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Maus #Meta
MetaMaus: A Look Inside a Modern Classic, Maus
Visually and emotionally rich, MetaMaus is as groundbreaking as the masterpiece whose creation it reveals.
In the pages of MetaMaus, Art Spiegelman re-enters the Pulitzer prize-winning Maus, the modern classic that has altered how we see literature, comics, and the Holocaust ever since it was first published twenty-five years ago.
Does he probe the questions that Maus most often evokes—Why the Holocaust? Why mice? Why comics?—and gives us a new and essential work about the creative process.
MetaMaus includes a bonus DVD-R that provides a digitized reference copy of The Complete Maus linked to a deep archive of audio interviews with his survivor father, historical documents, and a wealth of Spiegelman's private notebooks and sketches.
Compelling and intimate, MetaMaus is poised to become a classic in its own right.
In the pages of MetaMaus, Art Spiegelman re-enters the Pulitzer prize-winning Maus, the modern classic that has altered how we see literature, comics, and the Holocaust ever since it was first published twenty-five years ago.
Does he probe the questions that Maus most often evokes—Why the Holocaust? Why mice? Why comics?—and gives us a new and essential work about the creative process.
MetaMaus includes a bonus DVD-R that provides a digitized reference copy of The Complete Maus linked to a deep archive of audio interviews with his survivor father, historical documents, and a wealth of Spiegelman's private notebooks and sketches.
Compelling and intimate, MetaMaus is poised to become a classic in its own right.
300 pages, Hardcover
First published October 4, 2011
About the author
Art Spiegelman
174 books3,020 followersArt Spiegelman (born Itzhak Avraham ben Zeev) is New-York-based comics artist, editor, and advocate for the medium of comics, best known for his Pulitzer Prize-winning comic memoir, Maus.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 295 reviews
May 23, 2013
Maus I : My Father Bleeds History (1986) and Maus II : And Here My Troubles Began (1991) took Art Spiegelman 13 years to create and he had thought during the time that he would have to get the damned thing self-published. Who would want to bother with yet another Holocaust survivor tale – haven’t we had a million of those - and this one as a graphic novel – yes, a comic book, that’s right – with this jarring characterisation of Jews as mice, for God’s sake, and Germans as cats, and Poles as pigs – pigs, yet. What a nightmare. You can imagine what the publishers of the day thought. And yes, there is a nice two page spread in Metamaus of all the rejection letters he received.
So anyway, he got the Pulitzer Prize for Maus in 1992.
What we have in Metamaus is everything you wanted to know – and quite likely a whole lot more – about this great work. Most of this book is a long interview with Art, which ranges from the personal to the technical and back again. Art has a steady stream of great quotes. A couple of favourites:
My father could only remember/understand a part of what he lived through. He could only tell a part of that. I, in turn, could only understand a part of what he was able to tell, and could only communicate a part of that. What remains are ghosts of ghosts.
I saw a documentary about skinheads in Germany and one of them had a Maus bookstore poster in his bedroom – it was the only swastika he could get, poor fella.
Interviewer : When did your father die?
Art : Well, I’ll get back to you on that.
Talking about his diffidence about being Jewish -
When I was a kid I wasn’t sure being Jewish was such a great idea. I heard they killed people for that.
And one from Francoise Mouly, his wife :
Next to making Maus, your greatest achievement may have been not turning Maus into a movie.
The long interview veers off into pages of artist technicalities, questions like “How did you decide to mess with the griddedness of the page and tilt certain panels out of the tiers?” – only comix geeks will need to read Art’s response. And there are pages of that stuff. But wait, there’s more. Lots more.
There’s a cd rom. Well, this whole book is like the EXTRAS section of a movie dvd, and the cd rom is the EXTRAS of the EXTRAS, but it’s like the house in House of Leaves, the cd rom is bigger than the book, way bigger. You get the complete Maus, and you get for each page original sketches plus audio of Art and Art’s dad Vladek whose story this is. You get articles, you get more interviews, entire achives, you get a 45 minute home movie of Art visiting Auschwitz…. There’s a ton of stuff here. One stop shop for Maus fans.
This got me thinking. Wouldn’t it be great if there were metaversions of all your favourite books? Metalolita! Metamezzanine! (Yes!) Metalastexittobrooklyn! Come on, do it!
I'm classifying this as "read" but I'll be coming back to it for years, it's huge.
March 14, 2021
"...cómo habitar el oxímoron de presentar la vida en un campo de exterminio" (Art Spiegelman - MetaMaus)
Si una ha leído el cómic Maus y quiere entender el detrás de escena, la reconstrucción de todo el recorrido realizado por Art Spiegelman para poder reflejar las experiencias de un padre judío perseguido por los nazis, este libro es el correcto.
Pocas veces tenemos la posibilidad de acercarnos a todos los entresijos de producción de una obra. Metamaus es eso: la reconstrucción de la génesis de una historieta que cuando fue publicada causó mucho revuelo. Es la genealogía del trabajo de Spiegelman, el relato de cómo cobran vida personajes, pasajes y contextos.
El libro tiene una excelente edición e incluye un DVD con material extra. Lo recomiendo con creces, post lectura del cómic que lo origina...
Si una ha leído el cómic Maus y quiere entender el detrás de escena, la reconstrucción de todo el recorrido realizado por Art Spiegelman para poder reflejar las experiencias de un padre judío perseguido por los nazis, este libro es el correcto.
Pocas veces tenemos la posibilidad de acercarnos a todos los entresijos de producción de una obra. Metamaus es eso: la reconstrucción de la génesis de una historieta que cuando fue publicada causó mucho revuelo. Es la genealogía del trabajo de Spiegelman, el relato de cómo cobran vida personajes, pasajes y contextos.
El libro tiene una excelente edición e incluye un DVD con material extra. Lo recomiendo con creces, post lectura del cómic que lo origina...
March 23, 2016
Vol 2.... Pulitzer prize winning book.
Art Spieglman takes us deep inside in concentration camps....and really shows us how life was day to day.
This book is so hard to put down once you begin...
It's so frickin sad --- ( we take the in horrors on probably the deepest of deepest levels, from a book about the Holocaust)
The graphic depictions are the most brilliant creation of all ... everything about these
illustrations works ---( their artistic design and purpose are flawless).
Art Spieglman takes us deep inside in concentration camps....and really shows us how life was day to day.
This book is so hard to put down once you begin...
It's so frickin sad --- ( we take the in horrors on probably the deepest of deepest levels, from a book about the Holocaust)
The graphic depictions are the most brilliant creation of all ... everything about these
illustrations works ---( their artistic design and purpose are flawless).
May 27, 2023
The book tackles the 3 questions Art Spiegelman was frequently asked and is wholly organized into sections to tackle them:
1) Why the Holocaust?
2) Why Mice?
3) Why Comics?
The first two sections talk about the writing (interviewing Vladek), researching the topic, getting the thing published and trying to simply deal and live with the aftermath (both the Holocaust and the Book's publication). And I must stress the amount of research must have been maddening. There is far more in these two sections that I am able to convey, the subject is that heavy. Here we also get the chance to read the rejection letters which were fascinating in their own right. Today it is weird to imagine all the hurdles to the books publication and the skepticism during it's initial reception.
In Why Mice section I learned that there was far more meaning and history to using mice than just a simple enough metaphor for being hunted. Also it brought a rather amusing trouble with taxonomy with many editors and librarians as to where to place the book, fiction or nonfiction, adult or children and so on.
In the final section Why Comics I thought simply well Duh, the guy is a cartoonist what was he going to make, a musical. Of course the answer was far more nuanced than that. In this section he shows us some difficulties he had with trying to fit it all into a comic book format, with some special focus on composition of individual panels. This section also shows us some of his comic book influences and what I found invaluable a two page spread of process of turning a page of interview transcript into a final page.
And finally the disc that comes with this book. I haven't yet had the chance to look at it's contents, my father's computer still has a CD drive in it so I will have to use that machine to grab that disc image before bit rot gets the disc. To think that after all this time the format that is most reliable to survive through the ages is still the humble book.
You've read Maus, You like comic books. No-brainer grab the book if you can. The day I saw this one in a book shop I had to grab it immediately, for I thought I would never be able to get my hands on it and it was only one of the two copies available.
1) Why the Holocaust?
2) Why Mice?
3) Why Comics?
The first two sections talk about the writing (interviewing Vladek), researching the topic, getting the thing published and trying to simply deal and live with the aftermath (both the Holocaust and the Book's publication). And I must stress the amount of research must have been maddening. There is far more in these two sections that I am able to convey, the subject is that heavy. Here we also get the chance to read the rejection letters which were fascinating in their own right. Today it is weird to imagine all the hurdles to the books publication and the skepticism during it's initial reception.
In Why Mice section I learned that there was far more meaning and history to using mice than just a simple enough metaphor for being hunted. Also it brought a rather amusing trouble with taxonomy with many editors and librarians as to where to place the book, fiction or nonfiction, adult or children and so on.
In the final section Why Comics I thought simply well Duh, the guy is a cartoonist what was he going to make, a musical. Of course the answer was far more nuanced than that. In this section he shows us some difficulties he had with trying to fit it all into a comic book format, with some special focus on composition of individual panels. This section also shows us some of his comic book influences and what I found invaluable a two page spread of process of turning a page of interview transcript into a final page.
And finally the disc that comes with this book. I haven't yet had the chance to look at it's contents, my father's computer still has a CD drive in it so I will have to use that machine to grab that disc image before bit rot gets the disc. To think that after all this time the format that is most reliable to survive through the ages is still the humble book.
You've read Maus, You like comic books. No-brainer grab the book if you can. The day I saw this one in a book shop I had to grab it immediately, for I thought I would never be able to get my hands on it and it was only one of the two copies available.
August 7, 2016
“The advantage to using the stuff of real life is that one really is left with people who are far more interesting than what one could ever make up.”
OK, when I first started reading about this book and people were saying that this book was
I have to admit I was sceptical.
Graphic Novel Fun Fact: Maus was the first graphic novel I ever read and anyone knows me and my reading tastes will know that I will defend the graphic novel to the death.
So, needless to say, it made an impression on me.
The book is split up into the three questions that Mr Spiegelman has been asked throughout his life.
Why the holocaust?
Why mice?
Why comic books?
Spiegelman has such an easy way of combining hilarious anecdotes with fascinating historical background to provide an interview that is always compelling . From stories of his visit to Auschwitz, to how a Neo-Nazi ended up with a poster of Maus on his bedroom wall and how the idea of assigning each nationality with an animal came to him, Spiegelman, like his character in Maus, talks candidly about how he came to create one of the most memorable graphic novels ever written… or, um, drawn.
I love how Spiegelman is never afraid to tell it how it is (a particular interesting part was the discussion about the pitfalls of creating a book/film about the Holocaust and how it can so often “risk the melodramatic trivialization of their suffering” or, as he puts it, “Holokitsch”) and he doesn’t worry about how his image will come across. As in Maus, he openly discusses the often difficult relationship he had with his father but how “it never occurred to [him] to try and create a heroic figure” in either his father or himself, which could have easily happened with a story like Maus. I think this honesty makes the original story so much more effective because it’s real.
Every page is a visual treat. It sounds like a cliché… but I don’t care. It truly was. All through the book are examples of Speigelman’s original Maus sketches, photographs, unseen drawings, other artists illustrations and snippets of books, pamphlets and leaflets that he used for research.
The book also comes with a disc of a digitalised version of the novel, complete with hyper-links, audio and the sketches of his original panel ideas. I spent a good few hours clicking through it and I know I didn’t even scratch the surface of what is included.
This book is an absolute must for fans of Maus, fans of history and fans of graphic novels.
I truly couldn’t recommend this more.
The only slightly negative thing I had to say about it is that MetaMaus is best read with a copy of Maus in the other hand. But that isn’t a negative thing at all because I loved the opportunity to re-read it.
But it did lead to the dilemma of which one to put down when I wanted a sip of my tea… because, honestly, I couldn’t decide between the two.
I didn’t think I could enjoy Maus more than I did… but it seems MetaMaus proved me wrong.
(Note: This is one of those books that to truly grasp it properly, I will have to do numerous re-reads. But I’m looking forward to every one of them.)
An advanced copy of this book was provided for review by Viking.
OK, when I first started reading about this book and people were saying that this book was
I have to admit I was sceptical.
Graphic Novel Fun Fact: Maus was the first graphic novel I ever read and anyone knows me and my reading tastes will know that I will defend the graphic novel to the death.
So, needless to say, it made an impression on me.
The book is split up into the three questions that Mr Spiegelman has been asked throughout his life.
Why the holocaust?
Why mice?
Why comic books?
Spiegelman has such an easy way of combining hilarious anecdotes with fascinating historical background to provide an interview that is always compelling . From stories of his visit to Auschwitz, to how a Neo-Nazi ended up with a poster of Maus on his bedroom wall and how the idea of assigning each nationality with an animal came to him, Spiegelman, like his character in Maus, talks candidly about how he came to create one of the most memorable graphic novels ever written… or, um, drawn.
I love how Spiegelman is never afraid to tell it how it is (a particular interesting part was the discussion about the pitfalls of creating a book/film about the Holocaust and how it can so often “risk the melodramatic trivialization of their suffering” or, as he puts it, “Holokitsch”) and he doesn’t worry about how his image will come across. As in Maus, he openly discusses the often difficult relationship he had with his father but how “it never occurred to [him] to try and create a heroic figure” in either his father or himself, which could have easily happened with a story like Maus. I think this honesty makes the original story so much more effective because it’s real.
Every page is a visual treat. It sounds like a cliché… but I don’t care. It truly was. All through the book are examples of Speigelman’s original Maus sketches, photographs, unseen drawings, other artists illustrations and snippets of books, pamphlets and leaflets that he used for research.
The book also comes with a disc of a digitalised version of the novel, complete with hyper-links, audio and the sketches of his original panel ideas. I spent a good few hours clicking through it and I know I didn’t even scratch the surface of what is included.
This book is an absolute must for fans of Maus, fans of history and fans of graphic novels.
I truly couldn’t recommend this more.
The only slightly negative thing I had to say about it is that MetaMaus is best read with a copy of Maus in the other hand. But that isn’t a negative thing at all because I loved the opportunity to re-read it.
But it did lead to the dilemma of which one to put down when I wanted a sip of my tea… because, honestly, I couldn’t decide between the two.
I didn’t think I could enjoy Maus more than I did… but it seems MetaMaus proved me wrong.
(Note: This is one of those books that to truly grasp it properly, I will have to do numerous re-reads. But I’m looking forward to every one of them.)
An advanced copy of this book was provided for review by Viking.
Read
April 15, 2021After re/reading MAUS v1 and 2, I followed up with this fascinating deep dive, METAMAUS (2011). It includes is a running dialogue with Spiegelman and English professor Hillary Chute. The volume is so full of archival materials, interviews with Art's family (i particularly enjoyed the interviews with Françoise, his wife, who plays a prominent role in MAUS) the historical context, comic history and the use of graphic medium to tell this story.
He devotes a whole chapter discussing "WHY MICE?" (Hint: there's centuries of horrifying depictions of Jews as vermin and pests, and this was a deliberate choice to embody and 'humanize' that mouse by Spiegelman for the graphic narrative.)
The book also includes some transcripts of taped interviews with Vladek, his father and second subject of the book, as well as many photographs, artifacts, and cutting room floor snippets and drawings.
It's a fascinating companion volume after reading the graphic memoirs, and graphic enthusiasts will really enjoy the context that Spiegelman shares about the medium.
He devotes a whole chapter discussing "WHY MICE?" (Hint: there's centuries of horrifying depictions of Jews as vermin and pests, and this was a deliberate choice to embody and 'humanize' that mouse by Spiegelman for the graphic narrative.)
The book also includes some transcripts of taped interviews with Vladek, his father and second subject of the book, as well as many photographs, artifacts, and cutting room floor snippets and drawings.
It's a fascinating companion volume after reading the graphic memoirs, and graphic enthusiasts will really enjoy the context that Spiegelman shares about the medium.
February 19, 2012
I have a (new?) intense admiration for those among us who study and know a thing deeply. Perhaps because librarianship tends to reward broad knowledge, rather than deep, or perhaps because I am at heart lazy, I don't think I know any one thing deeply. This book presents deep understanding of the creation of Maus, which I read before Goodreads could record my reviews. I recognized Maus as important, but my appreciation for it grew as I came to understand the graphic novel form (for which I owe so much to Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art). MetaMaus gave me the opportunity to see a study of Maus on that scholarly level I admire. I really enjoyed the detailed descriptions of the decisions made in creating Maus, and feel I have a firmer grasp on the graphic novel format.
January 4, 2024
C’est chouette d’être reconnu. Mais assez dur d’être vu derrière un masque de souris! Le livre me menace, on dirait, comme mon père jadis. Journalistes et étudiants veulent encore des réponses aux mêmes questions.
Pourquoi la BD ?
Pourquoi les souris ?
Pourquoi l’Holocauste ?
[…]
Mais je vais tâcher de répondre de mon mieux. Comme ça, quand on me demandera à l’avenir, je répondrai peut-être juste plus jamais !
Voilà les questions centrales de ce livre adressées sous la forme d’une interview de Art Spiegelman menée par Hillary Chute qui est une universitaire spécialiste de l’oeuvre – le livre parle de lui-même sur ce point. Ce n’est donc pas une bande dessinée, mais un livre d’entretien très complet, précis et documenté consacré au chef-d’oeuvre de la bande dessinée Maus – un livre sur un livre donc un métalivre d’où son titre. Une fois le livre ouvert et les premières pages lues, il devient évident que ce livre est un complément indispensable à la bande dessinée car il permet de prendre encore plus conscience de la richesse de l’oeuvre. Même s’il est réalisé sous la forme d’un long entretien il s’agit vraiment d’un essai consacré à l’oeuvre tant cet ouvrage est riche, précis et éclairant – un entretien de l’auteur qui a lui-même réalisé l’entretien de son père pour écrire son livre. Il explore toutes les sphères dans lesquelles s’inscrit le livre (mémoire, histoire, bande dessinée, art, etc.) qui a demandé à son auteur pas moins de 13 années de travail. J’ai trouvé dans ce livre tellement de choses pertinentes que j’ai abusé des citations dans cet article – ils en parlent mieux que moi.
C’est d’abord une prise de conscience forte sur l’étendu des crimes perpétrées à l’échelle d’une population.
“Génocide” est un terme qui fut inventé après la Seconde Guerre Mondiale pour désigner précisément ce qui était arrivé aux juifs, car il n’existait pas de mot pour un crime perpétré à une telle échelle: la tentative d’exterminer un groupe ethnique dans sa totalité.
Mais aussi à l’échelle de sa famille. La vision de l’arbre généalogique de la famille avant et après la guerre est glaçante et l’occasion de visualiser très concrètement l’impact de l’Holocauste sur cette une famille.
La déshumanisation est inhérente au projet d’extermination dans son ensemble – l’Amérique a diabolisé les Japonais durant la Seconde Guerre mondiale (c’est ce qui nous a conditionnés à lâcher la bombe sur Hiroshima) et les photos de torture à Abou Ghraib laissent penser que ce n’est pas fini. L’idée que les juifs étaient toxiques, porteurs de maladie, de dangereuses créatures infra-humaines, fut un prérequis à l’extermination de ma famille.
Utiliser des personnages anthropomorphes n’est pas un choix anodin car le choix de l’animal n’est jamais innocent et a un fort impact sur la perception du lecteur. Art Spiegelman en parle longuement au cours de son entretien.
Bien que les personnages n’aient pas la tête rasée, l’effet des têtes de souris presque toutes identiques est analogue à la déshumanisation des prisonniers obtenue en leur rasant la tête, et, ainsi rendus anonymes, plus difficiles à reconnaître comme individus.
Il y a des explication très pointues sur la mise en page des planches et notamment celles concernant les planches où certaines cases disparaissent pour laisser la place à un élément auquel se réfère mentalement Art (celui à qui son père explique) pour essayer de comprendre. C’est par exemple le plan d’Auschwitz ou le schéma du bunker dans lequel il s’était réfugié.
J’ai travaillé avec la métaphore selon laquelle chaque case était analogue à un mot, chaque bandeau à une phrase, et chaque planche à un paragraphe. C’est une métaphore imparfaite, mais bon, Maus aussi est imparfait.
La partie consacrée à la transposition des entretiens en BD est extrêmement riche. Il y a évidemment la culpabilité du survivant, mais aussi la volonté farouche, l’obsession, de ne pas déformer la réalité, le récit des survivants.
Il ne faut pas livrer une expérience faussée ; mieux vaut faire part ouvertement de la problématique inhérente à la reconstruction de cette expérience. Ça n’a jamais vraiment été une question pour moi ; il était clair d’emblée qu’il me faudrait rapporter les conditions du récit en même temps que le récit. […] Tout ce qui est dessiné comme étant le passé dans l’histoire que raconte Vladek [c’est le père de Art] est très clairement une tentative par le fils de montrer ce que le père raconte. Ce qui offrait une marge à l’intérieur de laquelle opérer authentiquement. Le fait qu’on vous dise que j’essaye de vous montrer ce que je comprends de ce que Vladek me raconte est incrusté dans l’étoffe même du récit, et permet que ce récit soit dit.
En refermant ce livre on n’a qu’une envie, celle de relire Mauss avec un oeil plus affuté pour profiter pleinement de tout le travail, de chaque détail qui a fait de cet oeuvre le monument qu’elle est devenue.
Également publié sur mon blog.
November 22, 2011
MetaMaus is based off a series of interviews Hillary Chute conducted with Art Spiegelman over the course of several years. The book is set up in a Q&A format that mirrors the process Spiegelman used to interview his own father for the information in Maus. Intentionally, I'm sure. It's meant to be Spiegelman's definitive word on the intentions and creation of Maus.
The book is divided into three large sections, reflecting what Spiegelman says are the three questions that he's asked most often about Maus. Why the Holocaust? Why mice? Why comics? That could very easily be paraphrased as content, art, and structure, since that's what the sections end up being. Really, this is for people who are interested in researching Maus, or simply want a very in-depth and thoughtful look at how a graphic novel is created.
A book like this, a 300 page Q&A that can get pretty technical, could easily get boring, but Spiegelman is a good interview subject, and Chute asks very good questions. I found myself far more interested than I had expected I would be. There's also short interviews with Spiegelman's wife and two children.
There are a lot of illustrations in here, naturally, and a broad range of them. There are finished panels, discarded panels, sketches, concepts, unrelated work, and the original three page version of Maus, all by Spiegelman. There's also a huge amount of photographs, diagrams, and other comic illustrations that influenced the creation of Maus. It makes for a very visually appealing book.
Unless you have Maus memorized, it would be very helpful to have it open in front of you as you read. Both Spiegelman and Chute make frequent reference to pages in the finished book, and it helps to see exactly what they're talking about. That's probably why the book also includes a CD-ROM with the full version of Maus. And a whole lot of other content, too. You're certainly getting your money's worth here.
The book is divided into three large sections, reflecting what Spiegelman says are the three questions that he's asked most often about Maus. Why the Holocaust? Why mice? Why comics? That could very easily be paraphrased as content, art, and structure, since that's what the sections end up being. Really, this is for people who are interested in researching Maus, or simply want a very in-depth and thoughtful look at how a graphic novel is created.
A book like this, a 300 page Q&A that can get pretty technical, could easily get boring, but Spiegelman is a good interview subject, and Chute asks very good questions. I found myself far more interested than I had expected I would be. There's also short interviews with Spiegelman's wife and two children.
There are a lot of illustrations in here, naturally, and a broad range of them. There are finished panels, discarded panels, sketches, concepts, unrelated work, and the original three page version of Maus, all by Spiegelman. There's also a huge amount of photographs, diagrams, and other comic illustrations that influenced the creation of Maus. It makes for a very visually appealing book.
Unless you have Maus memorized, it would be very helpful to have it open in front of you as you read. Both Spiegelman and Chute make frequent reference to pages in the finished book, and it helps to see exactly what they're talking about. That's probably why the book also includes a CD-ROM with the full version of Maus. And a whole lot of other content, too. You're certainly getting your money's worth here.
May 30, 2017
Spiegelman just earned an extra star as I was waiting for my tablet to start and GR to load. I can't really tell you why but I guess it's important to point out straight off that there was one star lacking on my way to my review.
Nothing to do with Spiegelman himself though. Or Vladek whom I love for some g*d damn reason. I guess I have a soft gooey spot for the ones who're just such a*holes. And have survived the holocaust. Silly me, eh?
Spiegelman had done a whole load of research for the Mice (my nickname for Maus I & II). On top of the trips abroad and researching the holocaust, there are the never-ending dictations from his father, Vladek, AND his studies of comics and all the thoughts, effort, focus he put into his work. And as a reward he got protests againts his work and he got dropped out of things and kind of a mark on his forehead that made some people/groups cross the street when they saw him. Metaphorically.
Reading the Mice I kinda had a feeling of all of the above: Spiegelman CLEARLY put a lot of work into it and it's OBVIOUSLY a touchy subject so people are gonna go crazy. MetaMaus confirmed my suspicions.
In GREAT vast amounts of detail!
And that's my problem right there. Wholy crap the amount of detail in this book. For example, instead of answering a question "When I heard about that I felt such and such." Spiegelman answered "I was at aiport X about to board flight Y to get to Z when such and such called, he used to be involved in ABC, and he asked have I heard and I was like no..." None of it obviously having to do with anything.
So I guess I could say this wasn't really put together with editing in mind but I'm not gonna, I'm just gonna say:
Thank you Spiegelman for your work.
Nothing to do with Spiegelman himself though. Or Vladek whom I love for some g*d damn reason. I guess I have a soft gooey spot for the ones who're just such a*holes. And have survived the holocaust. Silly me, eh?
Spiegelman had done a whole load of research for the Mice (my nickname for Maus I & II). On top of the trips abroad and researching the holocaust, there are the never-ending dictations from his father, Vladek, AND his studies of comics and all the thoughts, effort, focus he put into his work. And as a reward he got protests againts his work and he got dropped out of things and kind of a mark on his forehead that made some people/groups cross the street when they saw him. Metaphorically.
Reading the Mice I kinda had a feeling of all of the above: Spiegelman CLEARLY put a lot of work into it and it's OBVIOUSLY a touchy subject so people are gonna go crazy. MetaMaus confirmed my suspicions.
In GREAT vast amounts of detail!
And that's my problem right there. Wholy crap the amount of detail in this book. For example, instead of answering a question "When I heard about that I felt such and such." Spiegelman answered "I was at aiport X about to board flight Y to get to Z when such and such called, he used to be involved in ABC, and he asked have I heard and I was like no..." None of it obviously having to do with anything.
So I guess I could say this wasn't really put together with editing in mind but I'm not gonna, I'm just gonna say:
Thank you Spiegelman for your work.
October 19, 2011
This was an excellent companion piece to Maus. Most of the book consisted of a series of interviews of Art Spiegelman. In them he talks about the creative process of bringing Maus to life. He describes the struggles of trying to convert his father's story into a comic book that people would take seriously. He also talks about the many influences of books and comics on the shaping of Maus. Along with the interviews, the pages are full of his sketchbook pages, concept drawings, and rough drafts of Muas. There are also brief interviews with Spiegelman's wife and children. The last 40 or so pages of the book is a transcript of the interviews Art conducted with his father Vladek, which became the story and dialogue for Maus. The book also comes with a DVD containing an entire digital copy of Maus along with pictures, sketches, and audio interviews. This is a fitting tribute to Maus and will be enjoyed by anyone who loves the books.
June 14, 2012
True to its promise written in the backcover which is "...as groundbreaking as the masterpiece whose creation it reveals", MetaMaus seals the deal as the ultimate companion to Art Spiegelman's Maus. It reverberates what its predecessor is exploding with: raw truth, tenderness and entertainment altogether with a dip of emotional wounds and pinches of humour in every page.
October 25, 2019
MetaMaus es un libro que es indispensable leer una vez has terminado con Maus y has dejado reposar el relato en tu memoria. Este libro recoge las entrevistas que la editora le hizo a Art Spiegelman (el dibujante) a lo largo de 4 años. En ellas, el autor habla de toooodo lo que rodea el contexto de publicación de la novela gráfica: información sobre sus padres previa a la guerra, sobre su relación con el padre, los recursos estilísticos e imaginería que empleó en el libro, las influencias artísticas, la recepción del cómic no solo en Estados Unidos y en la comunidad judía, sino también en Inglaterra, Francia, Alemania y Polonia. También habla de su vida personal, su trayectoria como dibujante, cómo le afectó el suicidio de su madre, cómo conoció a su mujer, cómo la publicación de los dos volúmenes de Maus afectó a su mujer e hijos (los cuales también son entrevistados en otra parte del libro).
Todo esto se acompañaba en cada página por bocetos originales, portadas alternativas, fotos reales de Art y su familia, de sus padres en la guerra, de Auschwitz, publicaciones en revista... que ayuda a entender y materializar las cuestiones de las que Art habla en cada pregunta. Por si fuera poco, el libro incluye un DVD donde se encuentra un ejemplar digitalizado de Maus que puedes comparar página por página con los bocetos originales y recibir información adicional de la gestación de cada viñeta. En el disco también se incluyen ensayos, fragmentos de documentales, más material visual y , lo más importante, las grabaciones reales del relato de Vladek, el padre de Art, contando su historia durante la guerra y su experiencia en los campos de exterminio.
En definitiva, este libro es la edición crítica genética más completa que he visto de una obra. Literal que te aporta TODO lo necesario para comprobar cómo fue el proceso de creación de Maus. Como único "pero" diría que, tras leer Maus, hacer un trabajo sobre él, oírme varias cintas de las grabaciones de Vladek y leer las entrevistas de MetaMaus, pocas ganas tenía de leer la transcripción de las cintas que se incluye en el libro una vez se finaliza la entrevista a Art. Es un aporte más ver por escrito la manera que Vladek tuvo de contar la historia, ya que resulta mucho más extensa y caótica de lo que Art consiguió sintetizar en viñetas. Por ese motivo, sí que leí la transcripción por encima; pero llegados a este punto, el lector cree que ya sabe todo lo que necesita sobre Vladek y su experiencia como para leerlo una vez más en otro formato distinto. O al menos esa es mi impresión.
Resumen: recomiendo encarecidamente leer Maus y luego MetaMaus. Ojalá se hicieran más libros complementarios de este estilo.
Todo esto se acompañaba en cada página por bocetos originales, portadas alternativas, fotos reales de Art y su familia, de sus padres en la guerra, de Auschwitz, publicaciones en revista... que ayuda a entender y materializar las cuestiones de las que Art habla en cada pregunta. Por si fuera poco, el libro incluye un DVD donde se encuentra un ejemplar digitalizado de Maus que puedes comparar página por página con los bocetos originales y recibir información adicional de la gestación de cada viñeta. En el disco también se incluyen ensayos, fragmentos de documentales, más material visual y , lo más importante, las grabaciones reales del relato de Vladek, el padre de Art, contando su historia durante la guerra y su experiencia en los campos de exterminio.
En definitiva, este libro es la edición crítica genética más completa que he visto de una obra. Literal que te aporta TODO lo necesario para comprobar cómo fue el proceso de creación de Maus. Como único "pero" diría que, tras leer Maus, hacer un trabajo sobre él, oírme varias cintas de las grabaciones de Vladek y leer las entrevistas de MetaMaus, pocas ganas tenía de leer la transcripción de las cintas que se incluye en el libro una vez se finaliza la entrevista a Art. Es un aporte más ver por escrito la manera que Vladek tuvo de contar la historia, ya que resulta mucho más extensa y caótica de lo que Art consiguió sintetizar en viñetas. Por ese motivo, sí que leí la transcripción por encima; pero llegados a este punto, el lector cree que ya sabe todo lo que necesita sobre Vladek y su experiencia como para leerlo una vez más en otro formato distinto. O al menos esa es mi impresión.
Resumen: recomiendo encarecidamente leer Maus y luego MetaMaus. Ojalá se hicieran más libros complementarios de este estilo.
May 23, 2022
I was glad to take my time with this one (I needed 2 library renewals), and I was glad I had recently re-read Maus but wished I had a copy of Maus actually with me at the same time to occasionally flip back to specific pages referenced. (I work at a library, I could have gotten one but I was lazy! Deal with it)
Really compelling and interesting to learn more both about Spiegelman's family history as well as his artistic process and the kind of response to Maus generally. I didn't listen to the included audio CD of the interviews with his father but wow what a valuable resource to have shared with the world at large.
Really compelling and interesting to learn more both about Spiegelman's family history as well as his artistic process and the kind of response to Maus generally. I didn't listen to the included audio CD of the interviews with his father but wow what a valuable resource to have shared with the world at large.
March 9, 2013
I was first introduced to the magnificent Maus books when I was doing my student teaching at Shorewood High School in 1994-1995. The faculty had selected it to use as a text in an English course there. I was fascinated by the story and the painstaking attention to detail that Art Spiegelman had infused in his masterpiece. It was such a strange text that included the meta-narrative of Spiegelman's relationship with his mother and father, an interlude, "Prisoner of Hell Planet" that noted and investigated the effect of his mother's suicide on the author, as well as self-denigrating insights about himself. It is a powerful book and I followed Spiegelman's career since discovering him as he became a presence at The New Yorker. So when I saw that MetaMaus (2011) had been published I knew that I would need to read it. It is a fascinating look at the production of the book, its reception, his family, and Spiegelman as the author/artist. It is a comprehensive look at the writing of a classic. The book itself is an artifact with high quality production design and dozens of high quality drawings, pictures, print reproductions, letters, and other various documents illustrating points that Spielgeman relates to his interviewer Hillary Chute, a professor in the English Department at the University of Chicago. There is an additional hyperlinked DVD with The Complete Maus and an in-depth archive of audio interviews with Spiegelman's father, photos, notebooks, drawings, essays, and other material. I found this useful while reading the book I could search out essays that Spiegelman referred to in his interview, like Larwence Whelscher's essay "Art's Father, Vladek's Son" that was originally published in Rolling Stone and Spiegelman's essay "Looney Tunes, Zionism, and the Jewish Question" from The Village Voice. This is a fascinating and informative companion to Spielgelman's classic Maus.
February 25, 2024
I’ve read Art Spiegelman’s MAUS six times - five times as a teacher of the graphic novel in high school, and once in my 2001 Holocaust Representation course with Dr. Adrienne Kertzer at the University of Calgary. I remember Dr. Kertzer spoke sparingly about her mother being an Auschwitz survivor, and I remember discussions frequently returning to the value of bearing witness to lived trauma. The course was a senior level selection for my final year of my undergraduate work in English Literature, and, aside from Dr. Kertzer’s kindness and patience, I remember a small classroom, a small group of students, and some rich discussion around a variety of texts from Claude Lanzmann’s Shoah to Borowski’s This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen. In the syllabus also was MAUS, which I hadn’t yet read, but that was the one book every student was clamoring over to stake a claim for our individual text presentation.
MAUS isn’t the kind of book I read freely, but I’m glad when an educational occasion calls me back to it. Presently, I’m teaching the book to grade 9 students after a spell of teaching it exclusively to grade 12 students, and I admit that I at times struggle to find the confidence that I am maintaining the “right” level of discourse in the classroom when we explore the work and its themes. I feel an obligation to contextualize - especially teaching in Asia where the Holocaust may not be as prevalent in the conscience of a people who carry the trauma of other atrocities from the time.
But then I’m reminded that, for Spiegelman, MAUS was never meant to serve as a “Holocaust 101”, that for him - the son of two Auschwitz survivors, the impulse for MAUS was (as suggested in Spiegelman’s more flippant but honest moments) “wanting to do a long comic that needed a bookmark” (p165). In his more lucid reflecting, Spiegelman also admits that the 13 years he spent on MAUS was an attempt to know his parents and to work towards an understanding of the near impossibility that is his own existence.
MetaMAUS is 300 pages of pulling back the curtain on the creation of Spiegelman’s 1991 Pulitzer Prize winning comic adapted from transcripts recorded from interviews with his father Vladek - the near entirety of which has been cobbled together from various cassette recordings and included as an appendix here. I was glad to have read MetaMAUS for Vladek’s testimony alone. The vast majority of the content here though is a new interview - Spiegelman having given professor Hillary Shute unfiltered access to his notebooks and artifacts from the creation of MAUS, and then responding (at great length) to her points of inquiry. Having sought out a number of Spiegelman interviews over the years since I first read MAUS, some of the content here is familiar, but most feels new, and it is illuminating.
In recent interviews - many of which have come about due to the high profile banning of MAUS in Tennessee schools, Spiegelman’s tone has become a bit more consciously gentle, generous and ponderous than I remember hearing him in the past. In 2011 through MetaMAUS, readers will detect an old and familiar eagerness to challenge common thinking on his chosen medium, to champion what’s perceived as the lowbrow, and to continue to be a contrarian producer and consumer to those of the preferred Holocaust aesthetic that he feels thrives in modern popular culture. Spiegelman’s reflections on his most famous work’s popularity show equal amounts of joy (it’s the work that has defined him as an artist) and resentment (it’s the work that has defined him as an artist). He has a great deal to say here about both.
Spiegelman also has an insistence on drawing at a one-to-one ratio so as to not hide his processes' flaws in the way that many other comic artists work on a larger scale and then shrink their work to something more readily publishable, covering mistakes as they do. For MetaMAUS though, which is one of the heavier books I’ve ever held in these dimensions, the result of the smaller page size is that much of what could and probably should be enjoyed in a larger scale remains in some cases too small to read without strain - Vladek’s transcript, unfortunately, being affected by this. Original sketches, rejection letters, and images from Spiegelman’s vast collection of past works too often have to share the page with a vast amount of interview text, and this comes at the cost of visual clarity. A DVD containing some artifacts is included with one hardcover version of the book, and for those with a DVD drive, this does alleviate this issue somewhat.
Regarding the interview though, I drank it all up. I’ve seen and heard enough video interviews with Spiegelman to allow the pages of MetaMAUS to carry his voice. I’ve also seen enough to know that his expansive answers here on a number of challenging questions are almost certainly not edited for brevity or correctness. Spiegelman does pause from time to time to let his wife and both of his children speak for their own experiences, but most of the interview is Art having a conversation with anyone who has read MAUS, who has thought about it deeply, and who isn’t done. The book is rich in passages in which the artist explains the myriad challenges of communicating a specific lived experience through the comics medium and then relates his hard fought path to an imperfect solution; Even if you are someone who has appreciated MAUS for a long time, that appreciation will deepen considerably in these moments, and you’ll see so much that is new in old pages. MAUS is an astounding personal work with broad and enduring appeal, and MetaMAUS goes a significant distance in explaining how Art Spiegelman was able to know his father, question his own artistry and then again embrace them both.
MAUS isn’t the kind of book I read freely, but I’m glad when an educational occasion calls me back to it. Presently, I’m teaching the book to grade 9 students after a spell of teaching it exclusively to grade 12 students, and I admit that I at times struggle to find the confidence that I am maintaining the “right” level of discourse in the classroom when we explore the work and its themes. I feel an obligation to contextualize - especially teaching in Asia where the Holocaust may not be as prevalent in the conscience of a people who carry the trauma of other atrocities from the time.
But then I’m reminded that, for Spiegelman, MAUS was never meant to serve as a “Holocaust 101”, that for him - the son of two Auschwitz survivors, the impulse for MAUS was (as suggested in Spiegelman’s more flippant but honest moments) “wanting to do a long comic that needed a bookmark” (p165). In his more lucid reflecting, Spiegelman also admits that the 13 years he spent on MAUS was an attempt to know his parents and to work towards an understanding of the near impossibility that is his own existence.
MetaMAUS is 300 pages of pulling back the curtain on the creation of Spiegelman’s 1991 Pulitzer Prize winning comic adapted from transcripts recorded from interviews with his father Vladek - the near entirety of which has been cobbled together from various cassette recordings and included as an appendix here. I was glad to have read MetaMAUS for Vladek’s testimony alone. The vast majority of the content here though is a new interview - Spiegelman having given professor Hillary Shute unfiltered access to his notebooks and artifacts from the creation of MAUS, and then responding (at great length) to her points of inquiry. Having sought out a number of Spiegelman interviews over the years since I first read MAUS, some of the content here is familiar, but most feels new, and it is illuminating.
In recent interviews - many of which have come about due to the high profile banning of MAUS in Tennessee schools, Spiegelman’s tone has become a bit more consciously gentle, generous and ponderous than I remember hearing him in the past. In 2011 through MetaMAUS, readers will detect an old and familiar eagerness to challenge common thinking on his chosen medium, to champion what’s perceived as the lowbrow, and to continue to be a contrarian producer and consumer to those of the preferred Holocaust aesthetic that he feels thrives in modern popular culture. Spiegelman’s reflections on his most famous work’s popularity show equal amounts of joy (it’s the work that has defined him as an artist) and resentment (it’s the work that has defined him as an artist). He has a great deal to say here about both.
Spiegelman also has an insistence on drawing at a one-to-one ratio so as to not hide his processes' flaws in the way that many other comic artists work on a larger scale and then shrink their work to something more readily publishable, covering mistakes as they do. For MetaMAUS though, which is one of the heavier books I’ve ever held in these dimensions, the result of the smaller page size is that much of what could and probably should be enjoyed in a larger scale remains in some cases too small to read without strain - Vladek’s transcript, unfortunately, being affected by this. Original sketches, rejection letters, and images from Spiegelman’s vast collection of past works too often have to share the page with a vast amount of interview text, and this comes at the cost of visual clarity. A DVD containing some artifacts is included with one hardcover version of the book, and for those with a DVD drive, this does alleviate this issue somewhat.
Regarding the interview though, I drank it all up. I’ve seen and heard enough video interviews with Spiegelman to allow the pages of MetaMAUS to carry his voice. I’ve also seen enough to know that his expansive answers here on a number of challenging questions are almost certainly not edited for brevity or correctness. Spiegelman does pause from time to time to let his wife and both of his children speak for their own experiences, but most of the interview is Art having a conversation with anyone who has read MAUS, who has thought about it deeply, and who isn’t done. The book is rich in passages in which the artist explains the myriad challenges of communicating a specific lived experience through the comics medium and then relates his hard fought path to an imperfect solution; Even if you are someone who has appreciated MAUS for a long time, that appreciation will deepen considerably in these moments, and you’ll see so much that is new in old pages. MAUS is an astounding personal work with broad and enduring appeal, and MetaMAUS goes a significant distance in explaining how Art Spiegelman was able to know his father, question his own artistry and then again embrace them both.
August 14, 2023
I had thought very highly of the graphic novel ‘Maus’, and found it an exceptionally effective way to describe and bear witness to the Holocaust. So, I was keen to know more about its creation, and why its impact on me (and many others) had been so great – especially given the ludicrous (nay, outrageous!) current attempts to remove it from libraries, particularly in schools. (Yes, maybe primary school is too young for the majority of children to be able to process the horror of the Holocaust – but not all. I was reading extensively about the subject by about 11, including seeing photos of the concentration camps. One doesn’t have to force young children to read ‘Maus’, but they should all have access to it. Everyone needs to be made aware that 1) the Holocaust is FACT and 2) this is what racism and bigotry if left unchallenged and unchecked can lead to – rant over).
Anyway, I got so much more out of this book than I expected. I expected to find out why mice were used to portray the Jews, and how the whole concept came about – and did. But, I am relatively new to serious graphic novels, and had no idea about the incredible amount of planning, experimenting with aesthetics, the sizing and placement of the individual panels … It was like reading about the construction of a great work of art. There were early drawings of the mice, showing how their form evolved as work on the novel progressed.
There was also a lot of biographical detail about the author, Art Spiegelman. How he started in comics, his artistic influences, how that all lead to the creation of ‘Maus’, his relationship with his father and how he processed what had happened to his extended family, and the effects that the publication of ‘Maus’ had on the author, his wife and children. One of the most affecting parts of the book was the Spiegelman family tree before the war – followed by the same tree after the war with blank boxes for those who had died. A picture painting more than a thousand words. I was also surprised by how much research the author did into the Holocaust. He did not just rely on his father’s recollections, but spoke to other survivors, and checked the historical accuracy of a much as was possible.
The book ends with transcripts of the author’s interviews with his father, and other survivors, and also interviews with the author’s wife and children.
The book is a fascinating account of the creation and impact of a masterpiece. If you haven’t yet read ‘Maus’ – why not?
Highly recommended – but read ‘Maus’ first.
Anyway, I got so much more out of this book than I expected. I expected to find out why mice were used to portray the Jews, and how the whole concept came about – and did. But, I am relatively new to serious graphic novels, and had no idea about the incredible amount of planning, experimenting with aesthetics, the sizing and placement of the individual panels … It was like reading about the construction of a great work of art. There were early drawings of the mice, showing how their form evolved as work on the novel progressed.
There was also a lot of biographical detail about the author, Art Spiegelman. How he started in comics, his artistic influences, how that all lead to the creation of ‘Maus’, his relationship with his father and how he processed what had happened to his extended family, and the effects that the publication of ‘Maus’ had on the author, his wife and children. One of the most affecting parts of the book was the Spiegelman family tree before the war – followed by the same tree after the war with blank boxes for those who had died. A picture painting more than a thousand words. I was also surprised by how much research the author did into the Holocaust. He did not just rely on his father’s recollections, but spoke to other survivors, and checked the historical accuracy of a much as was possible.
The book ends with transcripts of the author’s interviews with his father, and other survivors, and also interviews with the author’s wife and children.
The book is a fascinating account of the creation and impact of a masterpiece. If you haven’t yet read ‘Maus’ – why not?
Highly recommended – but read ‘Maus’ first.
April 5, 2024
This is as good a meditation on the unique power of comics as Scott McCloud’s “Understanding Comics.” It’s also full of surprises. This man REALLY did his reading on The Holocaust. And I had no idea how much the Polish took umbrage with Maus. If you like Maus at all, this is a really fascinating look behind the scenes.
July 16, 2018
(Note: this review covers only the contents of the book. I have yet to go through the companion DVD.)
There's a page in The Complete Maus, where Art is at his drawing table, and journalists are all around him, looking for a quick soundbite. Three of the questions he's asked are, "Why [did you make a comic about] the Holocaust?" "Why [did you draw Jewish people as] mice?" and "Why [did you tell your father's story through] comics?" MetaMaus seeks to answer all three questions, and offers an avalanche of additional primary sources, besides.
For a reader concerned with form and style, MetaMaus is a rare treat. Spiegelman's interviews with Hillary Chute pull open the curtain to reveal the nuts and bolts underneath. The interviews don't just give a succinct response to the above questions, but really dig into the process of making Maus. The graphic novel wasn't born fully formed, but it began gestating as early as during Spiegelman's childhood, as he slowly came to understand the enormity of what his parents had gone through. Chute and Spìegelman go over the long interviews with Vladek Spiegelman. As humans do, Vladek had told his story to other people through the years, so that when he was interviewed by his son, the story had been told and retold the way anecdotes do. It was then up to Art Spiegelman to tease out every detail that got lost in the retellings.
One of the major ideas that MetaMaus seeks to instill in the reader is that Maus was a comic (itself a stylized form with rules about speech bubbles, captions, panels, rows, pages) that was written and drawn to the best of Art Spiegelman's ability, about what he had able to process and depict about the elder Spiegelman's retelling of his life. This latter narrative was itself told to the best of Vladek Spiegelman's ability, considering that English was his second language, that the memories were as old as forty or fifty years, and that Vladek was himself a human limited by his own perception of events. This is not to say Maus is fiction - it's not; but rather, it's a reflection on the limits of memory and a person's ability to depict someone else's memories.
Forty to fifty years later, do we remember the specific wording of something that was told to us? Something we said ourselves? Do we remember a face seen in passing, a setting, the way a city looked? And do we remember all of these consistently through the six years that World War II lasted? And the years before the war, as well as the years after? Do you remember all of this if for large periods of it, you were starving, sick and stressed beyond what most people can endure (and most people did not, in fact, endure)?
While I wouldn't consider myself a huge comics fan, I have read a fair share of comics in my time. The sections concerned with Maus as a comic were very illuminating. Spiegelman has researched the hell out of any and all illustrations made by concentration camp inmates, as well as postwar pamphlets about the ghettos and death camps. And so we learn that Spiegelman took the crude look of these as inspiration for the Maus aesthetics. There's a great deal of talk about the way a sketch became a page, including panel structure and economy of words. Spiegelman talks of other cartoonists and comic artists he was inspired by, as well as other comic styles (including superhero and European styles). While Maus has gotten massive amounts of attention as Holocaust literature, the fact is that comics have their own history, of which Spiegelman's work is also a part. Maus should be celebrated not just as Holocaust literature, but also as an achievement in the history of comics. Not "better than a comic" or "not actually a comic" or "a comic for people who don't like comics," but "an exceptional comic." The sections about comics help place Maus in this context.
Other than that, I enjoyed the sections about translating Maus into other languages, German, Polish and Hebrew included. All of these had their own idiosyncrasies. The sections about the making of the Personenbeschreibung episode about Spiegelman are also not to be missed, particularly because the episode was never shown in the United States and it looks like it's not available online. Spiegelman's comments on this documentary give insight into Georg Stefan Troller's aesthetic as opposed to his own, as well as life in Poland before the fall of the Iron Curtain.
There's so much to say about MetaMaus because it's a 294-page book (and DVD!) that is just chock full with information. It is just fantastic to have such an in-depth analysis performed by both a scholar (Chute) and the author himself about one of your favorite books. If only there were more works such as MetaMaus about other books, and if only those works were as widely available and accessible as MetaMaus. So, even if Maus is not one of your own favorite books, I'd recommend at least skimming it, so you get an idea of what a MetaYourFavoriteBook could look like.
There's a page in The Complete Maus, where Art is at his drawing table, and journalists are all around him, looking for a quick soundbite. Three of the questions he's asked are, "Why [did you make a comic about] the Holocaust?" "Why [did you draw Jewish people as] mice?" and "Why [did you tell your father's story through] comics?" MetaMaus seeks to answer all three questions, and offers an avalanche of additional primary sources, besides.
For a reader concerned with form and style, MetaMaus is a rare treat. Spiegelman's interviews with Hillary Chute pull open the curtain to reveal the nuts and bolts underneath. The interviews don't just give a succinct response to the above questions, but really dig into the process of making Maus. The graphic novel wasn't born fully formed, but it began gestating as early as during Spiegelman's childhood, as he slowly came to understand the enormity of what his parents had gone through. Chute and Spìegelman go over the long interviews with Vladek Spiegelman. As humans do, Vladek had told his story to other people through the years, so that when he was interviewed by his son, the story had been told and retold the way anecdotes do. It was then up to Art Spiegelman to tease out every detail that got lost in the retellings.
One of the major ideas that MetaMaus seeks to instill in the reader is that Maus was a comic (itself a stylized form with rules about speech bubbles, captions, panels, rows, pages) that was written and drawn to the best of Art Spiegelman's ability, about what he had able to process and depict about the elder Spiegelman's retelling of his life. This latter narrative was itself told to the best of Vladek Spiegelman's ability, considering that English was his second language, that the memories were as old as forty or fifty years, and that Vladek was himself a human limited by his own perception of events. This is not to say Maus is fiction - it's not; but rather, it's a reflection on the limits of memory and a person's ability to depict someone else's memories.
Forty to fifty years later, do we remember the specific wording of something that was told to us? Something we said ourselves? Do we remember a face seen in passing, a setting, the way a city looked? And do we remember all of these consistently through the six years that World War II lasted? And the years before the war, as well as the years after? Do you remember all of this if for large periods of it, you were starving, sick and stressed beyond what most people can endure (and most people did not, in fact, endure)?
While I wouldn't consider myself a huge comics fan, I have read a fair share of comics in my time. The sections concerned with Maus as a comic were very illuminating. Spiegelman has researched the hell out of any and all illustrations made by concentration camp inmates, as well as postwar pamphlets about the ghettos and death camps. And so we learn that Spiegelman took the crude look of these as inspiration for the Maus aesthetics. There's a great deal of talk about the way a sketch became a page, including panel structure and economy of words. Spiegelman talks of other cartoonists and comic artists he was inspired by, as well as other comic styles (including superhero and European styles). While Maus has gotten massive amounts of attention as Holocaust literature, the fact is that comics have their own history, of which Spiegelman's work is also a part. Maus should be celebrated not just as Holocaust literature, but also as an achievement in the history of comics. Not "better than a comic" or "not actually a comic" or "a comic for people who don't like comics," but "an exceptional comic." The sections about comics help place Maus in this context.
Other than that, I enjoyed the sections about translating Maus into other languages, German, Polish and Hebrew included. All of these had their own idiosyncrasies. The sections about the making of the Personenbeschreibung episode about Spiegelman are also not to be missed, particularly because the episode was never shown in the United States and it looks like it's not available online. Spiegelman's comments on this documentary give insight into Georg Stefan Troller's aesthetic as opposed to his own, as well as life in Poland before the fall of the Iron Curtain.
There's so much to say about MetaMaus because it's a 294-page book (and DVD!) that is just chock full with information. It is just fantastic to have such an in-depth analysis performed by both a scholar (Chute) and the author himself about one of your favorite books. If only there were more works such as MetaMaus about other books, and if only those works were as widely available and accessible as MetaMaus. So, even if Maus is not one of your own favorite books, I'd recommend at least skimming it, so you get an idea of what a MetaYourFavoriteBook could look like.
March 7, 2012
When I first heard about Maus, I think the novelty of the 'gimmick' (you know, that comic book about the holocaust where the Jews are mice and the Nazis are cats) both drew me to it and made me skeptical of the whole thing at the same time (I was already pretty into comics / graphic novels / whateveryouwanttocallthem at the time). In hindsight my skepticism, by virtue of lowering my expectations, set me up to be absolutely floored by that book as the story unfolded. I've been a devotee of Mr. Spiegelman's ever since, and have faithfully read most of his new material as it's trickled out and as my time permitted.
Thus, when I stumbled upon MetaMaus at the local library and read the premise on the cover blurb, my expectations couldn't have been higher. And yet they were surpassed. This book is truly one of the best I've read in my recent memory. Possibly ever.
Mr. Spiegelman deftly runs through an FAQ of queries on Maus, that he's clearly thought deeply about. Why Mice? Why Comics? Why the Holocaust? The book takes the format of an interview with Hillary Chute (Professor of English Literature of the University of Chicago) who was given access to Art's "Mausfiles" (the notes, sketches, panel studies, etc...that Spiegelman compiled during the creation of Maus). Spiegelman thus guides us through the entire creative process, which is as insightful, penetrating, honest, and interesting as the story depicted in Maus. All of this is delightfully illustrated and explicated through early rough drafts, discarded ideas, and other fascinating insights into the creative process of making Maus.
One of the things I enjoyed most about Maus was Spiegelman's narrow focus on the experiences of his father, without trying to expand these obviously representative experiences to the Shoah in general. By keeping his book narrowly focused on Vladek's story, it makes it more personal and relevant, and thus, IMO, more powerful. Spiegelman repeats this awesome feat while analyzing his own experiences researching, creating, and living with the fame and popularity (and certain elements of controversy) of Maus.
After starting the book I found myself deliberately delaying reading it because, to be honest, I didn't want it to end. But upon committing to sitting down with it, my reading sessions would invariably stretch longer and later into the night than my children and wife appreciated. In short, this book is compelling, compulsive, and a must read.
Thus, when I stumbled upon MetaMaus at the local library and read the premise on the cover blurb, my expectations couldn't have been higher. And yet they were surpassed. This book is truly one of the best I've read in my recent memory. Possibly ever.
Mr. Spiegelman deftly runs through an FAQ of queries on Maus, that he's clearly thought deeply about. Why Mice? Why Comics? Why the Holocaust? The book takes the format of an interview with Hillary Chute (Professor of English Literature of the University of Chicago) who was given access to Art's "Mausfiles" (the notes, sketches, panel studies, etc...that Spiegelman compiled during the creation of Maus). Spiegelman thus guides us through the entire creative process, which is as insightful, penetrating, honest, and interesting as the story depicted in Maus. All of this is delightfully illustrated and explicated through early rough drafts, discarded ideas, and other fascinating insights into the creative process of making Maus.
One of the things I enjoyed most about Maus was Spiegelman's narrow focus on the experiences of his father, without trying to expand these obviously representative experiences to the Shoah in general. By keeping his book narrowly focused on Vladek's story, it makes it more personal and relevant, and thus, IMO, more powerful. Spiegelman repeats this awesome feat while analyzing his own experiences researching, creating, and living with the fame and popularity (and certain elements of controversy) of Maus.
After starting the book I found myself deliberately delaying reading it because, to be honest, I didn't want it to end. But upon committing to sitting down with it, my reading sessions would invariably stretch longer and later into the night than my children and wife appreciated. In short, this book is compelling, compulsive, and a must read.
November 9, 2011
Sometimes I feel like a good graphic novel is a lot like pornography--I don't know how to define it, but I know it when I see it. I am not an artist, but I feel a bit closer to artists when I read GNs since their art is laid out a bit differently than in a painting or other more traditional medium and when you layer in narrative and word play, I feel like I am seeing a 3D rendering of how the artist works through thoughts on a subject visually. I love that. With good language and good art-a graphic novel is a joy to behold and far from being a quick read becomes a heavier visual and poetic production.
That behind the scenes of art feeling is all over MetaMaus. Now I have been all about the meta since pop-up video snagged me in the 90s and I adore the story behind the story. Often, too much information taints the art or belabors any message (looking at you GEORGE LUCAS, leave the thing alone godammit!), but not in this book. Why is that? The holocaust is like a toothache. It hurts and you can't make it go away, but you can't stop worrying it with your tongue. I'll never understand it or accept it and neither will Art Spiegelman, but he comes a hell of a lot closer than I ever will. And his thoughts are beautiful to look at.
That behind the scenes of art feeling is all over MetaMaus. Now I have been all about the meta since pop-up video snagged me in the 90s and I adore the story behind the story. Often, too much information taints the art or belabors any message (looking at you GEORGE LUCAS, leave the thing alone godammit!), but not in this book. Why is that? The holocaust is like a toothache. It hurts and you can't make it go away, but you can't stop worrying it with your tongue. I'll never understand it or accept it and neither will Art Spiegelman, but he comes a hell of a lot closer than I ever will. And his thoughts are beautiful to look at.
August 20, 2012
Mitä tästä voi sanoa. Hollywood -elokuvien Näin tehtiin -dokumentit ovat kenties vastenmielisintä mukadokumentarismia mitä maa päällään kantaa. Meta Maus on jotain muuta. Jos luet sarjakuvia vain viihtyäksesi tai jos mestariteosten taustat tahi tekijän intentiot eivät sinua kiinnosta, älä edes aloita tätä kirjaa. Jos sen sijaan kaipaat tietoa Spiegelmanin valinnoista kkuten miksi hän piirsi puolalaiset sioiksi tai mihin viittaa Auschwitzin kuolemanparakeista nousevan savun sekoittuminen Artin savukkeen palamisjäännöksiin.
Maus sisälsi paljon Artin ja Vladekin elämästä ja MetaMaus sisältää paitsi litteroituina (ja mukana tulevalla levyllä myös äänitteinä) kaiken sen haastattelumateriaalin, jonka Art isästään keräsi. Ja uskomattoman paljon siitä on saatu siirtymään myös itse sarjakuvaan. Plus tietysti Artin nillitystä taidemuseoiden ymmärtämättömiä kuraattoreita kohtaan ja vähän kaikkea muutakin asiaankuuluvaa.Kaiken tämän lisäksi MetaMaus sisältää myös valtavasti luonnoksia ja selityksiä miksi asiat on kuvattu niin kuin on. MetaMaus kertoo lähes kaiken Mausin tekemisestä ja hyvin paljon myös sarjakuvan tekemisestä. Ainakin (taiteellisesti) kunnianhimoisen sellaisen.
Tämmän jälkeen täytynee lukea Maus uudelleen.
Maus sisälsi paljon Artin ja Vladekin elämästä ja MetaMaus sisältää paitsi litteroituina (ja mukana tulevalla levyllä myös äänitteinä) kaiken sen haastattelumateriaalin, jonka Art isästään keräsi. Ja uskomattoman paljon siitä on saatu siirtymään myös itse sarjakuvaan. Plus tietysti Artin nillitystä taidemuseoiden ymmärtämättömiä kuraattoreita kohtaan ja vähän kaikkea muutakin asiaankuuluvaa.Kaiken tämän lisäksi MetaMaus sisältää myös valtavasti luonnoksia ja selityksiä miksi asiat on kuvattu niin kuin on. MetaMaus kertoo lähes kaiken Mausin tekemisestä ja hyvin paljon myös sarjakuvan tekemisestä. Ainakin (taiteellisesti) kunnianhimoisen sellaisen.
Tämmän jälkeen täytynee lukea Maus uudelleen.
January 2, 2013
Got this out of the library so as to have a light and inconsequential read for the holiday season. It fulfilled that role admirably but it also made me want to read Maus again, which I didn't expect. Spiegelman is good company and often very amusing, but he also takes his work seriously - in this book one often leads to the other. A good example is the case of the German edition of the book. Spiegelman was very particular that all countries would reproduce the cover art exactly, which was a bit of a problem in Germany as there are laws governing the displaying of swastika other than in the case of serious scholarly work. Eventually permission was granted for the Maus cover to be reproduced as it was, years later however, watching documentary about skinheads in Germany there was one young fascist man with a Maus poster on his wall - it was the only swastika he could find.
Not a book for everyone but I was actually rather pleasantly surprised.
Not a book for everyone but I was actually rather pleasantly surprised.
October 1, 2014
What can I really say about this book on the evolution of the great two part Holocaust classic, MAUS. If you haven't read it than read it first before you read this. This book is completely written from long interviews with Art Spiegelman about his family, the history of his parents surviving the Holocaust, the effect on him, the effect MAUS has had on his life and his children's life and, for me, most amazing, the actual, specific evolution of the drawings.
He sees MAUS, for which he won a Pulitzer (should have won the Nobel in my opinion), as the pinnacle of his life as well as the bane of his existence. There is no spoiler to be written so I will tell you the most shocking two pages were the family tree before the War and the family tree after the war. I've been reading about the Holocaust and WW2 for 5 decades and yet felt his loss like a hard punch to the stomach.
This is fascinating, emotional, intriguing and informative.
He sees MAUS, for which he won a Pulitzer (should have won the Nobel in my opinion), as the pinnacle of his life as well as the bane of his existence. There is no spoiler to be written so I will tell you the most shocking two pages were the family tree before the War and the family tree after the war. I've been reading about the Holocaust and WW2 for 5 decades and yet felt his loss like a hard punch to the stomach.
This is fascinating, emotional, intriguing and informative.
March 27, 2016
Extremely insightful thoughts by Art Spiegelman about the creation of Maus. He discusses all aspects of the book: Why Mice? How to accurately portray Vladek's story? Why comics? What was the impact on Art? On Art's family?
Although there were many moving moments from the book, there was one that really made me stop and think. It showed two family trees. The first family tree showed all of Art's extended family on his mother's side before WWII. The second family tree had taken out every relative who was not alive after World War II. The second family tree was nearly empty. Art had almost no relatives alive after the war, except for his parents.
The final pages of the book gave the transcript of Art's interviews with Vladek. This was almost like re-reading Maus again, without the pictures.
This will not be a book that I will forget any time soon.
There was also a DVD with the book with extra insights on it. I have yet to watch this so I cannot comment on it.
Although there were many moving moments from the book, there was one that really made me stop and think. It showed two family trees. The first family tree showed all of Art's extended family on his mother's side before WWII. The second family tree had taken out every relative who was not alive after World War II. The second family tree was nearly empty. Art had almost no relatives alive after the war, except for his parents.
The final pages of the book gave the transcript of Art's interviews with Vladek. This was almost like re-reading Maus again, without the pictures.
This will not be a book that I will forget any time soon.
There was also a DVD with the book with extra insights on it. I have yet to watch this so I cannot comment on it.
February 4, 2022
My God, I've read and reread Maus plenty of times since I came to it around 2008, 2009. It's a major book. But I didn't know the efforts behind its creation. Spiegelman is such an intelligent dude, and what captivated me the most was his blind compromise for what he was doing. I really admire people who, despite everything, dedicate their entire lives to achieve what they set to do.
Metamaus asks good questions, and is a unlimited source of the material behind the decisions that shaped one of the best books ever.
Metamaus asks good questions, and is a unlimited source of the material behind the decisions that shaped one of the best books ever.
December 13, 2011
Valuable in more than one way.
February 21, 2019
Un quart de siècle après la publication de son chef d'oeuvre Maus: Un survivant raconte, tome 1: Mon père saigne l'histoire l'auteur raconte la genèse de l'oeuvre, ses difficultés, ses sources d'inspiration, puis la vie de l'oeuvre après sa publication, sa réception.
S'ensuit une discussion sur la bataille menée par Spiegelman et d'autres pour que la BD ne soit plus considérée comme un art mineur mais comme un art tout court.
Un excellent, mais pas indispensable, complément à une relecture de l'oeuvre.
S'ensuit une discussion sur la bataille menée par Spiegelman et d'autres pour que la BD ne soit plus considérée comme un art mineur mais comme un art tout court.
Un excellent, mais pas indispensable, complément à une relecture de l'oeuvre.
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October 13, 2023I can't give this a star rating, but I found it to be a really helpful deep dive after reading Maus. There's just more detail in pretty much every aspect of Maus, from the illustration style to the actual interviews with Vladek. And, at the very end (and feeling like a bit of an afterthought), there's even what I've always wanted - interviews with other women who knew Anja, so that a sliver of her story can be told more directly. I don't know why those interviews were presented alone, at the end, and so incompletely, but I guess it fits.
February 25, 2022
Un livre très dense, avec beaucoup d’archives et de documents inédits. J’ai trouvé la partie « Pourquoi les souris ? » véritablement passionnante.
La partie « Pourquoi la BD ? » m’a moins intéressée, elle était un peu trop technique.
La retranscription des enregistrements de Vladek m’a beaucoup émue.
Je recommande fortement, mais il faut avoir en tête les deux tomes de Maus, ou commencer par les souvenirs de Vladek qui se trouvent à la fin du livre.
La partie « Pourquoi la BD ? » m’a moins intéressée, elle était un peu trop technique.
La retranscription des enregistrements de Vladek m’a beaucoup émue.
Je recommande fortement, mais il faut avoir en tête les deux tomes de Maus, ou commencer par les souvenirs de Vladek qui se trouvent à la fin du livre.
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