The Complete Maus: A Survivor's Tale | 
 enlarge | Author: Art Spiegelman
Publisher: Pantheon
Category: Book
List Price: $35.00
Buy New: $20.10
You Save: $14.90 (43%)
New (34) Used (28) Collectible (7) from $15.73
Avg. Customer Rating:  191 reviews
Sales Rank: 6080
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 296
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.8
Dimensions (in): 9.2 x 6.4 x 1.1
ISBN: 0679406417
Dewey Decimal Number: 741.5973
EAN: 9780679406419
ASIN: 0679406417
Publication Date: November 19, 1996
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
At last! Here is the definitive edition of the book acclaimed as “the most affecting and successful narrative ever done about the Holocaust” (Wall Street Journal) and “the first masterpiece in comic book history” (The New Yorker). It now appears as it was originally envisioned by the author: The Complete Maus.
It is 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” (The New York Times).
Maus is a haunting tale within a tale. Vladek’s harrowing story of survival is woven into the author’s account of his tortured relationship with his aging father. Against the backdrop of guilt brought by survival, they stage a normal life of small arguments and unhappy visits. This astonishing retelling of our century’s grisliest news is a story of survival, not only of Vladek but of the children who survive even the survivors. Maus studies the bloody pawprints of history and tracks its meaning for all of us.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 186 more reviews...
 READ NEW GRAPIC, BUT TRUE/PRESENT HISTORY: "PALESTINE," BY JOE SACCO. A CURRENT EVENT October 9, 2008
0 out of 3 found this review helpful
maus is dated and still very upsetting, to people who really understand it bigoted and hurtful intent.
Don't waste time anymore, and read about what is going on right now - today! If you like the comic book form, then read and order PALESTINE, by JOE SACCO. It is about the present and ongoing -today, right now as you read this review - killing and murders of helpless and homeless Palestinian families. Although in graphic/comic form, there is 'nothing' funny about it. But if that genre motivates you to read, then you will learn a ton in an interesting way, especially the way Sacco has brilliantly portrayed it.
Unlike maus, PALESTINE tells a true and objective story about something horrible happening right NOW, not a horribly bigoted and confused version of what, might of happened 80 years ago!?
PALESTINE by JOE SACCO, is done with superior artistry and writing. It
makes maus look like, well a maus.
Many a student comes away reading maus and say: "Why would anyone depict the Jews as RATS, as Goebbels did. Spiegelman's bigotry is clear,i.e., he catagorizes people as certain animals, as Goebbels made jews the rats. A RACIST concept in and of itself.
What does maus achieve? The answer is easy: compounded ANTI-SEMITISM. These kinds of hate writings against Poles and Germans always backfire in the face of Jews like spiegleman - ALWAYS! Was Spiegelman expecting 200 million Poles and germans to rave about being mocked - NO. Will maus help healing between future generations - ABSOLUTELY NOT!
Poles deserved none of Spiegelmans mockery and got the most. Polish students today go home sick to their stomachs while being subjected to this torture by cruel and insensitive teachers: WHO-DON'T-GET-IT!. EVERY POLE ON THIS EARTH IS RELATED TO SOMEONE WHO WAS BRUTALIZED AND KILLED BY THE GERMANS - EVERY POLISH CATHOLIC. Five, 5 million Polish Catholics were slaughtered by thr Germans. Auschwitz' first 2 year only murdered Polish Catholic school children, teachers, professors, nuns and priests - NO JEWS. THE POLISH CHILDREN WERE TAKEN FROM SCHOOL, AND THOUGHT THEY WERE GOING ON AN OUTING - SKIPPING ALONG - NOT KNOWING THE GERMAN DEATH AND TORTURE THAT AWAITED THEM.
Fortunately, maus is being banned more than ever and most credible bookstores refuse to sell this hurtful bigotry. I thank them for getting it.
PALESTINE BY JOE SACCO, you'll read it in one sitting. PALESTINE is about TODAY. It is a general overview of truth, about an event that is effecting our image and safety in America. Perhaps spigelman should tell his Jewish spere of influence to stop murdering helpless Palestinians today. READ PALESTINE!
 Graphic literature at its best October 8, 2008
The Complete Maus: A Survivor's Tale collects both volumes of Art Spiegelman's Pulitzer Prize winning graphic novel. The complete collection is how the book called the "first masterpiece in comic book history" is meant to be appreciated. A haunting piece of work, this story is part autobiography, part family history, and part personal and historical reflection on the Holocaust. This tale relates the effect the Holocaust had on the persons who survived it as well as their descendants.
Maus tells the story of Vladek Spiegelman, the author's father, who survived the Holocaust in Poland and how his son, the cartoonist, comes to terms with his father and his tale. This is a paramount example of how the graphic form can be used more effectively to accessibly capture a horrific story. In Maus, the various persons and groups are drawn as anthropomorphic animals (the Jews are mice, the Nazi's cats, etc.) which gives the story an almost fairy tale quality, but by no means detracts from the story's haunting poignance. In some ways, the fairy tale is more painful in the fact that it all really did happen. Vladek's tale of survival, told slowly over the course of the almost 300 page novel, is layered with the author's own story of father as he knew him and his own personal feelings of guilt. Despite the use of animals as characters, the human qualities of these characters shines through and creates a tale that will linger with you long after you've finished the last page.
If you have never read a graphic novel, dismissing them as "comic book stories for kids," you owe it to yourself to read this book and to see the scope of what graphic fiction is able to accomplish. Likewise, if you are a fan of graphic novels, you owe it to yourself to read this book as it remains one of the greatest graphic novels of all time.
Yes. September 7, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I went to a exhibition on the history of comics a couple of years ago. They had all kinds, from Little Nemo to Jack Kirby, and many things in between. One of the things featured was several pages from Art Speigelman's Maus. I was so intrigued by what I saw that I had to buy it off Amazon, and I have not regretted it. Don't be fooled by Speigelman's seemingly simplistic black and white work. His storytelling is powerful stuff, I tell you.
For any who doubt what graphic fiction can do, this is the revelation. August 23, 2008
The Holocaust hangs over western society in the second half of the twentieth century. One man said that poetry was impossible after Auschwitz, but great artists in numerous mediums have dedicated themselves ot proving this wrong. The great crime has provided a great canvas for stories of humanity in the face of evil, such as Steven Spielberg's film "Schindler's List". "Maus" is the comics world's prime entry in this difficult field of literature. Writer and artist Art Spiegelman brings us the story of his father (and mother, by times), two Polish Jews who narrowly survived the war. Having already chosen to tell his story in the form of a comic, a medium often looked down upon as inherently childish by those who don't know any better, he further chooses to cast his characters as anthropomorphic animal, in the manner of an animal fable.
This choice has attracted some controversy (on display in many of the reviews on this site), in some cases because they believe it trivializes the subject-matter (to which I would say "Animal Farm"), or, more commonly, because they take issue with the seeming racialist use of different animals for different nationalities (Jews are mice, regardless of nationality, other Poles are pigs; Germans cats, the French frogs, Americans dogs, etc.). Spiegelman actually discusses the implications of the latter thing within the narrative, which includes an extensive b-story set in the then-present (from the 70s to the 80s), following Art, his wife Francoise, and his elderly father as Art writes "Maus". Francoise is a French Christian who converted to Judaism, and wonders what animal she should be cast as (he chooses a mouse, for the record). Spiegelman never casts all of one group as behaving the same way.
"Maus" reminds me a bit of Paul Verhoeven's "Black Book" in its depiction of wartime Europe's complexity, including the now-uncomfortable degree of collaboration or prejudice found in the occupied countries. Vladek and Anja encounter everything but solidarity with their fellow Poles on the journey through the war; fellow Jews rat them out to the Nazis, others require payment to help Jews avoid death, something that Art expresses amazement at, but Vladek seems to see as very reasonable. Spiegelman doesn't paint his father as a saint, indeed, expressing concern that his father comes across as a stereotypical miserly Jew; at one point, Vladek is shown to be strongly racist against blacks, again to Art and Francoise's amazement. The animal characterizations are never binding; for all Spiegelman's concern over France's history of anti-Semitism, the one French frog we see is an amiable fellow-inimate of Vladek's; even among the German cats we find a Polish Jew married to a German woman, the product of this union being peculiar cat/mouse hybrids.
"Maus" is ultimately a very affecting, personal work from Art Spiegelman, and does a fantastic job of communicating the life story of his father. it is a shining example of what the graphic novel form is capable of achieving.
Brilliant August 21, 2008
Not to sound too cliche, but there really is no other way to describe Maus and brilliant. Using the medium of comic strips (often regarded as childish and immature) to tell a real life, adult tragedy impacts the reader in a different way from if it was just in print.
Do not dismiss this book as irrelevant because of the panels with pictures in them. A must read. However, I wouldn't recommend young children to read this very adult themed novel. Wait until they are a little older so they can fully (or even partially) understand the beauty and tragedy presented.
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