Book #14: Maus

Book #14: Maus by Art Spiegelman

March 1, 2013


Just so there's no confusion, I'll just point out that I read "The Complete" Maus, consisting of two parts that were originally published separately. It's one book that has been on my "to read" list, but I bumped it up because I will be teaching this book as part of a long-term sub assignment, starting sometime in April. The library (the small library annex in the mall was moved to a larger location nearby) didn't have a copy available, so I got it from the teacher I will be subbing for. Both parts took Art Spiegelman approximately 13 years to work on, from gathering the information (mainly through interviews with his father, which are depicted in the story) to drawing out each panel and writing it all out. It took me less than five hours to finish. As I went, I jotted down some vague notes to help me work out some lesson plans (I'm such a nerdy teacher, I seriously love making lesson plans, so I guess it's a good thing that I'll be in a consistent classroom for about six weeks), but that did not deter the pace of my reading. Plus, it was just difficult to put down.

So Maus is pretty famous, which is putting it quite lightly, I know. Maybe I just haven't been paying much attention, but I don't know that graphic novels, in general, have become really popular or legitimate until quite recently. There are other graphic novels on my "to-read" list, and I feel like they were published in the last ten years or so. Part one of the text, "My Father Bleeds History," was published in the late 70's or early 80's, Part two ("And Here My Troubles Began") coming out about a decade later. It won the Pulitzer Prize. I think it would be safe to say that this is an innovative text in the graphic novel genre.

Maus is a memoir of the author's father's experiences as a Jew in World War II, from the war lines to the ghettos to Auschwitz itself. But it is just as much a story about "Artie's" relationship with his father. Vladek Spiegelman is a difficult man to get along with. In his old age, he suffers from many health problems: very poor eyesight (one eye is glass), diabetes, and he often requires an oxygen tank. He has bad circulation. He takes many pills each day (which he obsessively counts out). And he's very moody. His wife Mala (another Holocaust survivor whom he married after Anja, Artie's mother who survived the war with him, committed suicide) can hardly stand him, even running off at one point to Florida, only to reunite (reluctantly) after Vladek follows her there and becomes ill. Artie frequently becomes exasperated with his father, especially when he asks him to do some sort of home repair project (Artie, an artist, always resisted doing those sorts of things around the house, afraid that his father was constantly judging him). And though Francoise, Artie's wife, tries to be patient with Vladek, she becomes irritated with him when he makes racist comments about a black hitchhiker whom she gives a ride to.

I'm fascinated by Vladek, and I really appreciate the fact that the author chose to include so much personal information about his father's later life, interwoven between his stories of the Holocaust. At one point in the book, a character (I can't remember who) makes a comment that there are already a lot of Holocaust stories out there. Certainly, there are, and some of them are definitely worth reading, but I don't feel like there's been so much about the life of survivors (and their children) after the Holocaust. Francoise hypothesizes that her father-in-law's behavior is due to trauma that he suffered in the concentration camps, and while Artie agrees with her to some extent, he also notes that he's met other survivors, friends of his parents, and they didn't seem to behave as he did. In the end, it doesn't seem like Artie is able to truly understand why his father acts and thinks the way that he does, but he does appreciate his experiences. See, he proves that by including all of that about their shaky relationship; if he'd just wanted to make his story about his father's experience in the Holocaust, he easily could have done that, and the book probably would have been just as successful. All of that information really shaped his parents as "characters"; they are real, and he portrayed them as such.

Well, except for the fact that all of the people were drawn as animals. It breaks down basically like this: the Jewish people were mice, the Germans cats, the Polish people were pigs, Americans are dogs, French people are frogs (ha! Love it!)...although he did make his wife a mouse instead of a frog, including in the story a scene of them arguing about the matter. When Vladek and Anja were trying to go incognito through the unfriendly Polish streets, they were portrayed as mice wearing pig masks. The only time in the story that the author breaks this is in one scene in Part II, when he is describing his feelings of being overwhelmed by the success of Part I. At one point, the characters were all people, but were wearing their respective animal masks (Artie, of course, a mouse).

I could speculate about why the author chose the animals that he did for each. It seems kind of obvious, I guess. The Germans as cats, the Jews as mice, because the Germans were ruthlessly going after them. The Polish people as pigs may seem harsh, but though Vladek and his father encountered a few friendly Poles, most of them were ready to betray Jewish people to the Germans. Americans as dogs, I guess because they came in and ended the war, rescuing many survivors (as has been portrayed in other Holocaust literature as well). French as frogs is obvious and hilarious. At one point as I was thinking about the distinctions, though, I wondered why the author would do this. I mean, aren't we all one people? But then, the Germans definitely didn't believe that; they classified and made distinctions between different "types" of people, different "species," if you will, and ranked them (cats at the top, mice at the bottom, of course). Oh, there's also a Gypsy character who is portrayed as some kind of bug, I think a butterfly or perhaps just a fly, I had a hard time telling. Butterflies would make sense, as they are beautiful, but would be hunted by cats. So Spiegelman's symbolism makes sense to me...plus, the mice just look so cute in their little clothes (although not throughout the entire book).

I would love to know more about Anja, the author's mother. He did as well; the mention of her diaries, kept after the war, is a motif in both parts. At first, his father (a hoarder of sorts) claims that he is unable to find them; then he says that he burned them up after his wife's suicide. Artie is furious, even calling his father a "murderer." Anja is a strong presence in Part I, but not so much in Part II, since she and her husband were separated at Auschwitz, and the story is following Vladek. In the story, Artie seems bitter that he cannot tell his mother's story as well...I wonder if that bitterness lasted?

Still, she is prominent in the first part. Her ongoing mental illness is clear even before the war started, with her collection of pills for her "nerves" and her post-partum breakdown after Richieu's birth (Artie's older brother, who did not survive the war; Artie was born after the war and grew up an only child) and her subsequent institutionalization. Then, of course, she committed suicide, more than two decades after surviving the war. One would think that she had already seen the worst of it, that life in America could only be a vast improvement. Well...since, of course, there's not much prominent literature out there about post-Holocaust life for survivors, people outside of the situation (myself included) don't understand that it's more complicated than that. I guess one might think that Anja, and others like her, suffered from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, but again, her mental illness goes back further. It seems too that Artie inherited this from her, as he at one point was institutionalized himself.

While the actual experiences that Vladek had in the concentration camps are not very much unlike other Holocaust stories that I have read, Spiegelman's drawings bring a new dimension to this portrayal. The details and depictions seem so genuine; it's clear that the author really took his time, made sure that he told the story through his father's eyes as much as possible. There's no more succinct way to put it: Maus is a masterpiece. It is both the story of the experiences of millions of people, and the story of one family. This book is essential; it's no wonder that it won the Pulitzer Prize.

Vladek Spiegelman, in a photo taken not long after the war. It is one of the few actual photographs in the text. He sent this to his wife Anja, having it taken at a souvenir stand. Kind of a dark souvenir, I think, but I also can't help but note that Vladek was a good-looking man. I mean, it's pointed out in the text that he was handsome, but damn.

I'm not sure if this was an alternative title page for the text by Spiegelman himself, or if it was fan-generated. The mice in the book aren't quite as long-faced, and their eyes are darker.