A review by oldtoadwoman
The Complete Maus, by Art Spiegelman
challenging
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
5.0
I read this in the midst of it getting banned in schools, so that was in the back of my head as I read. I think this book should definitely be taught in a larger context (historical, discussions of Vladek's own overt racism, sensitivity to how students will react to suicide and murder, etc), but I also think there is a built-in age limit because of the difficult vocabulary and grammar. (You can almost hear Vladek's Polish accent in the syntax of how his dialogue is written.) I don't think there is any danger of a very small child picking up this "comic book" and being accidentally scandalized by naked mice. The true horror of this story is the historical reality, which everyone needs to learn eventually.
At first, I didn't understand why the author chose to make the Jewish characters mice, but... it would have honestly been too horrible with people. The author also clearly acknowledges that the mice aren't really mice. There's a clever meta discussion at one point, where he and his wife debate whether he should draw her as a mouse (Jewish) or a frog (French) since she is a convert. (She is depicted as a mouse even as they have the conversation of which she should be.) It also underscores the racial lines that were perceived at the time. The Polish are depicted as pigs and the Germans as cats and the French as frogs, but the Jews are always depicted as mice regardless of nationality.
The principal character, the author/artist's father Vladek, is not a likeable person at all. I appreciate that Spiegelman didn't try to gloss over this or make excuses for him. (More than once, he points out that other Holocaust survivors that he knew growing up did not share all of Vladek's unpleasant quirks and thus it cannot be solely blamed on trauma.)
This is not a light read at all. It's a book about the Holocaust. There is no happy ending. But it's a good book and I recommend that you read it if you can.
At first, I didn't understand why the author chose to make the Jewish characters mice, but... it would have honestly been too horrible with people. The author also clearly acknowledges that the mice aren't really mice. There's a clever meta discussion at one point, where he and his wife debate whether he should draw her as a mouse (Jewish) or a frog (French) since she is a convert. (She is depicted as a mouse even as they have the conversation of which she should be.) It also underscores the racial lines that were perceived at the time. The Polish are depicted as pigs and the Germans as cats and the French as frogs, but the Jews are always depicted as mice regardless of nationality.
The principal character, the author/artist's father Vladek, is not a likeable person at all. I appreciate that Spiegelman didn't try to gloss over this or make excuses for him. (More than once, he points out that other Holocaust survivors that he knew growing up did not share all of Vladek's unpleasant quirks and thus it cannot be solely blamed on trauma.)
This is not a light read at all. It's a book about the Holocaust. There is no happy ending. But it's a good book and I recommend that you read it if you can.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Racism, Antisemitism, Death, Murder, Torture, and Violence
Moderate: Child death, Suicide, and Child abuse
Minor: Blood and Cursing