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on November 17, 2016
I am going to preface this review by saying that I have a general disdain for graphic novels. There was a time that I would never elect to read one of my own volition. That all changed when I was assigned Maus for an English class. Upon hearing that our syllabus included a graphic novel, I groaned in tacit protest. I read both volumes of Maus cover to cover before the assigned completion date, and was very moved by the story, which is about a son trying to understand his Holocaust-survivor father. There are no images of humans in this book--the Jews are portrayed as mice, the Nazis as cats, and the Poles as pigs. The protagonist has always felt a void between he and his father, but develops some understanding and compassion as he begins interviewing him about his experiences in the Holocaust. In terms of Holocaust literature, I would deem this a "must-read".
TOP 1000 REVIEWERAUTHORon October 28, 2014
I don't think I can add much that has not already been written in innumerable books, articles, journals, blogs, and anywhere that discusses literature and, specifically, graphic novels. This one may not appeal to the strictly comic book crowd seeking the Supermans, Avengers, etc., genre. This, of course, is nothing like those. This is a work of literature that (amazingly for a graphic novel) won the Pulitzer Prize. It's a must have for any serious graphic novel fan and I can recommend (and have recommended) it to my friends who aren't at all into comics, but are serious literature buffs. The social commentary and other aspects of this work must be read and seen to be appreciated, and I don't think my best efforts at providing an analysis here, in such a short space, would add anything of real value - I will leave that to the serious critics of literature and students of the graphic novel. What I can say is this: Maus left a permanent and valuable impression on me, even in the first reading many years ago. And it continues to do so today.
on December 14, 2016
Maus is a graphic novel - that is, a novel done in cartoons, written by the son of a Holocaust survivor. It won the Pulitzer Prize in 1992. My husband and I had never read this book - never even known about it. It was quite a discovery! We bought the two book set, which proved to be a fine one. If I could afford to do so, I would send a free copy to every denier of the Holocaust. Amazon, please advertise this book more widely. There is an old and a new generation out there who need to read it!
on March 24, 2017
I like that this book is hardcover. Pages are nice and stiff. The story itself is great. Definitely would recomend this version because it combined maus I and II into one bound book. Note: this is a graphic novel--the drawings are well done.
on March 21, 2013
The Holocaust was the systematic mass murder of over six million Jewish human beings led by the Adolph Hitler and the Nazi Party during World War II. At first glance you would be astonished at how it would be possible for someone to write a comic-like story on such an atrocity that has haunted and forever changed the lives of so many people since WWII. The very idea of Art Spiegelman writing such a thing offended me. That was of course until I read the book and realized how wrong my assumptions are. At the commence of the graphic novel Maus it is apparent that Art and his father, Vladek, do not carry a healthy relationship. The strain in the family plays a major role throughout the novel because of Art's little to none understanding of what his father has gone through and why he is the way that he is. Even though the main cause of the sour relationship between the two are due to the character that Vladek has retained from his time during WWII, there are times where you feel bad for Vladek because of Art's actions towards him. Unlike many other pieces of work depicting the Holocaust, Maus gives the reader a first-hand account of Vladek's experience and how he and his family managed to survive. The use of comics is definitely beneficial to the reader in this graphic novel. The images that go side by side with the text help us get a better understanding of what it is that is occurring during the explanation of Vladek's experiences. With the use of the images we are constantly reminded of the struggles that the Jews faced. In the initial pages of the novel, we are introduced to the idea of Jews being represented as mice while the Germans were depicted as cats as well as a couple of other groups of people being represented as other farm animals. We are often times presented with drawings of mice using masks which gave us a visual representation of the struggle of Jews trying to pass of as Polish individuals. The use of these metaphors in the drawings helps us achieve a better understanding of how people were seen at that time. We usually think of as cats superior to mice and that is exactly what the author wanted us to visualize when he portrayed human beings as different types of animals. One of the things that stood out to me most was how the author was able to have a balance throughout the novel that included not only what took place in his father's past but also what was occurring during the time of the novels writing. With Art doing this often during the novel we are able to visualize and understand how the decisions Vladek has made in the past for a family still have an impact on the decisions he makes in his everyday life.
on March 3, 2016
I read parts of this book for school and I decided that I had to purchase it. The artwork is wonderful and the author's story really helps me to understand. There is one box that really hit home for me. It was when he wrote that the thought people need a bigger holocaust. I felt like I agreed, do we really need that to be able to understand the horrors that happened to all of those innocent people?
on December 8, 2014
MAUS is an amazing work Spiegelman tells the all-too-common story of the Holocaust, starting with the victims' complete disbelief that such a thing could happen, through the horrors, and on into the distance and guilt felt by the descendants of the survivors.
Of course this seems like a far too serious subject for a graphic novel. However, somehow the author manages to convey the grief, the desire for life, and the horrors in a completely believable way.
I highly recommend this to anyone who thinks that the subject is just too heavy to learn about. While MAUS is hardly a painless read, it's a good introduction to the complex issues involved in Holocaust survivors' lives and families.
Of course this seems like a far too serious subject for a graphic novel. However, somehow the author manages to convey the grief, the desire for life, and the horrors in a completely believable way.
I highly recommend this to anyone who thinks that the subject is just too heavy to learn about. While MAUS is hardly a painless read, it's a good introduction to the complex issues involved in Holocaust survivors' lives and families.
on March 5, 2016
I read this book in about 8 accumulated hours. I was sucked in, I couldn't put it down. I laughed, I reflected, and yes at one time I put it down, thought of my own kids and cried. This book should be part of school curriculum for younger students. I've read many Holocaust books including the heavy hitters (Levi) and this is definitely one of the very best and certainly the most unique. My children are 5 and <1, when they are a little older I will use this book to teach them about the Holocaust.
on November 5, 2011
"Maus" confirms many of the personal stories I have been hearing for nearly 40 years, not from Polish Jews, but from surviving former French resistance fighters denounced, deported and imprisoned at one or another of the 27 different camps maintained by the Nazis. The cartoon animal heads/masks drive home added depths to the tale and ironically underline an aspect that does not cease to amaze me: the children of these men and women who sacrificed so much are largely indifferent to the experience of their parents, unlike Spigelman's alter-ego character, whose hunger to know is so sharply felt and communicated, equal only to the physical hunger of the prisoners themselves. As a member of an association seeking to perpetuate the memory of what happened during those years to the grandchildren--and great-grandchildren--of the former prisoners, I am most pleased to see the "Complete Maus" republished as a whole and am looking forward to "Meta Mouse," announced for publication in France in January. As an educator, I believe that the cartoon format speaks more to the younger generations than direct testimony from those in the front lines, most of whom have long since died or lost their will/capacity to communicate. And like the father in "Maus," few of these survivors ever spontaneously spoke much of their experience to their children except when pushed. For me, Art Spiegelman has captured the essence of the inhumanity inflicted upon the victims to the point they were reluctant to tell their tales. Self-censure, if you will. But those tales must be told and retold, lest we all forget and pay the supreme price for our negligence.
