Book Review: Maus — Art Spiegelman
Maus is a graphic novel written and illustrated by cartoonist Art Spiegelman. Serialized between 1980 and 1991, the two-part novel traces the journey of Vladek Spiegelman, a father and Holocaust survivor. Through a series of personal interviews, facilitated by his son Art, Vladek recalls his journey of survival though a chronological series of anecdotes. Throughout the novel, Art consistently alternates between narrative past and present while conducting interviews with his father. His illustrations depict humans as animals: the Jews as mice, the Nazis as cats, and the Poles as pigs. Between Maus I: A Survivor’s Tale and Maus II: And Here My Troubles Began, the interviews take place in several locations, including Vladek’s home in Rego Park, a Cabin in the Catskills, and a LaGuardia hospital room. Ultimately, the stories allow Art Spiegelman to create an illustrated work that encompasses several genres, themes, and interpretations, which provide a particularly in-depth exploration of an individual’ s pursuit to survive in excruciating conditions.
Art Spiegelman, or Artie as his father refers to him, is a published writer and cartoonist who is working on his next illustrated piece. His previous work, Prisoner on the Hell Planet, portrays a personal account of his mother’s suicide, and the emotional damage it caused for both himself, and his father. His father has since been regretfully remarried to a woman named Mala, and lives in Rego Park, New York with lingering anxieties of his past. Though their relationship is rather distant, Art becomes intrigued by the unheard stories of his father’s Holocaust experience, and decides to make them the focus of his next cartoon. Art decides to visit his father on multiple occasions, and through several interviews, creates a piece that demonstrates his father’s survival instincts, emotional intelligence, and dedication to his family during the Holocaust.
Maus I: A Survivor’s Tale, primarily focuses on the stories of Vladek Spiegelman’s current relationship with his new wife, and his life before the traumatic events of the Holocaust. Specifically, Vladek describes his relationship with his first wife, Anja, and their life together in Europe before being sent away to concentration camps. Vladek begins by recounting his life leading up to World War II, and the Holocaust. As a young man in Poland, he meets Anja Zylberberg, who Vladek immediately fell in love with, and married. The couple lived a wealthy and comfortable life in Sosnowiec, Poland, with their son and family. But then, the Nazi invasion began. Soon, the Nazis began to move the Jews of Sosnowiec back and forth from their homes and various ghettos. To keep their young child safe from being sent away to concentration camps, Vladek and Anja send their son Richieu away with an aunt, but unfortunately, they never see him again. After sending away their son, Vladek and Anja spend their time on the run, moving from one place to the next in search of safety. In an attempt to find permanent asylum, they board a train to Hungary, which unfortunately ends up being a Gestapo trap to capture Jews. The couple is immediately arrested, and taken to separate concentration camps.
In Maus II: And Here My Troubles Began, Art becomes anxious about the overwhelming attention part I of Maus received with his psychiatrist, Pavel, a Holocaust survivor. Despite Pavel warning about the dangers of telling Holocaust stories, Art decides to continue conversations with his father at a cabin in the Catskills. In these interviews, Vladek begins to get into the details of his Holocaust experience, describing encounters with starvation, abuse, and anxiety. Though the circumstances of his father’s stay in Auschwitz were horrifying, Vladek consistently displayed a sense of resourcefulness and perseverance. Throughout his stay, Vladek provides several specialized services, craftsmanship, charm, and a diversity of languages, which allowed him to avoid be selected for execution. As he negotiated his way around the camp, he relayed messages, and physically reunited with his wife Anja on several occasions. Though they were physically separate throughout their time in camps, Vladek described that emotionally, they were always with each other, and provided a sense of hope for them to live. As the war progressed, German forces began to face opposition, causing prisoners like Vladek to be marched from Auschwitz, to empty train cars within the Reich. Though he was no longer at the camp, he continued to face dire circumstances, including overcrowding, and typhus, a disease carried by lice. Finally, the war ends, and Holocaust survivors are freed, which allowed Vladek and Anja to reunite. This is the final piece of his experience that Vladek shares with his son Art at the end of Part II.
Art Spiegelman’s Maus, while written and illustrated in a seemingly innocent and simple format, captures the complexities of human nature through the stories of a single character. The images, dialogue, photographs, and narrative style Spiegelman provides not only expression of experience through illustration, but a refusal to accept the simplification and generalization of the Holocaust experience.
