There's been breaking news lately about a 1986 graphic novel called
Maus. It's by Art Spiegelman and has made the rounds rather quietly until a few months ago.
According to Amazon's main top of the page synopsis, it is "A brutally moving work of art—widely hailed as the greatest graphic novel ever written—Maus recounts the chilling experiences of the author’s father during the Holocaust, with Jews drawn as wide-eyed mice and Nazis as menacing cats.
Maus is a haunting tale within a tale, weaving the author’s account of his tortured relationship with his aging father into an astonishing retelling of one of history's most unspeakable tragedies. It is an unforgettable story of survival and a disarming look at the legacy of trauma."
There are a few reasons people are currently up in arms in banning the book.
According to Variety, there is “inappropriate language and nudity” which "caused a Tennessee school board to remove the Pulitzer Prize-winning graphic novel from its eighth grade curriculum".
The article goes on to state that it "details the cruelties that Spiegelman’s father Vladek faced throughout the Holocaust, from the years leading up to World War II through his own liberation from Auschwitz. Through serialized conversations with his son, Vladek discloses the starvation and abuse he endured at the hands of Nazis, and the resourcefulness he tapped into in order to survive. Some parts of the book show Jews depicted as mice, stripped naked in concentration camps (nudity being one cause for the ban). Of course, the book does contains gruesome details and grisly imagery — like any truthful telling of the Holocaust does."
NPR states something similar and goes on to talk about how the author was quoted by CNBC and that "he was heartened by the response, noting it's not the first of its kind.
"The schoolboard could've checked with their book-banning predecessor, [Russian President] Vladimir Putin," he wrote. "He made the Russian edition of Maus illegal in 2015 (also with good intentions — banning swastikas) and the small publisher sold out immediately and has had to reprint repeatedly.""
The article continues with a breakdown on how quick the book sold out in various forms, both online and in stores. Because libraries, schools, professors, all want people to know and understand a part of history, there was opportunity for students to receive both Maus I and Maus II either free or close to it. There's been active donations to help fund a mass print of the book to give it away for free at one point over the last week. The older generations that have witnessed other materials having set foot on the banned list, understand that there's something different and want a copy for themselves, hence the need to quickly get it produced and in everyone's pocket. Consider it like a new collector's item, especially since places are overpricing the series now.
Which is why I guess I can't complain... I was given a copy by a cousin, in 1996. The unfortunate part is the cousin wrote on the inside cover decreasing the value of the paperback, should I decide to capitalize on the market right now. Not that I would, but given the fact that novels like
1984 have been reprinted (especially in the cheaper "Mass Market Paperback" edition), I'm sure Maus will make its way back into print some time soon.
Plus, the copy I own has been sitting in the sun for a few years. The spine is worn from light sources, the colors aren't as sharp as they should be. When you open the book, the glue is slightly cracked. So it's not as 100% "like new" as it should be.
I guess I'll keep my copy. Maybe this is the opportune time to read it, as I don't recall ever peering into the book when I received it (age has gotten to it, by the looks of opening it).
But as time progresses, more news stories will come out of this, as it's not been 3 weeks since headlines blew it up. A simple web search has so many hits for reports on why this should or should not be taken out of the hands of school children. It's like, if you're teaching history, surely everyone's side needs to be said? Or, if someone has a way to make it so it can be talked about... this could be an answer? It's not as if Spiegelman made anything up to capitalize on false information. He took oral history from a person who lived through the event and wrote it for people to understand. Comic books are in the hands of millions of people. If you can story board it out, it can be something people read and have opinions over. Create a conversation rather than turmoil.
However, given the subject, there may be sound reasons behind it disappearing from schools.
According to The Guardian, "the McMinn county board of education in Tennessee voted to remove Spiegelman’s 1991 Holocaust memoir, Maus, from its middle-school curriculum. Though the board cited the graphic novel’s use of non-sexual nudity and light profanity in defending its decision, the ban is part of a wave of scholastic censorship in the US, largely led by an agitated conservative movement and targeting books that deal with racism or LGBTQ issues.
But the author of the Pulitzer prize–winning graphic novel, which tells the story of his parents’ experience as Polish Jews during the Holocaust, traces his own free speech radicalism to a very different inflection point in America’s censorship wars. As a teenager, Spiegelman found himself siding with the right of Nazis to march in Skokie, Illinois, a town with a significant population of Holocaust survivors.
“The ACLU lost a lot of members because they defended their right to march,” he said. “And I just thought that seemed right. Let them march, and if there’s any more trouble, stop them. I thought that was a conversation that had to take place.
“It shaped me.”"
What do you do? Anger a few people in place of sharing experiences? Censorship has been happening a lot more over the last decade. Gone are the days when one or two music groups were banned on the radio for
teenage pregnancy or making a
children's song about drugs. Albeit both references seem a bit of a reach in this day and age, but the "powers that be" say otherwise. Regarding books, how about the random novelist that was banned from a store, only to make the list of "
must reads" during high school? I mean, how many English literature classes did I have where we read loads of previously locked up stories? I've encountered quite the box of paperbacks that were once on the no fly list. If history tells us anything, we go through cycles with our lives and
Maus happens to be one of those targets right now.
Happy listening and reading... let me know when you want to discuss things!
Cheers;
See Also (links to the sites I quote from)
See Also (banned books and songs, via Amazon)
