The real reason some people are so afraid of 'Maus'

[Jilly_in_VA]

Opinion by David M. Perry

I thought it was a comic book. I first saw this book called "Maus" on the shelf in the guest room of our Nashville house. I don't remember why I was looking at the books. Maybe I was just a bored 17-year-old looking for something to do. I just remember being confused, because as far as I knew my parents didn't own any comic books. And why did it have a swastika on the cover? But I picked it up, sat down on the couch and started to read.

As I flipped the pages, I felt myself becoming a little disoriented, unclear why this book was telling the story of the Holocaust in this way, with drawings of Jews as mice and Nazis as cats. But I was quickly drawn in, flipping pages faster and faster, then pausing, going back and trying to process the visual narrative of Art Spiegelman's graphic novel instead of just skimming words. In the end, I felt unsettled, unsure of what I just encountered, but sensing it mattered deeply.
Back then, as a bookish Jewish teenager, I was pretty sure I knew a lot about the history of the Holocaust. My parents were historians. I was, it turned out, pretty good in history class. I had read "Man's Search for Meaning" by the survivor Victor Frankl in eighth grade.
But "Maus" was different -- I was pulled in by the choices made possible by the medium itself. It was hand-drawn, the mice at once distinct as characters (the author, his mother, his father and their community) but at the same time rendered into a mob of animals fit only for slaughter by the Nazi cats. The triangular shape of the mice's heads evoked long-held stereotypes about the shapes of our faces as seen by our oppressors, while also conveying warmth and even humanity.

I can't tell you why it worked, but it did -- and reading it changed me. Clearly, I'm not alone in finding the book a perspective-altering experience. It's the only graphic novel to win the Pulitzer Prize, and it's become part of school curricula all around the country.

https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/27/opinions/maus-ban-holocaust-teaching-spiegelman-perry/index.html

[The Blue Flower]

1. For me, the mice conveyed the humanity of the victims

As a teen, I had read a lot about the holocaust, as my relatives were all eastern European Jews, many trapped in Warsaw. The small size of the mice made them seem very human and vulnerable, much more than any verbal descriptions I'd read. Maus is a work of brilliance.

[Evolve Dammit]

2. When TN banned it, I immediately ordered the first and second books. Afraid of the truth. America?

This BS is not America. "They" want a complete revision of world and U.S. history. Somebody famously said: "You can't handle the truth."

[Gore1FL]

3. They banned it because they want to do it again. nt

[Hassin Bin Sober]

7. Yep.

What gets me is conservative Jewish people that side with the alt right trumpanzees.

Don’t they know that the “Judeo-Christian” shtick is the first thing they will toss when they get their “Christian” paradise?

[Jilly_in_VA]

4. I predict

that "Maus" is about to become a best seller.

[Hekate]

5. Excellent essay. Thanks. nt

[Solly Mack]

6. K&R

[Hassin Bin Sober]

8. This describes me watching the audiobook on YouTube this evening

But I picked it up, sat down on the couch and started to read.

As I flipped the pages, I felt myself becoming a little disoriented, unclear why this book was telling the story of the Holocaust in this way, with drawings of Jews as mice and Nazis as cats. But I was quickly drawn in, flipping pages faster and faster, then pausing, going back and trying to process the visual narrative of Art Spiegelman's graphic novel instead of just skimming words. In the end, I felt unsettled, unsure of what I just encountered, but sensing it mattered deeply.

[Aristus]

9. Just bought a copy of "Maus" on Alibris this morning.

I heard Amazon was sold out, and in any case, I don't want to give Jeff Bezos my money over this issue.