This text was converted from the original print edition for full-text searchability. Formatting may differ from the original. Consult the PDF for citation and presentation details.

Page 41

Two New Books for the Preacher

James M. Rand

First Presbyterian Church, Worcester, Massachusetts

MAUS I AND MAUS II by Art Spiegelman. Pantheon, 1986 and 1991.

“The Holocaust in its enormity defies language and art, and yet both must be used to tell the tale that must be told.” (Elie Wiesel in 1986, announcing the architect to build the Holocaust Memorial Museum. New York Times, 11 April 1993. sect. 2.)

Art Spiegelman combines words and pictures (“language and art”) to tell not one but two Holocaust tales: that of his father, Vladek, as a young Polish Jew before and during World War II; and that of himself as a young American Jew attempting to preserve his father’s experiences on audiotape and paper, in order to understand what took place. The result is two books, Maus I and Maus II, which have won numerous awards— including a Guggenheim fellowship, a National Book Critics Circle nomination, selection as an “Editors’ Choice” for 1991 in the New York Times Book Review, and a special Pulitzer Prize. Initially, though, I was hesitant to pick up these slender volumes. They are, after all, comic books; and, in spite of their accolades I thought that meant I could ignore them. I was wrong. These are not like the Richie Rich, Archie and superhero magazines I read in the back seat of the family car during summer vacations years ago. Instead of giving us escapist fantasies, Art Spiegelman has drawn and narrated a personal and historical memoir full of genuine human pathos, love, and surprising humor. At the center of both books is Vladek, the father. As a young man in Eastern Europe, he is a “survivor” of Polish army life, prisoner of war camp, confinement in the Jewish ghetto, and imprisonment at Auschwitz. As an old man in America many years later, he is still a survivor—of two heart attacks, his wife’s suicide, and a loveless second marriage. However, what once were virtues necessary for survival (cunning, luck, and the ability to befriend or bribe enemies) have long since become vices. As if he were still held prisoner in a concentration camp, the aged Vladek picks up anything that might be useful some day (scraps of telephone wire), and hordes objects of little value (wooden matches). He even clings to racist attitudes, treating American blacks with as little compassion as the Nazis showed him. All of this behavior is witnessed and recorded by Artie (Vladek’s son, the author and character in these books). Over the course of many visits and much pleading, Artie draws out the story from his father, yet barely comprehends either the enormity of the Nazis’ evil or Vladek’s old-age eccentricity. Indeed, as the two men argue with one another, Artie begins to think that he too must become a survivor—of his own father. It is at this level that the twin stories of Vladek and Artie take on significance for the preacher. We are exposed to the horrors inflected by the Nazis decades ago, and simultaneously, to the damning terrors and trials that beset families today. Just as “the Holocaust in its enormity defies language and art,” so it is with Artie and Vladek—

Page 42

both genocide and family life yield their peculiar devestations. Like Jacob and Esau, Vladek and Artie represent one family but two nations (Poland and America). Like the Nazis and the Jews of World War II, father and son are inseparably linked, yet utterly divided. Like Israel and the P.L.O., they have a common history, but diverse claims for the present which must be negotiated to an uneasy peace. Amid such divisions—global or familial—it is the preacher’s task to evoke a reconciling word. Yet Maus I and Maus II remind us of the near absurdity of such an effort. Between nations, between races, and within families, such peace does not come easily or automatically. Finding words and images that resonate with redemptive meaning for human hurt is part of our calling. But an elusive part, at best—as these “survivor’s tales” attest. In fact, if any theme runs through the pages of these two books, it regards the inadequacy of words alone to express such meaning. At one point, when talking to his girlfriend, Françoise, Artie confesses, “I can’t even make any sense out of my relationship with my father…How am I supposed to make any sense out of Auschwitz!..[or] the Holocaust?…” (Maus II, 14). Later, parodying the interviews he endured after the debut of Maus I, Artie draws a comic strip frame in which a broadcaster thrusts a microphone at him and demands, “Tell our viewers what message you want them to get from your book.” “A message, I dunno,” Artie stammers, “…I-I never thought of reducing it to a message. I mean, I wasn’t trying to convince anybody of anything” (42). Even Vladek, after suriving the horrors of the death camps and later life, admits the difficulty of knowing and saying the right words: “Yes,” he laments, “…about Auschwitz, nobody can understand” (64). Could not the same be said of his relationship with his own son or his second wife, with whom he constantly fights? Yet, amid the divisions and strain, a strange paradox of hope remains. Artie discovers it for himself while talking to his “shrink.” “Samuel Beckett once said: vEvery word is like an unnesscary stain on silence and nothingness,'” he declares. A

pause follows—a comic strip frame notably devoid of speech, wherein Artie and the doctor ponder, and experience, the silence of nothingness. Finally, Artie punctuates his thought: “On the other hand, he said it” (45). In that moment, Artie captures both the impossibility and the necessity for saying something about the horrors and tribulations of our human lives. In the congregation I serve, and among our family’s friends, I find situations that were unimaginable to me a few short years ago: A woman verbally (and perhaps physically abused) by her husband, but unwilling to leave him. A teenaged girl, pregnant on account of rape. Another teenaged girl in prison. A man accused by his wife of sexually abusing their infant son (the charges were unsubstantiated and later dropped; and the couple is still together, miraculously). All three of the other men with me in a “dinner group” losing their jobs in less than a year. A man dying suddenly of an infection, just when chemotherapy had cured him of cancer. As with Artie and Vladek, the lives of these people resists figuring out. Our words do not readily make everything all right. As Vladek might say, “About [these things], nobody can understand.” As a pastor, I at least have found no way to encapsulate their experiences in neat packages for human consumption. There are no quick fixes, no facile conclusions. If nothing else, Maus I and Maus II warn us against glib and sure answers. Yet these books also rule out silence in the face of human terrors and divisions.

Page 43

As Elie Wiesel noted, the tale that “defies language and ari…must be told” none the less (emphasis added). Indeed, in telling the tale of their lives, Vladek and Artie do manage to find meaning. Late in Maus I, Artie shows Vladek some pages form the comic book he is creating. Vladek (who has never gotten used to his son as a cartoonist) might well have been disgusted to see his life story treated in such a format. Instead, he is intrigued, “I don’t read ever such comics, and even / am interested…Yes. I know already my story by heart, and even / am interested!” (Maus I, 133). What their own story gives them, in short, is not the complete understanding they originally sought, but a sort of self-recognition. In the course of recounting their trials and tumults, they come to see themselves as they are. Perhaps that is what we preachers and pastors are called to do also—to tell stories of death and life, suffering and survival—not to provide answers, but so our listeners may recognize themselves and know that they are known.