Maus by Art Spiegelman

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I really recommend it. Before you stereotype comics and graphic novels as "cartoonish" and "funny" and "heroic," read it. The book is about a Holocaust survivor. But that's one of the sad part, not the interesting part. This is an Autobiography, no, not of the Holocaust survivor, but the survivor's son, who was born three years after the horror. It is also a biography of the survivor. That's not the interesting part. The Germans are cats, the Jewish are mice (the vermon the Nazi saw them as), non-Jewish Poles are pigs, non-Jewish French are frogs, and the Americans are dogs. A firm deconstruction of stereotype, your ultimate judgment lies in the character, not the appearance. Yes, we know of many Holocaust account. It is traumatizing, horrible, unhuman. But this was a thought-provoking, BRUTALLY HONEST work. The father, Vladek Spiegelman, acts like the bitter, miserly Jew stereotype. Much to Artie Spiegelman, Vladek's second son's, fear, he cries out "stop being stereotypical." In one scene, Artie tells his wife he fears that his father who come out as the Jewish stereotype. And yet, this is really how his father acted, in the post-Holocaust. In the frame story of the father's story, we see that he is nothing like his past personality, kind, loving, strong, during the Holocaust when he was trying to survive. He venerates this dead first wife and his dead first son, Richeiu. And Anya Spiegelman, we never a real post-Holocaust appearance. The mother of Artie, she murdered herself 20 years after enduring the Holocaust. The stepmother, Mala, a friend of Anya and a Holocaust survivor is now Vladek's second wife. Though she has moments of anger, Mala is supportive and kind to her stepson. Survivors leave the Holocaust with different personalities and insights. And Art Spiegelman, never went through the Holocaust, and yet we see the effective of the Holocaust on one who never went through it. It leaves you thinking more about the mentality and the humanity within the Holocaust.