: it is a fresh account of the much discussed World War II Holocaust, told from a single (real) person's point of view. The main character (Art Spiegelman's father) is Jewish, and so is represented by a mouse. Nazis are cats. The mouse (barely) survives a sentence in a concentration camp. The fact that the book is in comic format with personified animals allows you to absorb the story and it's gruesome details quickly and painlessly until you understand the magnitude and reality of it. Then you are overwhelmed, and the book explodes into powerful work of human experience.
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Summary: A Stunning Visual Masteriece
Review: As the old phrase goes, a picture is worth a thousand words, and no book better shows that than Maus. I have read several books focusing on the Holocaust, and none better describes it than this. Yet Maus is not to be classified simply as a chronicle of WWII; it brilliantly portrays other matters as well, such as paranoia and suicide. Though it is captured in just a few pictures, the scene where Vladek is fighting for Poland is the best portrayal of the guilt and instinct associated with war I have ever seen. Whether you like comic strips or not, this is a book to have on your shelf.
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Summary: You read too much into A.S.'s choice of animals
Review: The most common complaint against this book is the choice of pigs for the Christian Poles. Rather than analyze the book for its merits, these people jump to a rash, emotional decision based on illusions about pigs. Why do pigs eat slop? Because that's what the farmers feed them. Why do pigs cover themselves in mud? To keep cool, just like the hippopotamous and elephant and any number of larger mammals. Speigelman simply needed a common animal divorced of any relationship with cats and mice. No dogs, no rodents, and to keep scale, no large mammals like horses or bears.
The other problem people have is with historical inaccuracies or a lack of scope. But this is not a history of the Holocaust, it's the story of one man. This, though, is one of the most moving Holocaust stories I've read, not because of the emotion of the events itself, but because of the interaction between survivor and son. It's the psychology of Vladek that makes this a compelling story. I constantly felt angry at both Vladek and Art for their insensitivities to others, but at the same time, I understood how their circumstances led to their personalities.
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Summary: Lackluster... doesn't compare to other works.
Review: While I don't consider myslef an "expert" on literature from the Holocaust or about the Holocaust, I have read far more than my fair share. My very favorite is "The Hiding Place" by Corrie ten Boom. I have also personally visited places such as Ravensbrück, Anne Franks's house, and Corrie ten Boom's house, not to mention numerous different Holocaust museums around the world.Spiegelman's work just doesn't compare. Perhaps it's a good piece for those who can't handle the "heavier" stuff and the real horrors of that time. But I think that everyone should be forced to face this. Maybe Maus can be a beginning. Otherwise, the work seems to water down the situation. Spiegelman portrays things as they really were, but then he jumps so fast to something else that the reader forgets. The work is uninspiring. I also do not find the form of a graphic novel to be as brillant as others. Again, maybe this is a good beginning for some. If anything, this is a good look at how survivors of the Holocaust endured a personal hell long after the war was over.
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Summary: Enganging and Impossible to Put Down
Review: I have always loved comic books, but never before have I ever read anything like Maus. Even people who do not enjoy comics should read this book, simply for how emotional it is. I think the mere fact that it is illistrated makes it all the most powerful. The symbols within the book are striking, and make you think just as much as any novel or classic would. I wish Mr.Spiegelman would publish more books like this one - or someone of the same caliber would come out with more books like these. Many say that comic books are for those who are unintelligent, that it isn't 'real' reading. I tell you, they have not read Maus yet.
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Summary: Fantastic concept, writing and drawing!
Review: Normally, I'm not much for "graphic novels" nor for this particular subject matter. I just sort of picked it up and started to read it and could not put it down. This is the most imaginative, thought provoking intensely personal take on the Holocaust I have ever encountered. Just the choice of characters Spiegelman chose was so perfect. Cats as the Germans, Pigs as the Poles, Dogs as Americans and so on which may seem politically incorrect, but if you are at all familiar with the history of WWII these representations are right on the money. Very worthwile for all young and old, valuable lessons in history.
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Summary: A Diffrent Look at an actual survivors tale
Review: When I recieved the Maus I and II books for an assigned reading in my comparitive religions class I thought it was going to be a ridiculous book to observe a survivor tale. But once I got into the first two pages i couldnt put it down, a look at the life of a son who is a writter and his disfunctional family makes the book easy to relate to and touches your heart as his elderly father who is the survivor reminices about the past and his time as a Jewish citizin escaping, hiding and eventually being caught by the SS Soldiers. An easy reading book that will tell a diffrent story in a twisted way.
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Summary: No Doubt What Schweine Means
Review: Perhaps Spiegelman's choice of pigs to represent Poles is innocent. However, there is not doubt what the Germans meant when they used the epithet "Schweine" (swine) for the subjugated Poles. To the extent that Spiegelman is copying the Germans' vocabulary, he is taking part in their mentality. If, however, the choice of pigs is meant to imply that the Poles were well-fed, then this is an utter travesty of history. Fact is that, while Poles were better off than the Jews, it was not by much. The Poles under German occupation had very little to eat compared with the French, Belgians, etc., under German occupation. And, by showing Poles killing Jews who returned for their property, he is distorting events by depicting something as normal that happened to perhaps several hundred Jews out of some 200,000 who likewise came to reclaim their property without incident. In addition, Spiegelman fails to mention that large numbers of Jews were collaborating with the much-hated newly-installed Soviet Communist puppet government, and that is the reason why some Poles resorted to killing Jews. In any case, the anti-Polish slant of this comic, no less so than that of much educational Holocaust material, is rather obvious.
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Summary: Cats mice pigs dogs frogs
Review: Maus draws you in because it is so genuinely personal. Spiegelman's comic is told by Spiegelman himself, who wants to write a comic book about his father, Vladek, who survived the Holocaust. Vladek's story is told by himself through Spiegelman. This allows for the narrative to go outside of the Holocaust, and into the author's life, his difficulty in dealing Vladek, his guilt for his mother's suicide, and the impossible task of trying to comprehend what his parents struggled through. This is a deeply engrossing book, and because it is in comic form, few people should find it difficult to read. Both volumes can easily be read in a day or two and it should be rewarding and worth your time.
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Summary: Explanation of the Animal Portrayals
Review: As a history and literature major, I wrote my senior thesis on Maus and Maus II because, after reading them for a class, I couldn't stop thinking about them. The imagery, both drawn and implied, was masterful. Each panel tells the story of the Holocaust as SOMEONE REMEMBERS IT. Spiegelman took his father's story and graphically interpreted it in an incredibly moving way. He did not write a work of historical fact (for whatever those books are worth anyway - even history is a work of memory and interpretation). I love these graphic novels for what they are - brilliant literature and testimony. I was looking over some of these reviews of Maus because I am going to see Spiegelman speak this weekend and just wanted to know what others had said in the past. I was disheartened to read some of the negative responses to the use of animal caricatures, especially since I have always felt this was the most ingenius part of the works. Looking at these reviews, though, I remembered an interview with Spiegelman I read a while back. He explains the animal caricatures a bit, and I thought it might be beneficial to place a quote here, in this forum. Published in The Comics Journal, October 1991: Spiegelman says of the animal portrayals, "These images are not my images. I borrowed them from the Germans. At a certain point I wanted to go to Poland, and I had to get a visa. I put in my application, and then I got a call from the consul. He said 'the Polish attache wants to speak with you.' And I knew what he wanted to talk to me about. On the way over there, I tried to figure out what I was going to say to him. 'I wanted to draw noble stallions, but I don't do horses very well?' When I got there, he gave me the perfect opening. He said, 'You know, the Nazis called us schwein' (German for pig). And I said, 'Yes, and they called us vermin (German for mouse or rat).' Ultimately, what the book is about is the commonality of human beings. It's crazy to divide things down the nationalistic or racial or religious lines. And that's the whole point, isn't it? These metaphors, which are meant to self-destruct in my book - and I think they do self-destruct - still have a residual force that allows them to work as metaphors, and still get people worked up over them." I guess he's right. People do get worked up over the metaphors. Too bad some of those people can't understand them. If you haven't read Maus, you are missing a true piece of art.
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