Author: Art Speigelman
Genre: graphic novel, history, biography
After being recently introduced to the amazing experience of
reading graphic novels with ‘Logicomix’, I was looking for new ones to read. ‘Maus’
caught my attention for two things- one that it was based on the holocaust and
second that it had won a Pulitzer prize. Maus means mouse in German, which is
how the Jews are depicted in the book.
It is the story of the author’s father, a Polish Jew. It
starts out with how he met the author’s mother during the pre-war period, then
portrays his days as a soldier in the second world war, his family’s many attempts
at escaping the Nazis and finally ends with his days in the Auschwitz
concentration camp. Interestingly, all the characters are animals, the Jews are
mice, Germans are cats, Poles are pigs and the Americans are dogs. This in no
way undermines the human experience of it all though. The choice of animals
themselves is also quite interesting.
In addition to this
story of survival, the book also shows the not so simple relationship between
the author and his father and the former’s trepidation about sharing something
so personal with the public. The entire books runs as a narration of the story by the author’s
father. Along with the past, we get glimpses of the present, which includes the
author’s meetings with his father to get information for the book. In a way, it
shows us how those horrors end up scaring the people for the rest of their
lives. The author has also honestly talked about his own concerns about
effectively conveying the story as a graphic novel.
Because of the way it is narrated, it makes the story even more real. One realises
that people like us went through horrors that one doesn’t even experience in
ones worst nightmares. Through beautiful illustrations, the sufferings of the
people are brought to the reader’s attention. I myself was sceptical about a
graphical representation of the holocaust but I must say that the book managed
to overwhelm me many times.
It is a truly incredible piece and I think, one of the best
stories about the holocaust that I have read so far.
Comments
Post a Comment