The Complete Maus : A Survivor's Tale

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Summary: Cool book
Review: This is a great novel (even though it is presented in a comic book format). It is a great work of aoutobiography as well as a respectable tribute to the author's father. You truly get to understand what it was like to be a Jew in Poland. Likewise it gives you a decent view of what the non-Jews in that country faced at that time; they became victims as well as victimizers. Some of them were torn between helping other human beings who were at no fault and saving their own lives. Though some readers seem to find the depiction of the Poles as pigs this should be viewed in no disrespectful manner as we see that many of them are just as human as the protagonists (besides the depiction of non-Jews as pigs may simply mean non-kosher). In general the story is moving, funny at some points, and very original in its design.

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Summary: A Very Good Way To Look at The Holocaust
Review: I loved Maus I. And after it was over, I was just not satisfied with the end so I went out and read the second one as well. I love reading things about the Holocaust and real life stories of what people went through. I remember reading It is like the film "Schindlers List." Both in wich as great as well as Maus. You really feel like you get to know the charecters and what they are and did go through. I recomend this to everyone!

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Summary: A Modern Allegory
Review: A veteran of the underground comic scene in the 1970s and a more recently a cover artist for the New Yorker, in the late 80s, Art Spiegelman undertook a project of interviewing his father Vladek, a Polish Jew who survived the holocaust in Auschwitz. He turned the narrative into an allegorical, graphical representation of the ordeal, in which Europe is a menagerie of humans behaving at our raw, animalistic worst, and perhaps best as well. Umberto Eco claimed that "Maus is a book that cannot be put down, truly, even to sleep." This was certainly true for me when I read it. Perhaps the only 'comic book' (as inappropriate as that term may be here) to win a Pulitzer Prize, Maus is gripping and compelling. Some have criticized it for relating simply a story which was no more remarkable than millions of others. Can anything different be said, however, of Night, or The Diary of Anne Frank? Does that make it any less important that the story be told? And yet, in Spiegelman's cat and mouse play, where moral virtues, failings, and decrepitude are writ large, Maus is also exceptional because of the strength of its allegory, which is almost Spenserian in its strength.

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Summary: READ THIS BOOK!
Review: This is a really good book because I enjoy cartooning, and the book was done almost like you are in the action. There are no complaints that I have about Book 1, but Book 2 was sometimes a little violent, and I did not like the the sudden death at the end. Other than that, the books are perfect and the cartooning is good.

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Summary: A greatly intriguing story of life in the Holocaust.
Review: As soon as you open the somewhat childish-looking book, you will be unable to put it down! The story Artie conveys through his realistic comics is both exciting and real. The book "Maus," by Art Spiegelman, tells two stories in one; the life of Vladek and Anja during the Holocaust, and Artie's trying relationship with his father. The trying relationship between Vladek and his second wife Mala is consistent throughout the novel, as is Artie's up and down relationship with his father. The details in every comic truly show how life was for the Polish Jews during the Holocaust. Spiegelman's metaphor is perfect: the Jews are mice and the Nazis are cats.

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Summary: Maus was excellent, but not touching.
Review: The story line of Maus was a good idea. It follows the relationship of a son a father, growing up in two different worlds: pre- and post-WWII. It also follows the struggles of a Nazi persecution. I liked the format (comix) and layout. It was really aesthetically appealing and much more effective than just reading the dialogue. However, it was not AFFECTIVE. I was not that moved, emotionally. I don't find a deep sense of understanding of the whole movement. I only understand what I've already known. I was searching for a deeper emotional and mental level from Vladek, the survivor, as that is the greatest struggle to overcome. But I liked to watch all the emotional dips and turns that Art takes with his father. The ending is the best. It really changed the image of his father, which was built throughout the whole book as the poor victim. I recommend this book a lot, but more for history buffs who are more interested in the events than the sense level.

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Summary: Interesting and compelling story of the Holocaust
Review: This story is an interesting way of expressing the occurences in the holocaust. Instead of boreing text to read through the story is set up as a comic strip. The content is very easy to read, while the concepts are very serious. It is very easy to follow the story of Vladek and his troubles through the time of the Holocaust. I recomend this book to anyone who is interested in the Holocaust. I was able to understand to an extent of how hard it was to suffer through the Holocaust. I enjoyed this book very much

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Summary: Good art and a good story makes a good book.
Review: I recently finished reading the books Maus I: A Survivor's Tale, and Maus II: And Here My Troubles Began. I thought they were both fantastic books. The only thing I didn't really understand about the books is why there were two smaller books and not just one bigger book. The first book really doesn't feel like it ends with any sort of closure. If there were no second book the reader would be left feeling like they were cheated by getting into such a great story and not getting the chance to hear how the story ends. I strongly recommend that if you are going to read the first book you go ahead and get the second book at the same time. Because they are very fast reads and when you finish reading that first book you aren't going to want to wait any longer to hear how the story comes to an end. Spiegelman does a wonderful job of portraying the characters through his symbolism. He portrays the Jews as mice and the Nazis as cats. Then to keep the chain going as the war is ending and the American soldiers are taking over Germany they are portrayed as dogs. If there is one problem I had with Spiegelman's choice of symbolism it would be the fact that it wasn't just Nazis that were portrayed as cats, it was all Germans. This makes a kind of silent accusation that all Germans were and are against the Jews. Obviously that is a false and unfair accusation, if I had been drawing the book I would have made the Nazis cats and the Germans some other animals. Perhaps the German soldiers and citizens who did not agree with what was happening, but pretended to go along with it anyway for their own safety, could be portrayed as the German animal wearing a cat mask. Either way it wouldn't be fair to accuse Spiegelman of accusing all Germans, past and present, of hating Jews. There's a great chance that he intended nothing like that to be taken. He did a great job illustrating and writing a fantastic book. The characters were portrayed very well, I had no trouble feeling like I knew the characters and believing everything that was said and done in the book. My interpretation of his writing would be that Artie's father Vladek was a very open and arrogant man. He lived through a lot of terrible experiences and felt that the entire world owed him more than just sympathy for what he had to go through. Vladek had not trouble talking about the holocaust because he enjoyed shocking people and bringing horror to their faces because he was a survivor and proud of it. Every time he needed something or wanted something he would tell stories of the holocaust. There is a part in Maus II where he tries to return half eaten groceries and returns to the car to inform Artie and his wife Francoise that the manager exchanged the groceries for him after he told him about how his wife left him and how the camps were. It thought it was sad that with everything Vladek had lived through he didn't want to put the past behind him, he wanted the past right there in his pocket so he could whip it out and use it as a defense against anyone who didn't do what he wanted them to do.

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Summary: it was okay
Review: it wasnt as neat as i thought it would b

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Summary: a better book without the holocaust.
Review: this is a good book, regardless of the fact that Art Spiegelman is a jerk. The actual story of Maus is quite unoriginal, and tells us things about the Holocaust we hear in school and everywhere else the Holocaust is mentioned, but what puts it above other works is the fact that it's a comic book with mice and cats. The best parts of Maus are the parts where he's not telling the story of the Holocaust...where he tells the story of his impossible relationship with his father (who successfully tries to bring back half-eaten groceries) and also in Part II where he discusses the success of Part I and how it drives him insane. I will always remember the picture of him wearing a mouse mask, sitting at a drawing table on top of a heap of dead Jews (Mice).