Compelling Characters Maus

Reviewing Maus: A Classic Graphic Novel on Survival and The Past

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5 min read

Looking Back 

Years ago, Art Spiegelman set to work, hoping to create a personal meaningful book; a comic book, ink on paper depicting the horrendous experiences endured by his family in Poland during the late thirties and the second world war. Art Spiegelman's book brings a unique take of Vladek, his father’s direct accounts. Vladek experienced first hand memories and reflections of what life was like during that time.

Throughout the story, we see that Vladek Spiegelman did not share his information with his son as readily and openly as he could have, as Art grew up. The Holocaust, the survival strategies used in his Jewish community, every part of it holds a sobering sadness and a warning that evil once abundantly channelled through the fibre of humankind. 

The Art of Art Spiegelman’s Maus

This is not just Schindlers List crossed with the Beano. Admittedly, I remember opening Maus for the first time: you see, after reading many modern comics made with collaborative, advanced digital techniques; I wondered what earned this basic, hand-drawn graphic novel such a great repuration—then I got it! Yes, indeed, it's the only graphic novel ever to win a pulitzer to this day, but the real wizardry is that the book feels alive somehow. As if the spirit of that very Jewish-Polish community was transmuted into the books pages. 

I imagine, Alan Moore would most likely agree, the magic here rests with Arthur Spiegelman.

Vladek Spiegelman: A Compelling Survivor

Old Vladek is ballsy, sometimes cantankerous, giving a sense of how he affected those around him

An mature mouse; one who once lived besides predatory cats, as well as other hungry and unpredictable creatures in very hateful times. I could visualise the real man, a survivor hardened by a harsh, traumatic life. It's not a surprise to see people so traumatised become sociopaths or broken somehow. We've seen the damaged Bruce Wayne rebel archetype, but Vladek Spiegelman never sat on gargoyles to scope out the city. In his prime, young Vladek Spiegelman's wardrobe didn't include spandex, he didn’t punch bank robbers in the street — his life was real, but he was heroic by necessity, in his story to Art.

Oppression and Hatred

For the Jews, from the nineteen thirties onward; their standards of life, social standing, employment and their rights, were gradually becoming squashed under Nazi oppression.

From a family of factory owners and businessmen, Vladek Spiegelman was reduced to trading all sorts of cheap tat on the black market to support Anja, his wife who he loved dearly. 

He learnt to disguise himself, to wheel and deal and negotiate his way around people who would otherwise kill him. Vladek Spiegelman helped his Jewish community as much as he could—he fought the evil regime, despite being powerless. However, how the evil regime got to Vladek is open to interpretation.

Auschwitz and the Cost of Survival

Upon arrival in Auschwitz – a place that was garnished with hellish rumours – Vladek immediately sought out opportunities for betterment, to indulge his wife whenever possible. Treated like vermin, with not enough food or money, Vladek Spiegelman had to employ his networking skills, buy, sell, steal, work with allies.

During the most harsh and ungodly of times, his attitude was to be thankful for his luck.
It is in his senior years, however, when this altered Vladek, medicated, and poor in temperament, shared his past with Art, his son, something clicked with me. 

I suspected something. Maybe, Vladek developed a kind of dark worldview in his later years—something specific and personal haunted him that he could not put to rest. We know that beneath the physical injuries acquired in the camps there was invisible psychological strain.

Character and Strength 

His determination to survive the war, seeing friends executed, fear, guilt and conflicting thoughts; surely, it changed his cognitive behaviour in later life. Paranoid daily living, dangerous transactions in Auschwitz or Nazi Poland could alter many things in a person. Camp lifestyle was an institutionalising experience; possibly reprogramming how Vladek conducted himself with his new freedom. 

Sadly Anja took her own life, at home in the USA years after avoiding Nazi execution. It was damaging for the family and Vladek Spiegelman's mental wellbeing is not illustrated or explored in-depth, but; he was distraught at her funeral. The human mind has a self defense mechanism against facts or situations we are too ashamed or cannot accept—it dissociates.

The Lost Voice of Anja Spiegelman

In his later marriage, Vladek was tight with money, overly technical with every domestic job, one such task was counting every one of his pills, for example. Perfectionism.  In his young days, Vladek helped his wife, Anja through her darkest days against strong suicidal desires. A very good husband.

Much to his son's disappointment; Vladek got rid of Anja's Auschwitz and war time diary's. In the graphic novel, Art portrayed his father's modus operandi during the war as strong, to soldier on, to struggle and to never give up—ignoring the pain, while carrying his wife. It is sad that the writings of Anja Spiegelman are absent.

Only Vladek Spiegelman knew what happened to him and his peers during that vile period in history. I hope his account helped him defeat some of his demons. Regardless, all survivors of the Holocaust deserve everyone's utmost respect.

Conclusion: The Lasting Impact of Maus

Art Spiegelman’s Maus transcended the conventional limits of graphic novels. It vividly portrayed the horrors of the Holocaust and the scars it left. Vladek Spiegelman’s survival story is not just a story of resilience, but also a reflection of how history shapes family dynamics and us as human beings. Maus invites you to to reread it, as it sits on the bookshelf appreciating its artistic expression of humanity resembled as the animals we are! 

Philosophical Daydreams

Thoughts and Big Questions

What's it all about? 

10 min read

Humanity is a hungry species. Hungry for food, success and knowledge; our imagination never fails to dream-up interesting questions. Since Socrates, philosophers have been wrestling with life's big mysteries in structured ways. 

Take Aristotle, born around 384 BC. He proposed everything must come down to a 'Prime Mover'—basically the one force that brings motion to everything in the cosmos. This wasn't just push-and-pull movement either, but something multi-directional, like fire melting metal or forces exploding outward. Honestly, that's hard for me to wrap my head around, so I think of it more like an early grand theory of the universe. But didn't have commonly used words for what we know as 'space,' 'galaxy,' or 'universe'. 

Then there's Heraclitus, born around 535 BC. This thinker lived with a harsh melancholy, driving him deep into metaphysical thought. He gave us 'Panta Rhei' (everything flows) and the 'Logos'—the rational principle that runs through everything in our universe. It was later developed by Plato, and then later, Plotinus, as the 'world soul,' — a precursor to the holy spirit in Christianity. 

Heraclitus said everyone has a degree of knowledge and can think clearly, but really understanding the 'Logos' is what matters. His understanding of it is complex and quite esoteric, but even that connected to ideas about a creator god. Plato's nous, parallels the Indian Ishvara. Platonic thought influenced early Christian theology which I will cover in other blog posts. 

The 'Logos' has been translated as 'word,' 'formula,' 'plan,' 'account,' 'measure,' and 'reckoning.' Hippolytus, born in 170 AD, straight-up equated the 'Logos' with the Christian Word of God. Makes sense—Jesus is called the 'Word' in the Gospel of John, which was written in Greek, so they used the word Logos. Thomas Aquinas later tied Aristotelian philosophy and Christianity together pretty tightly.

Before Christianity adopted Aristotelian ideas, the prime mover was this independent, unified, non-physical energy that moved the cosmic bodies. Truth be said, it resembles early theoretical cosmology; expansion theory immediately springs to mind when I imagine the prime mover. It's physical law described with the limitation of ancient vocabulary. 

My intent is not to challenge anyone's beliefs. There is no desire to preach any particular spiritual view. I'm like to share my fascination with these themes that continue to resurface across different philosophical and spiritual traditions. Striking similarities exist in Vedic Hinduism and Sikhism to New Age concepts and Native American spirituality—there's a recurring theme of a universal spirit or universal mind. Gnostics, Hermetic and mystical Judaism, certain Buddhists and Jainists, esoterics, panentheists claim similar ideas. And there are more, but sizable lists are not pleasurable reading. 

What Science and Philosophy of Mind is Giving Us

The idea that consciousness continues to create reality? That's a seriously intriguing claim. Quantum mystics love referencing the double-slit experiment, Everett's many worlds theory, and Schrödinger's cat. These concepts are huge in science fiction, but the true nature of consciousness is still this elusive thing we're chasing with our consciousness. I know how laughable that sounds. 

Modern philosophical positions like filter theory and panpsychism put consciousness at the center. It echoes those ancient Dharmic, Jewish, and Christian beliefs we just talked about.

How Reality Emerged

Ancient texts and hieroglyphs often describe the very beginning as chaos or some kind of monstrous energy expanding. Modern Western thinking generally sees physics as the foundation of everything, but the universe's mysteries are still vast, but a large expansion seems to share common ground!

Physical energies evolved into sub-atomic particles, which formed our chemistry and biology, eventually leading to conscious life. This invisible motion—whether it's a prime mover or an ever-flowing force—animates all matter and life. It's like the universe gets to perceive itself through our eyes (after evolving them).

Plotinus and Plato described similar processes where the one perfect principle emanates into all things over time, becoming increasingly complex. It's very much like the absolute reality of Brahman in Advaita Vedanta, existing in a state of simple sat chit ananda. The one is pure heavenly simplicity as a conscious state emanating all things.

The Hard Problem and a Possible Solution

Our greatest minds are standing at the edge, stuck on the boundary of knowledge, hoping to understand consciousness—our primary source of reality. We still marvel at the double-slit experiment and how observing fundamental particles can influence their behavior. 

As well as probability reduction, maybe the wave functions collapse through actualisation related to other qualities we humans possess? Our brain, senses and representation processes also narrow probability logically so we can understand our surroundings. This suggests we have limitations, the observer effect when perceiving deeper reality and a processing cap when thinking outside our rational norm. 

One example to challenge normal rational thought is that information is absolutely everywhere. Around 2010-2012, theoretical physicist James Gates discovered mathematical structures in supersymmetry theory. He found what looked very much like error-correcting codes—the kind used in computing. It sparked discussion and speculation about the mathematical foundations of reality.

This makes you wonder: was neuroscientist Karl H. Pribram onto something? He said the brain is a holographic network that holds memory and follows the same rules as the deeper quantum level of reality. He added that memory is created by wave interference patterns—electrical waves firing across dendrites and fine neuronal pathways. Modern holographic mind theories have developed from his work.

If thought itself shares some mutual proto-conscious energy, it's reasonable to ask if this is filtered from the environment by the brain, or generated by the organ itself?

Life's Intelligent Design

If life did emerge from some primordial intelligence or prime mover, our biology would have layers of systems working together intelligently. And it does! The smallest parts of our bodies interact chemically. If intelligence is observable in every living cell, then property dualism and panpsychism make sense. Our bodies become proof! 

Kinesin motor proteins literally walk along our cells' microtubules, dragging vesicles to their designated points like tiny workers. RNA coding and mitosis are both delicately and accurately carried out with shocking precision. 

Astrocytes—the brain's defenders—have serious responsibilities. They store and distribute energy substrates, create and maintain links to other cells, regulate cell creation, and balance our brain chemistry. Doctors of the brain. 

Think about how basic excitatory and inhibitory brain and nerve responses vote like parliament do. Each response will contribute to thinking, choice and communication. We share desire with our own micro-organelles. Our molecular levels are quite comparable to us, and how we run our homes and our respective family's.

Beyond Our Scope

After the confirmation of the Higgs Boson and Higgs field in 2012 (an omnipresent energy field thought to exist everywhere), we dont know what physics and radical expressions of energy could have manifested. Bizarre evolutionary creatures—nothing like what we see on Earth.

Water roaches and bottom feeders in lakes are oblivious to the birds living above them, just as lions aren't aware of sharks. Like them, our awareness has a cap and it is ignorant the believe it ends with us. 

For all we know, unseen sentient beings have already evolved and are  near us. Hard to imagine, unusual, their strange genetics based on obscure fundamentals—tachyons (hypothetical faster-than-light particles), gravitons, photons, or anti-matter perhaps. Evolution out of the ballpark! Of course, such suggestions sound like quality horror literature; so do crocodiles in the drinking pool. 

That's enough of my musing. 

Thanks for reading.