MAUS: A Survivor's Tale

 

Maus is essential. While Writer/Artist Art Spiegelman may not have the same notoriety as the Frank Millers and Alan Moores of the industry, his intimate account of his Father's experience during the Holocaust is arguably more important than anything that those two titans have written. What's that? Watchmen made Time Magazine's Top 100 Novels in 2005? Maus bagged the Pulitzer in '92.

It is utterly essential.

The complete Maus is a compilation of two volumes, 'My Father Bleeds History' and 'And Here My Troubles Began' and charts first Vladek Spiegelman's time at the beginning of the war, dodging the Reich, and then the devastating account of the time he spent in Auschwitz. His tale is a story within a story with each chapter bookended by present day Vladek recounting his story to his increasingly horrified son.

You're unlikely to have read anything quite like this. It's dark, bleak, miserable and completely relentless. If you When you read it, try to experience it in one sitting but be sure to set aside a good hour after to recover. It's Vladek's disarmingly frank recounting of events that makes his experience so difficult to stomach. We are used to hearing about the holocaust through stories. True stories yes, but never as bare and exposed as this. To hear the holocaust retold in such an anecdotal fashion, and to read Vladek's words verbatim (Spiegelman used transcripts of his recorded interviews with his father) humanises the Holocaust in devastating fashion. 

Reading a book sub-titled 'A Survivor's Tale' you would imagine some light at the end of the tunnel but it never really lets up. Yes Vladek survived the Holocaust but, his journey followed him home. The damage was already done. Spiegelman makes no attempt to paint his father as an Oskar Schindler, Vladek's priority was himself and his wife and as the War raged on and their plight worsened Vladek had to make some awful decisions. He was a good man but his experiences hardened him, making him a stubborn and difficult individual is his later years. Present day Vladek's strained relationship with his second wife breaks the tension with some humour but after a while that "take my wife, please" comedy only highlights how socially detached and isolated Vladek became.

While the historical portions of Maus takes Vladek's view point, the present day bookends follow Spiegelman himself as he tries to make sense of his Father's ordeal. As much a part of the audience as the reader he acts as our stand in, vocalising our horror. You can sense the catharsis as he takes in Vladek's story. Obviously he knew Vladek was a Holocaust survivor but here he truly understands what happened to him and it helps him rebuild his relationship with his Father. It's fascinating seeing an artist/author experiencing something so personal while trying to write the very book you're reading. Mid way through Maus it begins to take it's toll and Spiegelman even questions whether he should finish it. That personal connection as he agonises over the book elevates Maus even further.

As a Graphic Novel, Spiegelman's book is as perfect an example as you can get of how to use illustration to enhance the story. Perhaps more so than any other, Maus could only work as well as it does in the Graphic medium.

Using animals (mice as Jews, cats as Nazis, pigs as Poles) to portray the various ethnicities and nationalities is a striking image decision and as you read the story that it's relevance becomes clear. Running far deeper than the obvious cat and mouse metaphor Spiegelman uses the animals to highlight the absurdity of what happened during those dark years. Spiegelman himself has said that the metaphor self destructs and that that was his intention. It's about exposing the idiocy and futility of racial segregation and persecution.

It's also about identity. In the book, when Vladek attempts to move around the Polish town of Sosnowiec, he literally places a pig mask over his face to pass as a Pole and hide the fact he is a Jew. It's a small detail but one that speaks volumes and emphasises how much these people lost even from the beginning. Not just their homes and belongings but their identity. That idea of identity reaches even further. Later in the book we see a prisoner in the camps pleading with the guards, insisting he is a German. His face changes from mouse to cat then back again as the guards decide what to do with him, further illustrating the absolute insanity.

You might assume that the animals lessen the impact of the holocaust and soften the barrage of emotional blows but it's far from true. Spiegelman's characters are presented as animals but they are very human, their suffering very real, and it's none more apparent than when Vladek is finally brought to Auschwitz.

There is imagery here that will never, ever be filmed. We were taught about the gas chambers and burnings in school but it's the smaller accounts of cruelty that will chill you. The horror (and there really is no other word to describe it) isn't held back. Spiegelman illustrates the camps as Vladek describes. A picture paints a thousand words but by marrying both (his pictures, his father's words) he presents an Auschwitz that is as nothing less than hell on earth. Maus doesn't hold your hand through Vladek's misery, it takes you by the back of the neck and forces you to examine and experience the nightmare that was Auschwitz. For that and countless other reasons it is an absolute masterpiece.

It's easy to fall head first into that kind of hyperbole with a book like Maus. Any account of the Holocaust packs a punch before a page is read but that familiarity is a double edged sword. That period in our history is so infamous and so well documented that we've become desensitised to it. We've seen the films and studied the history books. We think we know what happened during the Holocaust, but while we may be able to imagine what happened, we will never understand it. Maus maybe the closest thing you will get to actually spending an afternoon with a survivor. Spending it with Vladek Spiegelman is an extraordinary experience and it's what makes the book so important, so essential. With Maus, Art Spiegelman didn't reinvent a superhero or deconstruct a genre. He gave us his Father.