The Complete MAUS Paperback – Import, 24 November 2003
by Art Spiegelman (Author)
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2016 is the 30th anniversary of Maus - the million-selling, Pulitzer-winning, father-son memoir about the Holocaust
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'A quiet triumph, moving and simple - impossible to describe accurately, and impossible to achieve in any medium but comics' - Washington Post
Maus is the harrowing story of the author's parents, Vladek Spiegelman and his wife, living in Hitler's Europe, and then his father dealing with Art Spiegelman's questions as he explores this past - all drawn with cats and mice. Vividly detailing the unspeakable through the pictorial and diminutive,it blends tragedy and comedy by turns. Against a backdrop of history too large to pacify, Art Spiegelman brilliantly meditates upon the guilt, relief and extraordinary sensation of survival - and how the children of survivors are in their own way affected by the trials of their parents.
This is a contemporary classic of immeasurable significance.
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296 pages
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Review
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
A quiet triumph, moving and simple - impossible to describe accurately, and impossible to achieve in any medium but comics ― Washington Post
All too infrequently, a book comes along that' s as daring as it is acclaimed. Art Spiegelman's Maus is just such a book ― Esquire
A remarkable work, awesome in its conception and execution... at one and the same time a novel, a documentary, a memoir, and a comic book. Brilliant, just brilliant -- Jules Feiffer
Maus is a masterpiece, and it's in the nature of such things to generate mysteries, and pose more questions than they answer. But if the notion of a canon means anything, Maus is there at the heart of it. Like all great stories, it tells us more about ourselves than we could ever suspect -- Philip Pullman
Spiegelman's Maus changed comics forever. Comics now can be about anything -- Alison Bechdel
Reading [his work] has been an amazing lesson in storytelling ― Etgar Keret
It can be easy to forget how much of a game-changer Maus was. ― Washington Post
Book Description
2016 is the 30th anniversary of Maus - the million-selling, Pulitzer-winning, father-son memoir about the Holocaust
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Customer Reviews: 4.8 out of 5 stars 8,546 ratings
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Customer reviews
4.8 out of 5 stars
Top reviews from Australia
Iris Wu
5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating way to tell such story
Reviewed in Australia on 13 February 2022
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I’m up to Chapter 2 right now. The worst is yet to come but I always feel very heavy and my heart is in pain to keep up. It’s a interesting read and personal story to open a history like this is unique! Good way to not to repeat the tragic is to remember it. Don’t know why American ban this book from students. I also bought Rape of Nanking (the holocaust Japanese did to Chinese) I’m killing myself…
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Camilo
4.0 out of 5 stars it will always be a classic
Reviewed in Australia on 9 July 2021
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If you are starting to get into comics, you'll see this title everywhere. I can see how this could have been a great/ground breaking comic when it was first released. But if you are picking it up around 2019/2020 then it might not blow your mind as much as it did back then. There is a lot more material now that covers the horrible things that happened in Auschwitz so don't go into this book expecting something new. I'm only saying this from the point of view of someone getting into comics, I'm not ignoring the fact that this is a classic. Its like hearing Beethoven, you know its a classic and you appreciate its quality, but its not like you'll be playing it on the background at a house party.
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Amazon Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars This is a brilliant work well deserving to be on the reading list for everyone everywhere.
Reviewed in Australia on 17 May 2022
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The work itself is an extraordinary achievement and the hardcover edition is beautiful. It should be required reading for every High School student in the world and for every politician.
Unfortunately, our copy arrived with the back cover split and coming away from the rest of the book.
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Sonja
5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant!!!
Reviewed in Australia on 28 July 2019
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This is an amazing book. We are using it for year 10 English and I was blown away by the quality of the story.
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E. J. Lizier
5.0 out of 5 stars Deserving of each and every accolade it's received
Reviewed in Australia on 17 July 2020
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This is a truly exceptional work, on so many levels.
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Micky Bittoun
5.0 out of 5 stars Great Book for Young Adults and Mature Kids
Reviewed in Australia on 29 May 2019
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I loved this book as a kid, and its time for my son to read it.
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Cloggie Downunder
4.0 out of 5 stars a very talented graphic artist, telling an important story.
Reviewed in Australia on 25 February 2018
The Complete Maus is a Pulitzer Prize winning graphic novel by American editor and comics artist, Art Spiegelman. It is a memoir in comic form that documents recollections of the holocaust, as told by Spiegelman’s father, Polish Jew Władysław (Zeev/Wladek/Vladek) Spiegelman. The story itself is one that has been told countless times, but Spiegelman’s treatment of it makes it unique. As well as his father’s recollections, he illustrates the passing of the story between father and son, thus inserting himself (including his impatience and ingratitude) into the story.
Maus I (My Father Bleeds History) runs from mid-1930s to winter 1944 and details his parents’ courtship and their experience of the war, through the German occupation and being rounded up to live in the ghetto, up until they were taken to Auschwitz.
Maus II (And here my troubles began) is divided into five chapters and runs from winter 1944 until the immediate post-war period, with Artie’s history taking finishing with his father’s death. It covers his parents’ time in Auschwitz, displacement camps and their eventual reunion.
As with all graphic novels, it can be difficult to distinguish between characters, especially when most of them have the head of a mouse, and sometimes the speech balloons are so small that they make reading the dialogue a challenge, particularly for readers of a certain vintage. But it is immediately clear that a great deal of work has gone into this work, and Spiegelman is obviously a very talented graphic artist, telling an important story.
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Judy
5.0 out of 5 stars A power important graphic novel
Reviewed in the United States on 28 January 2022
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An amazing graphic novel. So powerful and an important teaching tool for children so they can learn history. The fact that school boards have banned this book in backwards states is horrifying.
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Ella @ The Story Collector
5.0 out of 5 stars Must-read
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 4 April 2019
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Containing both volumes 1 and 2 of Maus: A Survivor’s Tale, The Complete Maus tells the complete story of Vladek Spiegelman’s experience of surviving in Hitler’s Europe.
The first and most important thing to make note of is that this is a completely true story. It isn’t a piece of fiction based in the truth of Auschwitz, it is a true account of Art Spiegelman’s father’s life during World War II. It is a heavy and intense read, but completely incredible.
The second important thing you need to know about this book is that it is a graphic novel. It is masterfully drawn, with plenty of narration which makes it easy to read even if you’re not a regular graphic novel reader. The metaphorical representation of people is a massive part of this book. Jews are drawn as mice, Nazis as cats, the Allies as dogs, and Poles as pigs. This is an incredibly effective commentary on stereotypes, and highlights the absurdity of dividing people by nationality.
The brutal honesty about life as a Jew during the Nazi occupation is shocking and horrific, but truly, truly fascinating. On another level, the relationship between Art and Vladek is also explored, and it really shows how the children of survivors can be so affected by the experience of their parents.
Maus isn’t an easy or pleasant read by any means, but it is powerful and it’s essential. If you’re into graphic novels, you MUST read this book. If you’re into historical accounts and memoirs, you MUST read this book. If you read anything at all, you MUST read this book.
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Luke Foord
5.0 out of 5 stars Simply one of the most important pieces of media about the Holocaust
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 29 January 2022
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This was the first graphic novel I ever read when I was young, from a library. Years later it was the first graphic novel I ever bought.
I've got nothing to add that hasn't been said already but just do yourself a favour and read it.
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Rosemary Standeven
5.0 out of 5 stars Powerful graphic novel telling one man's struggle to survive the Holocaust
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 21 December 2018
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This was an excellent graphic novel that captures the fear, the barbaric cruelty and nihilism of the Holocaust more poignantly than many a text-only book could. The story is set half in present day USA where the main protagonist, Vladek Spiegelman, and his son, Art, are now living, and half in Poland and Germany from the mid 1930s to the end of WWII. Art wants to document the experiences of his parents before and during WWII, and painstakingly draws out his father’s memories.
There are no human faces in this book. The Jews are depicted as mice, the Nazis as cats, Poles as pigs, Americans as dogs etc.
There is a split perception of mice as animals. On one side they are portrayed in much of children’s literature are cute and non-threatening, and on the other as vermin to be exterminated. Above all, they are powerless in the presence of larger, more predatory animals (such as cats). Mice being slaughtered evokes sympathy in a way that the extermination of other ‘vermin’, such as rats, never could.
When the story begins, Vladek is a successful businessman in Poland, courting Anja. Slowly the rumours of anti-Jewish attacks by Nazis in Germany and Czechoslovakia reach them. At first it is seen as a problem elsewhere, but bit by bit, the danger that the Polish Jewish community is in becomes apparent – but it is too late. The story deals with the attempts at hiding and sending of children to supposedly safer places, and then the rounding up of the Jews and the deportations to Auschwitz. Vladek’s life in Auschwitz and then later in Dachau is told, along with the luck and ingenuity that enabled Vladek to stay alive, when so many around him perished.
Vladek is not a sympathetic character. While he may have physically survived the Holocaust, his personality has been forever damaged by his experiences. He is unable to have a close relationship with his son or his second wife. Instincts that enabled him to survive, form a barrier between himself and everyone around him. In some ways, his mind seems to have never left Dachau. Because of this, the trauma of the Holocaust lasts well beyond the 1940s, and impacts directly on the offspring – and further generations – of the survivors. Art wants to understand the difficult man who is his father, and writing/drawing this book is his way of doing that.
This is not a book to enjoy reading. It is an important witness account, that needs to be documented and read. The black and white drawings (colour only on the cover) underline the seriousness of the content and the desperation of the world at that time, and have a visceral impact on the reader.
I highly recommend this book – to everyone.
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Ashleigh @ A frolic through fiction
4.0 out of 5 stars Amazing
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 28 January 2017
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Originally posted on A Frolic Through Fiction
As someone who loves learning about history, I was always going to like this graphic memoir. And while I’m on a bid to introduce myself to more non fiction, a graphic memoir was the perfect way to start that.
So this is the story of Vladek Spiegelman, drawn through his son, Art Spiegelman. And that one point alone – how it was done – was the main crux of my enjoyment. Because it wasn’t just the story of war. Oh no. Instead of simply drawing what his father said, Art Spiegelman actually drew the entire process. He drew himself visiting his dad, coaxing him into telling more of his story. He drew what he was like in later life, a small snapshot into how all this affected him long-term. And through that, I found myself feeling like I was sat right in front of Vladek Spiegelman – him in a chair, myself cross legged on the floor – while he told his story. How a graphic memoir can do that, with so little words in comparison to novels, is beyond me. But I loved it.
And then we have the art. Completely black and white with quite a sketchy look, each page is packed with drawings. It can look a bit overwhelming at first, but I personally think it suits the story really well. There’s the metaphor too – the Nazis are drawn as cats, terrorising the mice (ding ding ding, we have the title: Maus). Such a simple way to explain things, in a time when things weren’t simple at all. Suitable for a graphic memoir though, since there’s not really much leverage in explaining who each person on the page is and which “side” they belong to.
I expected to get emotional. But… I didn’t. I have a feeling that’s partly to do with the fact it’s a graphic memoir, and not as much time is spent describing how horrendous everything is. But also because of Vladek Spiegelman himself. It’s his story, yet as he tells it, he doesn’t seem to reveal many emotions. He just…tells the story. Here are the facts. This is what happened.
Though I might have felt more had a bit more been revealed about Art Spiegelman’s mother. In the beginning, it’s mentioned that she committed suicide after the war, and while it does go into it a little bit, nothing about that is really explained. Granted, that may be because they don’t know much themselves. But still. She’s mentioned so often throughout the memoir – as you would expect – but she herself doesn’t seem to be in it much. I’d have liked to see more of her.
As hard as they try, books will never be able to portray these events accurately. Nothing will. There’s a nod to that even in this book. But with things like these, though I (luckily) may not be able to imagine such ongoing hunger, such heartbreak, the pain and suffering…I might be able to understand a bit more. I can read books like this and know that at least their story isn’t going untold. At least I’ll be here, remembering for them. And that is the least I can do.
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