MAUS review

So for the comic reading, I decided to read the whole 2 volumes of Maus. It is a true story of a Jewish people  named Vladek who survive the endless nightmare during the Nazi reign. The author and the artist of this book is none other than Vladek’s son, Art Spiegelman, a cartoonist who was born after the world war 2.

The whole book told about the Art’s journey of interviewing his dad past life during the Nazi regime. While he is interviewing his dad, he also tell his own journey while he is interviewing which makes this book really interesting because not only we get to see the horrible tragedy that Vladek had to endure, we also get to see another story from Art’s point of view of his dad who had a bad remarriage with a woman named Mala, who is also another German Nazi survivor. It is interesting because these two stories really what makes this books feels personal  as we get to see both Vladek and Art’s feeling about the situation.

While I was reading the comic, it got me thinking on how can I survived if I was in this position. When I was reading Vlade’s journey, I can’t really imagine how much suffering that he has gone through. However, what makes me really admiring him is how strong he can be during this time. I bet it would traumatized him for life but, he found the strong will to live and with his wits and abundant skills, he could passed by many trials. *spoilers alert* Even when the hope seemed lost, when he was brought into the concentration camp where  Vladek heard that when you were brought into the camp, it is basically a game over for you. However, I find it interesting on how what he learned throughout his life become really useful skill to survive in the harsh environment. It got me thinking about myself on what have I done until now that might be useful in the future. Of course I’m choosing the major that I am interested in but aside from that, is there anything else that is useful.  After reading this, it made me think over my life and got me thinking on what kind of skills can I do to survived.

What really interesting in this comic is also the portrayal of each race or ethnicity with an animal. For Jewish, it’s a mouse. I guess it is to represent that they are the victim here while the German are portrayed as cats, which we know that cat like to hunt mouse and here, the author makes it apparent so that the reader know what is happening and can be sympathize the Jewish people who lived during Nazi reign.  But what really intrigue me is how the artist portrayed polish as a pig. And in one of the story he said that the polish is a capitalist or some sort. So I guess the polish are portrayed as a capitalist pig?? I don’t really know how to react with that.

Other than that., I really like the style that the artist used to draw this comic.  It is very stylized, simple, and clear. Even with the thick line, I can still read it easily. Even the words are not that much which makes it easier to enjoy the drawing and following the stories. However, i was quite surprised when i realized that this book is considered to be a graphic novel. with all of the consistent panel and serious tone, i always treat it as comic. I did not expect this to be graphic novel other than the sophisticated story telling. I mean, i we compared to Craig Thompson's approach for graphic novel, He make sure that the panel itself is an art, even for the sound effect was drawn in a way that it doesnt really distract us from the object, but instead enhance it. however, in Maus, the sound effect was drawn in  a way that it is similar to comics in my opinion. I guess, this is what makes graphic novels different than the comics, i guess it is because the use of language in Maus seems more matured than the one that i always read in comics.

Reading Maus has been a wonderful experience. I always wanted to read this but I didn’t get a chance to. I know the context because my friend recommended this book to me a few years ago. It’s just that I didn’t have time and interest back then because all I care about back then was reading Japanese comic. Now, after being exposed to the world comics and graphic novels, I tried to give this a go and so far, I did not regret it. these books is a wonderful read, it made it easy to learned about the history during the Nazi Reign, maybe not that detailed but I got a better understanding on what is happening.