"Maus: A Survivor's Tale" is a Holocaust memoir by Art Spiegelman. It won a special Pulitzer in 1992. I've read some graphic narratives by Alison Bechdel and Marjane Satrapi that I dearly loved, even though I'm not generally drawn to the graphic genre, and they both acknowledged a huge debt to Spiegelman as a mentor who tackled serious subject matter in comic book form. There's actually Maus I and Maus II, and I'm guessing that we'll want to read both.
12 comments:
I'm excited about this. Before I read "Fun Home" and "Persepolis," I wouldn't have thought I would like graphic novels. But apparently I do. This should be interesting.
I think the comic form really lends itself to memoirs.
Amy, I don't know whether you've read any of these, and my apologies if you've already read "Maus."
Erin, I found these bits interesting. The first is from an interview with Bechdel aand the second is from an interview with Satrapi.
BECHDEL: I couldn't have done anything without Maus either, of course. No one had addressed anything serious in comics before then.
When I was trying to come up with the format for the book, I said, I'll just make it the same size as Maus—so it's exactly the same size as Maus. And I also loved Spiegelman's chapters' divisions. That inspired my own chapter structure.
INTERVIEWER: It also strikes me that both Maus and Fun Home are at once a biography of a father and an autobiography.
BECHDEL: Yes, they're both self-aware about the process of examining your relationship with your father. Again, that's something so fundamentally influential that I don't even see it.
________
INTERVIEWER: I read once that you once apologized to Art Spiegelman for the fact that every graphic novel is now compared to Maus.
SATRAPI: Yes, if I were him, I would have hated me.
INTERVIEWER: Well, why is that? Do you think that constant comparison is more of a problem for Art Speigelman, or for other graphic novelists like yourself who might be a little bored of the comparison?
SATRAPI: No, it’s not a problem for me. Maus is a masterpiece. To be compared to Maus is nothing but a compliment. But for him that should be extremely tiring. If I was him I would have hated all these younger graphic novelists being compared to myself. So that is why I called him once, to tell him that none of this propaganda is being made by me, that it is other people who say this. He thought it was very charming. He invited me to his studio, and I met his wife and children, and we are friends.
Also, I was reading an online article about Satrapi today in lab as my students were finishing their exercise. A student saw the "Persepolis" cover on my computer screen and said, "That is the best book ever. You should read that. We had to read it for an English class and I was like why the heck are we reading a comic book, but it was soooooo good."
Hehe
By the way, I ordered the box set of "Maus" from Amazon, in paperback. You can get it used for $15 or so.
Oh, that's fabulous. Now I especially can't wait.
Should we start discussion Feb. 15? We can go earlier if everyone's finished.
That works for me.
Ooh, the UPS guy just delivered my box set! I want to unwrap it and dive in, but I have to finish this other thing first. Sigh.
I took a mind-blowing (as in permanent perspective altering) class in college on the Holocaust, part of my religious studies cirriculum. We read both Maus books as a part of the course, along with many other amazing texts on that historical period. But I don't seem to have the Maus books, I must have sold them at the end of the semester. That was dumb.
Any way it's been about 8 years, so I will *enjoy* reading them again.
Dude, maybe you send me a list of the three or four books you HAVEN'T read, and we'll work from that, OK?
Just kidding. Your having read everything under the sun is what makes you so damn awesome. That and having traveled the world. And being a preacher who strategically drops the f-bomb.
Um, I've never read a single Danielle Steele book.
You're in luck! My mom has every Danielle Steele book ever written!
now I see from where you inherited your literary acumen.
Post a Comment