Maus

I went into Maus by Art Spiegelman expecting a complete masterpiece, and though I did enjoy it throughly, I wasn't blown away.  I think what's most interesting about Maus is that it joins something that's typically thought to be lighthearted, the comic book(graphic novel), with a story of pure evil, the holocaust, and makes it work almost perfectly.  The first half of Maus was interesting and kept me reading, though there were a few dry spells, but the entire second half of the book from Auschwitz and beyond kept me thoroughly entertained without question.

The story is without a doubt the reason one would read Maus.  The story is broken up into 2 stories really, one the father's and the second, the author's own story as he's gathering the actual info in order to write the book.  I feel like the seamless play between the 2 stories is a clear highlight of this novel.  Both stories are incredibly well-written and interesting on their own accord and Spiegelman is able to weave them both together to create one smooth flowing narrative that entertains the reader through out the novel. I found the use of foreshadowing to be pretty interesting how for instance the author's father is revealed to have died, but it continues to show their in-person conversations and then finally reverting to the rest of the novel being created through tape recording. Not only is each part well written, but I think there are quite a few pages that really inspire the reader and give them a reason to reflect upon life, like this one:

This page really shows both the determination of humans to live and what gives them this strength, and at the same time human's total dependency on others.

Spiegelman is absolutely an awesome story teller that much is for sure, but I can't say the same for his art which is far too crude for my tastes and I often found myself not knowing which character was which.  This could probably be attributed to the fact that the characters were depicted as animals based on there nationality, giving them all a much more similar look than that of humans.  I'm not saying that I didn't find this an interesting and unique decision, but I think it came off as more of a novelty in my eyes, rather than an innovation.  I say this because not only did I have trouble distinguishing characters half the time, but other than some specific cases of extreme emotion, the characters showed hardly any, which really made some of the scenes lack the feeling and emotion I think the reader would get with more realistic human expression.  This kind of makes me question Spiegelman's reasoning behind the use of animals and the only conclusion I can come to is the need to simplify and still give it that comic book feel.

Overall I found Maus to be an enjoyable experience, not my favorite graphic novel by any means but definitely time well spent, and pretty educational for someone that isn't well versed in the history of the Holocaust.

...And here's a final panel to give you nightmares for the rest of your life: