The Complete MAUS
A profound exploration of survival and family legacy
Format:Paperback
Publisher:Penguin Books Ltd
Published:2nd Oct '03
Should be back in stock very soon
This graphic novel tells the story of Vladek Spiegelman, a Holocaust survivor, and his son, Art, as they navigate their complex relationship.
In The Complete MAUS, Art Spiegelman masterfully intertwines the harrowing tale of his father, Vladek Spiegelman, a Jewish survivor of the Holocaust, with his own experiences as a son grappling with his father's past. The narrative is both poignant and complex, as it delves into the emotional landscape of their relationship, marked by the weight of history and personal trauma. Art uses the unique medium of graphic novels to portray the stark realities of life during World War II, employing anthropomorphic characters—Jews as mice and Nazis as cats—to create a visceral representation of the Holocaust's horrors.
The story unfolds through Vladek's recollections, offering a firsthand account of survival amidst unimaginable adversity. As Art listens to his father's stories, he confronts not only the legacy of trauma but also the challenges of understanding and connecting with a parent who has endured so much. The juxtaposition of their lives—Vladek's past and Art's present—highlights the generational impact of trauma and the struggle for reconciliation.
The Complete MAUS is celebrated as the first graphic novel to win the Pulitzer Prize, a testament to its profound storytelling and artistic innovation. It is not merely a recounting of events but a deep exploration of memory, guilt, and the complexities of familial love, making it a seminal work in both literature and the graphic novel genre.
The first masterpiece in comic book history * New Yorker *
One of the clichés about the Holocaust is that you can't imagine it - Spiegelman disproves this theory * Independent *
A brutally moving work of art * Boston Globe *
In the tradition of Aesop and Orwell, it serves to shock and impart powerful resonance to a well-documented subject. The artwork is so accomplished, forceful and moving * TimeOut *
Spiegelman has turned the exuberant fantasy of comics inside out by giving us the most incredible fantasy in comics' history: something that actually occurred. Maus is terrifying not for its brutality, but for its tenderness and guilt * New Yorker *
An epic story told in tiny pictures * New York Times *
The most affecting and successful narrative ever done about the Holocaust * Wall Street Journal *
Maus is a book that cannot be put down, truly, even to sleep...when you finish Maus, you are unhappy to have left that magical world and long for the sequel that will return you to it -- Umberto Eco
A remarkable feat of documentary detail and novelistic vividness...an unfolding literary event * New York Times Book Review *
The Pulitzer Prize-winning Maus tells the story of Vladek Spiegelman, a Jewish survivor of Hitler's Europe, and his son, a cartoonist coming to terms with his father's story. Maus approaches the unspeakable through the diminutive. Its form, the cartoon (the Nazis are cats, the Jews mice), shocks us out of any lingering sense of familiarity and succeeds in 'drawing us closer to the bleak heart of the Holocaust' * New York Times *
ISBN: 9780141014081
Dimensions: 232mm x 161mm x 24mm
Weight: 692g
296 pages