From the Hermit's recent correspondence:
Without denigrating graphic novels at all -- I do admire the form, even though I'm not a deep fan nor do I anticipate owning large collection -- I don't see Art Spiegelman's great work Maus as being a graphic novel. I just don't think it belongs in that category, even though it is drawn as well as worded. It is sui generis. Calling it a graphic novel would be like filing the Iliad under 'War Stories,' subdivided by the war being talked about, in reverse chronological order by start date. Certainly the Iliad contains some of the best war stories ever handed down after a war, and they are at least as factual as many other war stories, the factual part never being of the essence. But the essence of the Iliad is not only the war stories, but much more: the individual character development, the portrait of the two cultures, the incredible use of language in so many ways, including the use of repetitions to sustain a long oral narrative, etc. etc. Not to mention its impact on the persistent reader.
And Maus contains no comic book heroes, whether with super or special powers or not. Some may not feel super-powered protagonists or villains are essential to call a work a graphic novel, but super powers are characteristic, whether they are attained by accident or present at birth. Maus has no such content -- although there are certainly good guys and bad guys, they have no special powers, they are just people in the actual world of the time, and that is part of the point.
Maus, by Art Spiegelman, is graphic in presentation, in that it moves from frame to frame in the way a comic strip does, but is not a novel. Spiegelman's work is not fiction or legend, but memory, history, fact, character, insight. The graphic aspect is essential to the story, with the various groups involved portrayed as dogs, cats, mice, reindeer, pigs, etc. When someone of one group wishes to disguise himself as part of another group, they wear a mask of that group -- we see a mouse wearing a pig mask and we see the string that holds the mask on. The pictures don't just illustrate the story, they ARE the story, in this sense. They don't just increase the story's impact, they ARE the impact. But the words are essential too, as the characters and actions and events around them are complex, and the words are both necessary and integral.
Maus is amazingly affecting. To me, all Holocaust literature is emotionally overwhelming, but the effect of Maus goes beyond that. I believe that, partly by its presentation and partly through the skill of its author, it has the ability to sneak in under our guard, then surprise, delight, horrify, and appall us, and cause us to feel tremendous suspense and tension. But it does not do so by distortion or exaggeration, as a graphic novel might quite legitimately do to tell its story. If you haven't seen and read Maus, you have missed something truly significant in literature and in the experience of a work of art.
8:48:52 AM 
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