#9 Art Spiegelman

As I’ve been preparing my list, I keep returning to what the term “favorite” implies, and for me it is that the artists we’re listing are not necessarily the most influential in their field (though some certainly would be considered so), but those whose work we revel in, return to, and are continually refreshed or inspired by.

Thus I have to confess that I have read little more of Art Spiegelman’s work than the two volumes of Maus (Its rueful subtitle is A Survivor’s Tale), some work he has done for the New Yorker over the years and his brilliant reaction to the events of September 11, In the Shadow of No Towers. They are more than enough for me to include him on this list of favorites, however.

Maus is not particularly innovative in one respect: Spiegelman uses the beast fable, a literary tradition that dates back centuries, as an allegory of specific events in history and/or human behavior in general. Orwell did it with Animal Farm, Richard Adams with Watership Down, and Walter Wangerin with The Book of the Dun Cow. Maus, however, is more than that, because its subject is more than “the Holocaust.”

Using seemingly simple drawings, Spiegelman captures the horror of the Holocaust as it affects the lives of the little people caught in the flood tides of history. Epic scope and countless numbers have their purpose, but watching the lives of people we know torn to shreds by powers beyond their control make the suffering and anguish much more palpable.

Spiegelman goes beyond the immediate effects of the Holocaust, though, and shows that it didn’t end in 1945. Its painful echoes resound in the story of Vladek and Anja, Spiegelman’s parents for whom the tortures continue long after their “liberation.” For their son, too, agony is a constant companion as he too is traumatized by what his parents endured. Plagued by guilt and loneliness, Spiegelman is racked in by self-pity and anger both as he struggles to make sense of madness as the he evil of previous generations seeps into his life and his wife’s. It’s a harrowing account that spares none of its characters, least of all its creator.

To tell more would risk too many spoilers. Be assured that when you read Maus you will be reading a novel, a fable, a comic book, a memoir, a biography and an autobiography all at once. Its protean nature forced the Pulitzer committee to honor Spiegelman’s work with a special award in Letters.

Once considered groundbreaking and controversial, Maus became trendy and chic, then became mainstream (it’s studied from middle-school through grad school) and may now be seen as dated and clichéd. This is the way with many classics.

Complex, demanding, unforgiving, Maus should not simply become Holocaust “wallpaper.” Spiegelman himself has conflicted feelings about the work, concerned that art like his will be the quick go-to for people trying to “understand the Holocaust.” He knows better, and has said, “The Holocaust trumps art.”

Maus is discomfiting, disturbing, and disillusioning, and I know in my bones that Spiegelman would have it no other way.