Bookish Thoughts

The second half of Art Spiegelman's  Maus , a comic book about his father's experiences was a Polish Jew during WWII and the lasting effect they've had, mostly concerns itself with Aushwitz. All told Spiegelman's father, Vladek, spent just under a year in the prison camp Aushwitz. He worked various jobs, including as a tinsmith and fixing shoes, trying to stay one step ahead of the ovens. Throughout this he was doing his best to bribe guards, both to secure enough food for himself, and to do whatever he could to keep his wife alive. This story is juxtaposed against the present day, where Vladek has become a stingy man with failing health and serious marital problems with his second wife. Art's tumultuous relationship with his father is the real core of this book. He struggles to understand his father and how he came to be the man he is. He worries about portraying him in a negative light, but also wants to stick to the truth as he understands it. This is a reall...

I first read Maus back in high school (or college? I must have been college, because I'd borrowed the books from a friend and ended up having to mail them back to her) and I've been wanting to revisit it ever since. It is, in some ways, yet another holocaust book. But there's enough of a unique perspective here to make it an important addition to that specific genre. This is the story of Art Spiegelman coming to terms with his father's experienceas a Polish Jew during WWII, with the loss of his mother, and with the strained relationship between his father and his father's second wife. The framing of the story portrays a series of interviews between Art and his father, where he struggles to get the story chronologically, while also struggling with how to present the story. He's particularly concerned with the fact that his father embodies the stereotype of miserly Jew, and he doesn't want to give the fire any more fuel. By addressing it head o...