After opening to the first page of Spiegelman's novel, I knew this would be a completely different reading experience from Vonnegut. However, both stories are centered around a war-veteran reliving events they went through during the war. The most obvious contrast between these two authors is that Maus is a graphic novel. The story is told in the form of a comic strip, with every page containing pictures and bubbles to represent what the character is saying.
Looking past the obvious, the writing styles of these two authors are quite different in my opinion. For me personally, I struggled reading Slaughterhouse Five because I felt that Kurt Vonnegut was so scatter-brained in telling his story. The narrator would jump around from Billy Pilgrim being in the war to his life after the war. Another confusing factor to this story was the possible (and debatable) "time-travel" that Billy Pilgrim experienced. I felt that Vonnegut was showing a symptom of PTSD by possibly just writing down things as they came into his mind. After a war, soldiers can struggle with concentrating on one thing which can cause their mind to jump around a lot. I felt that Vonnegut portrayed this in his writing.
Within the first few pages of Maus, I thought that this would be a much smoother story to follow. Even though the story jumps from Vladek telling his son stories of his life to an actual conversation between the both of them, the pictures make it easy to follow along with what is going on. When there is a present conversation with Artie and Vladek, they have it paired with a picture of two mice sitting down talking. As Vladek is telling stories, he seems to be very straight forward with what happened. He does not repeat himself, and his stories seem very realistic and believable to me.
I prefer reading Spiegelman's novel because it is very straightforward. Being a visual learner, I do think the pictures contribute to my favoritism for this novel. I personally just have trouble comprehending what I am reading in general, so when you jump around in telling a story, like Vonnegut, it is hard to keep track of what is going on.
I really like your connection between the interruptions to the flow of the story found in both stories. Maus is a much more connected story that flows easily even with the minor interruptions. Unlike Slaughterhouse-Five, which sometimes had me re-reading certain sections to understand where in the world (literally) Billy was, Maus' interruptions are much more natural. I think given Maus' publication as a graphic novel makes these small interruptions even less confusing because you can actually see the characters in the panels and see the change from the 1930s/40s to the present day of the novel. Though I enjoyed Slaughterhouse-Five and am currently enjoying Maus, Maus has captivated me on every single page.
ReplyDeleteYou have so many good points Jessica. It is true that although both stores are about war veterans relieving their war memories the writing of Spiegelmen was much more easier to understand as it was so conversational. I also agree with you on the part, where you described Vonnegut's writing to be scattered, as he keeps on jumping around Billy Pilgrim's war flashbacks, his time travel, his abduction by the aliens, and also his present where he is a rich optometrist. I have not lost any single grasp of Maus while I was reading it as the each drawing of the characters made it so much easier to understand, whereas Vonnegut's way of telling the story here and there have made me read the same chapter quite a few times.
ReplyDeleteVladek did try to move around the timeframes in different orders but Arties wouldn’t let him. Artie wanted his story to be chronological. Vladek’s story might seem more correct than that of Vonnegut. However, there is still unbelievable aspect in Maus. The part where Vladek tried to go to Reich from Protectorate without having any legal papers by disguising as a Pole was ridiculous. How is it possible that a mouse could just put on a pig mask and get away with it? It was really obvious, too. The pigs cannot be that stupid. I agree that graphic novel is easier to follow but by having everything drawn out, it takes away the readers’ imagination of what the characters would look like. That’s the fun part for me. That’s why I always read the book first before I watch the movie if it’s available. In Maus, all the characters look pretty much alike to me so it’s kind of hard to tell them apart.
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