2. The Complete Maus, Art Spiegelman (Penguin Books, 2003)
The next piece is in itself an oddity. Originally published in two volumes, Maus is a deeply thoughtful and equally compelling piece of art and literature combined to create an inspection of the life of a Jewish man and recalling the epic story of how he and his wife survived at a great cost. The difference of this semi-biographical tale lies not in its extraordinary description of survival, but Spiegelman's unsentimental use of animal classifications of the human species. Jews (Mice), Germans (Cats), Poles (Pigs) etc. From my point of view, it is an achievement in itself to not look on this work with a patronising conception of this device, but to really grasp on the divisions we, ourselves as a race, had created by its own hand. From a reader who has little interest in graphic or comic book genres, I am all the more grateful of having this text as part of my course at university and to put aside those preferences in order to really understand that no book in either prose or poetry would have the same impact as Maus can.
What Maus carries off successfully are the comparisons of how the past can be a haunting shadow on what prejudice and bitter conflict can result in later - the mysterious suicide of Art's mother and the inherent vulnerability within people. Don't be fooled or put off by the style of the novel (and that's what it is, overall), as the depth and material of the text made it more than a worthy winner of the many accolades it has received.
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