Maus: A Survivor's Tale [Paperback]

Art Spiegelman (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 2003

Combined for the first time here are Maus I: A Survivor's Tale and Maus II - the complete story of Vladek Spiegelman and his wife, living and surviving in Hitler's Europe. By addressing the horror of the Holocaust through cartoons, the author captures the everyday reality of fear and is able to explore the guilt, relief and extraordinary sensation of survival - and how the children of survivors are in their own way affected by the trials of their parents. A contemporary classic of immeasurable significance.

Editorial Reviews

Review

“A loving documentary and brutal fable, a mix of compassion and stoicism [that] sums up the experience of the Holocaust with as much power and as little pretension as any other work I can think of.”
–The New Republic

“A quiet triumph, moving and simple–impossible to describe accurately, and impossible to achieve in any medium but comics.”
–The Washington Post

“Spiegelman has turned the exuberant fantasy of comics inside out by giving us the most incredible fantasy in comics’ history: something that actually occurred…. The central relationship is not that of cat and mouse, but that of Art and Vladek. Maus is terrifying not for its brutality, but for its tenderness and guilt.”
–The New Yorker

“All too infrequently, a book comes along that’s as daring as it is acclaimed. Art Spiegelman’s Maus is just such a book.”
–Esquire

“An epic story told in tiny pictures.”
–The New York Times

“A remarkable work, awesome in its conception and execution… at one and the same time a novel, a documentary, a memoir, and a comic book. Brilliant, just brilliant.”
–Jules Feffer --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

About the Author

Art Spiegelman is a contributing editor and artist for the New Yorker. His drawings and prints have been exhibited in museums and galleries around the world. He won the Pulitzer Prize for Maus, and a Guggenheim fellowship. It was also nominated for the National Book Critics Award. He lives in New York.

Product Details

• Paperback: 296 pages
• Publisher: Penguin Books, Limited (UK) (October 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0141014083
• ISBN-13: 978-0141014081
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.3 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (95 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #243,739 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

84 of 87 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Hardcover Includes Parts I and II, February 10, 2010

By 

Jay Bee - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Complete Maus: A Survivor's Tale (Hardcover)

Browsing through the reviews and comments about Maus, I saw that there was some question as to whether the hardcover edition comprised Parts I and II. This is understandable because the product is listed in Amazon as "The Complete Maus: A Survivor's Tale (No 1)," which seems contradictory.

When I was considering purchasing it, I looked at the number of pages that were listed for the edition and guessed that it included both parts of the story. So I bought it, it arrived fine, and I am now writing to confirm that yes, this edition includes I and II.

Amazon should look into this and remove the "(No 1)" from the listing's title.

71 of 84 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant, Tremendous, April 4, 2003

By 

doomsdayer520 (Pennsylvania) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)   

This review is from: The Complete Maus: A Survivor's Tale (Hardcover)

The title of this review consists of words I don't use too often. But this is a masterpiece that deserved its Pulitzer Prize and then some. What makes Spiegelman's work so moving is the juxtaposition of a supposedly lighthearted form, the comic strip, with the greatest evil and suffering in human history, the Holocaust. Spiegelman's parents miraculously survived the concentration camps, being among very few survivors, getting by on luck and (in the case of Spiegelman's father) a lot of resourcefulness. This is their story, from the point of view of the father, who lost nearly all of his relatives. With the Jews as mice and the Nazis as cats, this work pulls no punches in describing the true horrors of the Holocaust, and Spiegelman's minimalist artwork makes the images all the more disturbing. You don't get this kind of emotion, terror, and brutal honesty in standard written accounts of the period. But underneath the direct suffering of the Holocaust, the true theme of this book is the lasting effects on the Spiegelman family, including the father's lasting agony and the mental illness shared by both Spiegelman's mother and himself, who hadn't even been born yet. The strained relationship between father and son are the true heart of this tremendous work. I haven't been this blown away by a work of literature in a very long time, if ever.

13 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A worthwhile read, but..., February 16, 2007

By 

Sheetal Bahl (New Delhi, India) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Maus: A Survivor's Tale (Paperback)

I haven't read many graphic novels, but I am decently well-read otherwise, and my knowledge of the Holocaust would be above the average person's, but not phenomenal. Given that background, and all that I had read about Maus, I was expecting a "tour de force" that would make at least a minor dent on my reading career. That, unfortunately, was not to be, and while I finished the book feeling that the time spent on it was definitely well spent, the book is already fading in my memory.

Maus tells the tale of an artist who decides to write a comic book based on his Father's recount of the Holocaust, which, in fact, is what the author is doing based on his own Father's experiences. The book spans about 4 decades from the mid-thirties to the seventies, covering the pre-WWII period to the time when the author is actually exploring the past with his Father and writing this book. There are two stories intertwined marvelously in this book: a first-hand survivor's experience of life before, during, and after the Holocaust, and that of a relationship between an ageing Father and young-to-middle aged son who have a serious disconnect.

The two stories could actually have been written independently, but it is their excellent juxtaposition which is one of the clear highlights of the book, for it has a multiplier affect on the poignancy of both the Father's and the Son's situations. Each of the stories themselves is well crafted, managing to weave together a bunch of incidents across points in time to create a very smoothly flowing narrative. I was particularly impressed by the telling of the Father-Son relationship, for it manages to pick and show very small events which we know can cumulatively build up to create tremendous long-term frustration, but are almost never able to remember, or recount effectively, or demonstrate the impact of, either to ourselves or to others. Art picks his moments beautifully, and even though the setting is completely different, I felt that I could completely empathize with him (as I am sure my Parents would be able to with his Father!)

The recount of the Holocaust had less of an impact on me, possibly because I was familiar enough with the nature of the incidents, if not a particular man's plight. The exploration of the atrocities was done in a very straight-forward, linear, and almost journalistic fashion (which is somewhat understandable given Art's leanings.) Consequently, while it was still somewhat horrific to revisit these heinous crime scenes, the impact was diminished as there was nothing different in the story. As a contrast, think of the film "Life is Beautiful", and you'll understand how a difference in the storyline or presentation style can significantly enhance the poignancy and impact even when lesser time is spent on the war crimes themselves.

The artwork in the book is average, although it does have it moments of brilliance. The most impactful choice of course is that of portraying people from different nationalities in different and appropriate animal forms e.g. Jews as mice and Germans as cats.

Overall, I would definitely recommend reading the book, but with a lowered set of expectations than one would normally develop upon reading the reams of extreme praise that have been showered upon this book. Keep that in mind, and I am quite confident you will find the book a very worthwhile reading experience.