During this semester we have covered from poems to novels, plays, comics and so on, and as most of us have realized there is a pattern. Each writer has written something we can relate to their past. For instance, we have the case of our dear writer Ernest Hemingway and his “wounded life”, on the other corner we have Tennessee Williams, whose life is put into a play named 'A Streetcar Named Desire' and, as we are going to see in the group discussion (my group is in charge of that topic), some characters and topics are completely related to his life and to his family members, such as her sister Rose or his father named Cornelius, her mother Edwina and so on.
But I would like to talk about one of the recent authors we have seen in this last Unit that is Art Spiegelman. I found very interesting to look for more information about his life because I found very interesting when Mr. Villa told us about Mause and the relationship among his personal life
Even though he has the American nationality, he was born in Sweden from Polish Jews parents (Wladyslaw was his father and Andzia his mother). His parents had another son named Rysio, before Art was born, but sooner he died at the age of six of poisoning, but his parents did not believe it and start looking for Rysio on orphanages around Europe. As Mr. Villa told us, Art started to imitate the style of his favorite magazine MAD, what's more, he created a MAD-alike magazine called Blasé at High school. All his works have been related to his early life, specially his graphic novel Mause that was published in 1991 in which he focuses on his father's experiences related to the Holocaust.
He tries to persuade his father to tell him more about his father's experiences as a Holocaust survivor. In this graphic novel, Art uses the same names of his and his family as in real life. For instance, Art Spiegelman, who is someone neurotic who has several problems with his father. (In real life he has a tough relationship with his father, her mother Anna committed suicide when he was in a psychiatric hospital at the age of 20. She left him a diary that was burned by his father). Vladek Spiegelman who is a survivor of the Holocaust. Anja Spiegelman, Vladek's first wife who committed suicide. Mala Spiegelman was Vladek's second wife. And Francoise Mouly who is Art's wife (Francoise is the name of his wife in the real life too).
As we can see Art's life it been showed in his comic novel Maus, even though he states:
“I feel so inadequate trying to reconstruct a reality that was worse than my darkest dreams... There's so much I'll never be able to understand or visualize. I mean, reality is too complex for comics... so much has to be left out or distorted”.
Mause tries to put Vladek memories into a book, but sometimes it is hard to put such a hard issue into a book. Arts tries to be part of his father's memories inviting us to join to his memories.
Vania, after reading your comment I find myself in accord with you about that it's hard to put in words, in this case on a book, such a hard issue. Moreover, I personally believe that it's a nonse to think the opposite.
ResponderEliminarThe context of this book was the Holocaust, which was "the systematic, bureaucratic, state-sponsored persecution and murder of approximately six million Jews by the Nazi regime and its collaborators. "Holocaust" is a word of Greek origin meaning "sacrifice by fire." The Nazis, who came to power in Germany in January 1933, believed that Germans were "racially superior" and that the Jews, deemed "inferior," were an alien threat to the so-called German racial community"
http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/es/article.php?ModuleId=10005143
We can read, watch movies, find information on the Internet and so on and so forth about the Holocaust, but as Art mentions, "the darkest dreams" were taken only by those who were there. We are free to have our own opinion about this horrible event, but making judgments, or even interpretations of the feelings, emotions or reactions of those who experienced it, from my prospect, isn't proper.