 Wednesday, May 26, 2004
|
|
|
|
the hill poem
Up here, we hiked a one and a half miler,
walking slowly uphill, avoiding the poo of the horse piler.
Some tidbits here and there, what a history,
big houses, old cars, cement pools, what mystery.
reached the top! The end of our stroll, looking far at the cities
in wonder, why don’t I do this more often, I ponder in self pity.
Every day sitting through classes, retaining fact blocks,
staring at the tick-tock of the wall clock
Forget the books!
and the notes!
I’m free in the fields, forget even this poem I wrote.
Posted by Rudolph Klemencic on 5/26/04; 9:52:33 PM
from the dept.
|
|
| Thursday, May 20, 2004
|
|
|
|
Interesting class session today. I had to say, it was an enjoyable experience hiking the short trail. We were lucky that it was a clear day, being able to see as far as Oakland and San Francisco was pretty interesting, especially when you consider how many people live in the Bay Area. It was almost like a bird's eye perspective, zoomed out even further being able to spot all the things you were familiar with, but only at a different range. I wish I had brought my digital camera; I'd take it home and spot even more locations by zooming around.
As usual, Professor Lovas had some interesting anecdotes to give us some background information. Having seen Hearst's Castle I tried to picture what the housing would have been like in it's prime. What's up with members of the press having so much damn money? I can understand how the Newspaper Giant Hearst had so much money, but an editor for the San Francisco Post? Especially one who championed against corruption. The most interesting thing about Hearst castle was the "documentary" that was put together by the Hearst corporation (Voluntary and separate from the tour, actually our tour guide was very helpful in painting the real history and some of the politics behind the castle.) The video gives you an idea, even though unintential, of Hearst's life. The material was totally ridiculous, spewing out all kinds of propaganda of how magnificent and generous Hearst was; I always remember the line, supposedly from the viewpoint of one of his guests, a woman, to her mother:
"He let all these people stay at the castle without asking anything in return. Isn't that generous? Don't ya think?"
too swanky
Btw ,Citizen Kane, directed by orson welles, was about the life of William. Yahoo link:here
You can find this dvd in the san jose public library system:here
Posted by Rudolph Klemencic on 5/20/04; 7:55:57 PM
from the dept.
|
|
| Tuesday, May 18, 2004
|
|
|
|
I've made it where you can easily respond to any of my threads. So if you would like your post your response on your own website, please post it here too so I can read it for feedback. All I did was create a member with the email:guest and left the password blank. This way all you have to do is Login (as guest) and you're free to respond or post new discussion topics.
Posted by Rudolph Klemencic on 5/18/04; 10:25:15 PM
from the dept.
|
|
|
|
|
Word doc here
What makes Maus powerful is the way Art Spiegelman forms the narrative keeping it's integrity, with a mixture of Vladeks retelling, the emotional comic insert, and the inclusion of his contemporary family issues while creating the book.
Spiegelman doesn't imbue any introspection in his characters; instead he uses his comic as a recording device, inscribing the characters' dialogue leaving the reader as a judge. This is common in the comic book medium. They usually don't talk a lot about feelings and inner perceptions, often these are rather obvious to pick up in the superhero genre of comics like Superman or Spiderman, but in Spiegelman, the complicated issues cannot be decoded easily, and they should not. As readers we get a chance to try to understand Vladek in a way Spiegelman did not paint him. The only trace of "inner thought" are the literal thought bubbles, limited to the space of a few lines unlike novels which can go on for three pages describing an emotional reaction. Although Art could have described Vladek's life in the third person narrative, he goes one step further by using his own perspective describing the father's act of telling of the story, among other contemporary information. This extra information gives us a better idea of the characters behind the book.
Secondly, Vladek's retelling pretty real, at least as much Vladek thought so. There are mistakes in the chronology, something a first time storyteller always does. By keeping them, Art gives the comic the flow of a running notebook. Since Vladek reveals embarrassing bits of information about himself to his son, things that he might have left out. For example, Vladek could have started his story after he and Anja had already met, but instead he decided to include Lucia.
"WE SAW EACH OTHER TOGETHER FOR MAYBE THREE OR FOUR YEARS." "HER FAMILY WAS NICE, BUT HAD NO MONEY, EVEN FOR A DOWRY."(PG 15)
It is semi-taboo to talk about old girlfriends with your children. Personally I wouldn't want to know about my parent's sexual partners. In his account of their relationship, he includes their break up. Some things he implies while others he makes explicit. What Vladek did to Lucia can be considered quite cruel, rejecting her partly because of money, and he still chooses to talk about it. "IT WAS NOT SO EASY, TO GET FREE FROM LUCIA." The other revealing situation was his war experience. By the sounds of it, it was pretty traumatic, but he is able to discus it without showing emotion.
"BUT WHEN I LOOKED IN MY GUN, I SAW A TREE!... AND THE TREE WAS ACTUALLY MOVING. WELL, IF IT MOVED, I HAD TO SHOOT IT HELD UP A HAND TO SHOW IT WAS HURT. TO SURRENDER. BUT I KEPT SHOOTING AND SHOOTING. UNTIL FINALLY THE TREE STOPPED MOVING. WHO KNOWS! OTHERWISE IT COULD HAVE SHOT ME!"(Pg. 48)
This under-dramatic stoicism feels raw and true to Vladek. Perhaps, because of what was later to come in the concentration camp enabled (or handicapped?) his lack of empathetic feelings. In Western culture, a kill like this is despicable; shooting an unarmed person trying to surrender is cold-blooded murder.
Art's littered comments through out the book provide us with a lot of insight. They hint at Art's opinions of his father and even of the book we are reading. The most powerful tool that Art used to validate this book was the five-page insert of his earlier work talking about the suicide of his mother. The style of this mini-comic is drastically different from the rest of the book. The inconsistency it provides, gives it an unedited quality. Most of Maus is not heavy on emotions with simplistic faces, which rarely reflect feeling: usually two slanted brows to show angry or a tear down a face to show remorse. Prisoner on the Hell Planet is completely opposite illustrated with dark tones and human faces. The seriousness of the facial sketches on page 101 hits your hard with the utter devastation Art felt at the death of his mother.
"I COULD AVOID THE TRUTH NO LONGER-THE DOCTOR'S WORDS CLATTERED INSIDE ME...I FELT CONFUSED;I FELT ANGRY;; I FELT NUMB!...I DIDN'T EXACTLY FEEL LIKE CRYING, BUT FIGURED I SHOULD!" (100)
"BUT, FOR THE MOST PART, I WAS LEFT ALONE WITH MY THOUGHTS... MENOPAUSAL DEPRESSION, HITLER DID IT! MOMMY! BITCH" (101)
Nothing in the rest of Maus sounds like that. They way Art and his father avoid the topic of their mother's suicide allows us to feel their relationship. It's easy to empathize with them, but the only problem is if they do not talk about it, the narrator has a harder time of including it in the story; so inserting the mini-comic was an effective way of doing this without tainting by adding too much material.
The second part of the narrative, the marriage with Mala and the financial issues, gives us a chance to see what Vladek is like outside his own narrative. Art realizes that his father's story is naturally favored toward Vladek, so he uses the discrepancies as way to bring this to the light. Since Mala tells Art one thing and Vladek tells him another, we know that someone has to be lying, and probably both are. Also, the way Art includes these contemporary issues with the writing of the book, in the book gives us more of a general idea and makes me believe it really occurred. By mentioning the weaknesses of his father's character Art shows the problems with having only one source. He then hits it home with the passage about his mother's diaries, his only chance at a second source.
"NO. YOU'LL NOT FIND IT. BECAUSE I REMIND MYSELF WHAT HAPPENED...
AFTER ANJA DIED I HAD TO MAKE AN ORDER WITH EVERYTHING... THESE PAPERS HAD TOO MANY MEMORIES. SO I BURNED THEM.
...NO. I LOOKED IN, BUT I DON'T REMEMBER... ONLY I KNOW THAT SHE SAID, 'I WISH MY SON, WHEN HE GROWS UP, HE WILL BE INTERESTED BY THIS.'
-GOD DAMN YOU! YOU-YOU MURDERER! HOW THE HELL COULD YOU DO SUCH A THING!!"(159)
This charged dialogue really punches a lot of the issues together, and it is why it's a good ending (from the perspective of getting someone to buy the second issue). Since Vladek had not told Art this before, we know that he has at least lied to him about not being able to find it. This revelation forces us to reconsider all the other information that Vladek provided Art with. In Prisoner of Hell Planet, Art wonders why his mother kills herself. I suspect that Art has always in part blamed his father for her death as well as himself and that is why he yells "you murderer." The second meaning of these words follows the idea that by destroying someone's history, you are killing them. This is especially painful because his mother wanted her son to read her diaries, which might have relieved Art from some his guilt knowing that it would have fulfilled his mother's desire of him being interested in her. This missed chance at redemption makes Art understandably furious at his father.
From his father's semi-shifty accounts Art is able to present us with a believable story by focusing in on the writing of the book instead of directly on the father's accounts. This makes it different than other Holocaust survivor books; here we can see what's it's like from a different view. This added dimension of a post holocaust family adds tremendous valuable, partly because it is so personal. What Art did is opposite of what Hollywood would do. Hollywood would cut out all the ambiguous confusing elements and polarize the characters to either good or evil. It would oversimplify the plot devolving it in to clichés that are acceptable to the ideals of the audience. Spiegelman keeps his story complicated with multi-faceted characters that are not easy to understand, and a plot that mixes truth and lies, good and evil.
Posted by Rudolph Klemencic on 5/18/04; 12:46:08 PM
from the dept.
|
|
|
|
|
"A WIRE HANGER YOU GIVE HIM! I HAVEN'T SEEN ARTIE IN ALMOST TWO YEARS- WE
HAVE PLENTY OF WOODEN HANGERS." (PG 11)
"WE SAW EACH OTHER TOGETHER FOR MAYBE THREE OR FOUR YEARS." "HER FAMILY
WAS NICE, BUT HAD NO MONEY, EVEN FOR A DOWRY"(PG 15)
"BUT WHEN I LOOKED IN MY GUN, I SAW A TREE!… AND THE TREE WAS ACTUALLY
MOVING. WELL, IF IT MOVED, I HAD TO SHOOT IT HELD UP A HAND TO SHOW IT WAS
HURT. TO SURRENDER. BUT I KEPT SHOOTING AND SHOOTING. UNTIL FINALLY THE TREE
STOPPED MOVING. WHO KNOWS! OTHERWISE IT COULD HAVE SHOT ME!"(Pg. 48)
"NO. YOU'LL NOT FIND IT. BECAUSE I REMIND MYSELF WHAT HAPPENED…
AFTER ANJA DIED I HAD TO MAKE AN ORDER WITH EVERYTHING… THESE PAPERS HAD
TOO MANY MEMORIES. SO I BURNED THEM.
…NO. I LOOKED IN, BUT I DON'T REMEMBER… ONLY I KNOW THAT SHE SAID, 'I WISH MY
SON, WHEN HE GROWS UP, HE WILL BE INTERESTED BY THIS.'
-GOD DAMN YOU! YOU-YOU MURDER! HOW THE HELL COULD YOU DO SUCH A
THING!!"(159)
"I COULD AVOID THE TRUTH NO LONGER-THE DOCTOR'S WORDS CLATTERED INSIDE
ME…I FELT CONFUSED;I FELT ANGRY;; I FELT NUMB!…I DIDN'T EXACTLY FEEL LIKE
CRYING, BUT FIGURED I SHOULD!" (100)
"BUT, FOR THE MOST PART, I WAS LEFT ALONE WITH MY THOUGHTS… MENOPAUSAL
DEPRESSION, HITLER DID IT! MOMMY! BITCH" (101)
Posted by Rudolph Klemencic on 5/18/04; 12:28:35 PM
from the dept.
|
|
| Saturday, May 15, 2004
|
|
|
|
Edit: 4:35 pm
I'm going right now to Mercado, I will buy a few extra tickets if they're available. I don't have your numbers or I'd call you guys.
Give me a call if you want to know if tickets are available.408 668 5226
Troy at 8:30 Pm Saturday At Amc Mercado 20
Lovas: 1
Me (Rudy): 2
Nadine: 2
Jane Qi: (at least) 1
Michael Chui: (at least) 1
Mark: 1
Jenn:1-2
Qin:1
Austin:1
as of 12:25 Pm Saturday
Ok, this is the list so far. I will be going their at around 7 pm, so if you want me to add your name to the list in order to save you a seat give me a phone call on my cell: 408 668 5226. (make sure to leave a message because I might not get reception in the theatre, so I will be checking them periodically.) I will probably save a few couple extra seats.
The showtimes are not showing up correctly on Movietickets.com for some reason, so you can't seem to buy them:
But they are showing up on yahoo, butyou can't buy them on yahoo.
Here is a map of Mercado
Posted by Rudolph Klemencic on 5/15/04; 12:51:20 PM
from the dept.
|
|
| Friday, May 14, 2004
|
|
|
|
Personal Goal:
A balanced fulfilling life, so by the end of it in my ageing years, I can look back without regret. This probably involves a large family and a life partner with whom I share intellectual interests.
Professional:
My goal is to find a career where my unique skills fit, and do something I consider worthwhile making a contribution.
Posted by Rudolph Klemencic on 5/14/04; 8:13:23 AM
from the dept.
|
|
| Thursday, May 13, 2004
|
|
|
|
"'Your were so heavy to carry,; his father said, 'I thought you have to be dead. Only also you were so hot against the hand."(106)
"...his stomach awash in an acid of embarrassment, confusion, and arousal."(106)
"After relieving Josef of the burden of his innocence the previous night,"(47)
"Walking around talking and making up a lot of nonsense about someon who could liberate no one and nothing but smudgy black marks on a piece of cheap paper"(135)
"'All right,' Joe said. 'Ja ja, I believe you.' It made him impatient to be consoled, as if words of comfort lent greater credence to his fears. 'We will kill.'"(136)
"--enough to let a quarter of a floor in the Empire State Building, enough to exert an empressive mass-cultural influence over the vast American marketplace of children and know-nothings."(220)
"...to shut up; work was not work for him. Parties were work. Women were work. At Palooka Studios, whenever there occurred teh chance to conjunction of girls and a bottle,..."(229)
"'It's better than Superman.' Sammy got down of his stool and went over to help them admire his work."(140)
"'I already have seven guys line up, boss,' said Sammy. 'Including Frank Pantaleone, who just sold a strip to King Features.'"(154)
"Jack's not going to do that. George Deasey has been in the business for thiry years. He's smart. Unlike you or I, he went to college."(155)
"'We're not changing the cover, boss,' Sammy said, and then, bringing to bear all his poewrs of dissimulated pluck and flase bravado, he picked up one of the portfolios and began filling it with pieces of illustration board"(160)
"...for some reason painful to Anapol, of how big the latest Escapist donnybrook was going to go over with the remarkably bloodthirsty children of America."(172)
"'Where am I. It was not a question the second time he said it. 'I'm on my way to Canada'"(186)
"... dollar suit. He walked across the street to the square. Thomas was coming to America! He had a date for dinner!"(264)
"...possible salvation of his sanity. Let people be reasonable whose families were not held prisoner"(285)
", but he had never before felt himself so addressed, with such a direct appeal, made not merely to his ears but to his eyes. No one who looked like Tracy Bacon had ever, to his mermory, spoken to him at all."(305)
"Please, Josef, do not continue to trouble yourself or waste your time attempting to win for us what you have, with the help ofyou friends, been able to attain for your brother. It is enough; more than enough."(325)
"'For some reason,' Bacon conttinues, 'she was under the misapprehension that I inted to propose marriage to her this evening.'"(350)
"--at the irrelevant, senatorial level of consciousness wher ethe questions that desire has areldy answered are proposed and debated and teable till later--that he was in love, or falling in love with Tracy Bacon. It was not that he denied what he was feeling, or that the implications of the feeling had frightened him;..."(372)
"'They were children,' he said. 'We were wolves.'"(401)
"Sammy jerked his hand away. Regardless of what he felt for Bacon, it was not worth the danger, the shame, the risk of arrest and opprobrium. Sammy felt, that morning, with his ribs bruised and wan flavor of chlorine at the back of his mouth, that he would rather not love at all than be punished for loving."(420)
"Sammy turned to look at her, his eyes bright, wild with an idea that Rosa grasped at once, in all its depths and particulars, in all the fear and hopelessness on which it fed."(421)
".And yet just as he had not reported Carl Ebling after the frist bomb threat to Empire Comics, some impulse now prevented from opening the channel to Cuba and making the report taht duty obliged him to make"(445)
"him--emptied his clip--in this place where the only hope for survival, as he had so long argued, was friendly cooperation among the nations."(464)
"'Frankly, he's never happy anywhere," Pantaleone said, and everyone agreed. They all knew sammy's story, more or less. He ahd returned to the comic book business in 1947, covered in failure at everything else he had tried. His first defeat had been in the advertising game...'"(480)
"This was a service he provided at no charge and, so far as he knew, unbeknownst to Mr. Spielgelman."(501)
"He left the house at eight forty-five, like every day, and started walking toward William Floyd Junior High, where he was in teh seventh grade."(515)
"'Only love,' the old magician had said, 'could pick a nested pair of stell Bramah locks.'"(532)
"... to find readers who would appreciate their irony, their humor, their bizaree and pious brand of liberal morality"(566)
"The night he offered her the chance to draw 'a comic book for dollies,' Rosa felt, sammy hd huanded her a golden key..."(547)
"'Well, I wish I could say that I did it fo ryou, Joe, because I'm such a good friend. But the truth is that, at taht moment, I was as scared as Rosa. I married her because I didn't want to, well, to be a fairy. Which, actually, I guesss I am. Maybe you never knew.'"(580)
"'You killed Germans?'
'one,' JOe sad. 'It was an accident.'
'Did you-did it make you feel-'
'It made me feel like the worst man in teh world.'"(590)
"He could not park here; he would not be able to get the money today. Maybe it was not such a good idea after all. He put the car in gear"(605)
"...what point the soul of the Golem had reentered its body, or if possibly there could be more than one lost soul embodied in all that dust, weighing it down so heavily"(612)
"..., having paged through dsome of the Batman comic books in question last night, that the relationship between Batman and his ward is actually a thinly veiled allegory of pedophilic inversion?"(615)
"'Because they can't go fuck themselves.' Deasy tossedt he bill onto the bar. 'The way you can. Now why don't you make yourself useful and bring me a rye and water, and another of what he's having?'"(621)
"Then he stopped and just stood there looking at Tommy, loving him, and feeling the usual spasm of shame that it should be while eh was watching the boy sleep that he felt most like a father, or rather, the happiest to be one."(631)
"Sammy had resolved never to let him feel abandoned, never to walk out on him, and until now, until tonight, he had managed to keep the promise, though there were times..."
"...longer listening to anything they were telling him. He was just lying there, in the Bug's Nest, holding his father's hand, while his mother brushed the bangs from his forehead"(629)
Posted by Rudolph Klemencic on 5/13/04; 8:32:37 PM
from the dept.
|
|
| Wednesday, May 12, 2004
|
|
|
|
"Sing to me the man, Muse, the man of twists and turns driven time and again off course, once he had plundered the hallow heights of Troy." (Pg 77, 1) "Ah how shameless-the way these mortals blame the gods. From us alone, they say, come all their miseries, yes," (Pg. 78,38) "Let them all die so, all who do such things. But my heart breaks for Odysseus, that seasoned veteran cursed by fate so long-." (Pg. 79, 56) "You must not cling to your boyhood any longer- it’s time you were a man. Haven’t you heard what glory Price Oresteds won throughout the world …" (Pg. 87, 341) "… As for giving orders, Men will see to th"at, but I most of all: I hold the reigns of power in this house." (Pg. 89, 412) "the true son of Odysseus sprang from the bed and dressed, over his shoulder he slung his well-honed sword, …" (Pg. 93, 3) " ‘Hear me, men of Ithaca. Hear what I have to say. Never let any sceptered king be kind and gentle now, …’ " (Pg. 100, 256) "Menelaus recognized him at once but pondered whether to let him state his father’s name or probe him first and prompt him step by step." (Pg. 128,131) "It’s hard for a mortal man to face a god." (Pg. 137, 445) "Heard-hearted you are, you gods! You unrivaled lords of jealousy- scandalized when goddesses sleep with mortals, openly, even when one has made the man her husband,…"(Pg. 156, 130) "So there he lay at rest, the storm-tossed great Odysseus, borne down by his hard labors first and now deep sleep as Athena traveled through the countryside and reached the Phaeacians’ city."(Pg. 168, 1) "Ah, if only a man like that were called my husband, lived right here, pleased to stay forever … Enough. Give the stranger food and drink, my girls."(Pg. 176, 270) "Eurylochus, stay right here, eating, drinking, safe by the black ship. I must be off. Necessity drives me on." (Pg. 239, 300) "just as the Cyclops trapped our comrades in his lair with hotheaded Odysseus right beside them all- thanks to this man’s rashness they died too!" (Pg. 248, 480)
"...Odysseus, raised him up
from the hearth and sat him down in a burnished chair,
displacing his own son, the courty Lord Laodamas," (Pg. 185, 200)
"Up he sprang, cloak and all, and siezed a discus
huge and heavy, more weighty by far than those the
Phaecians used to hurl and test each other." (192,220)
"Here, herald, take this choice cut to Demodocus
so he can eat his fill--with warm regards
from a man who knows what suffering is..." (206,535)
"...--say Odysseus,
raider oc cities, he gouged out your eye,
Laertes' son who makes his home in Inthaca!" (227,563)
"It's a crime to host a man or speed him on his way
when the blessed deathless gods despise him so.
Crawling back like this--" (232,80)
"I broke into tears to see her here, but filled with pity,
even throbbing with grief, I would not let her ghost
approach the blood till I questioned Tiresias myself." (252,97)
"my lord, remember me, I beg you! Don't sail off
and desrt me, left behind unwept, unburied, don't
or my curse may draw god's fury on your head."(251,80)
"they sowre they'd sail me home to sunny Ithaca--well,
they never kept their word. Zeus of the Suppliants
pay them back--he keeps eye on the world of men and punishes
the transgressors"(293,245)
"She loved me... Why cover the same ground again?
Just yesterday, here at hall, I toldyou all the rest,
you and your gracious wifre. It goes against my grain
to repeat a tale told once, and told so clearly"(285,490)
"And then, that hour the star rose up,
the clearest, brigthest star, that alwasy heralds
the newborn light of day, the deep-sea-going ship
made lanfall on the island...Ithaca at last"(289,105"
"Balance is the best in all things. It's bad either way,
spurring the stranger home who wants tolinger,
holding the one who longs to leave--you know" (321,80)
"'Why confuse me wiht one who never dies?
No, I am your father--" (344,210)
"But now with his master gone he lay there, castaway,
on pikles of dung from the mules and cattle, heaps collecting
out before the gates till Odysseus' serving-men(363,325)
"'Nobodys' fool, that stranger,' wise Penelope said,
'he seas how things could go. Surely no men on earth
can match that gang for reckless, deadly schemes.'" (373.655)
"keep your firsts to yourself, don't press your luck, don't rile me,
or old as I am, I'll bloddy your lip, splatter you chest
and buy myself some peace and quiet for tomorrow" (376,25)
"'Make no mistake, you brazen, shameless bitch,
none of your ugly work escapes me either--
you will pay for it with your life, you will!" (393,100)
"if a god beats down these brazen suitors at my hands,
I will no spare you--my old nurse taht you are--
when I kill the other woman in my house." (406, 552)
"close around us, hot to kill us off in battle,
still you could drive away their herds and sleek flocks!" (412,55)
"'Fighting words, but do let's knuckle under--
to our prince." (419, 300)
"Weaklings, look, they can't even string the bow.
But along came this beaggar, drifiting out of the blue--
strung his bow wieth ease and shot through all the axes!" (464 365)
"as the shaft sank home, and the man's life-blood came spurting
from his nostrils-
thick red jets-
a sudden thrust of his foot-
he kicked away the table--
food showered across the floor,"(440 17)
"But hte battle-master kept on glaring, seething.
'No, Eurymachus! Not if you paide me all your father's wealth-
all you possess now, and all that could pour in from the world's end-"(441 65)
"cunning ones who plot their own dark ends.
Remember Helen of Argos, Zeus's daughter--
would she have sported so in a stranger's bed"(462 246)
"Then all united Achaea would have raised your tomb
and you'd have won your son great fame for years to come.
Not so. You were fated to die a wretched death."(469 35)
"Odysseus, the man she married once!
The Fame of her great virtue will never die."(474 216)
"last night in our hose with harness on my back,
standing beside you, fighting off the suitors,
how many I would have cut the knees from under--
the heart insdie you would have lept for joy!"(480 422)
"So she commanded. He obyed her, glad at heart.
And Athena handed down her pacts of peace
between both sides for allt he years to come--
the daughter of Zeus whose shield is strom and thunder
yes, but the goddess wtill kept Mentor's build and voice"(485 600)
Posted by Rudolph Klemencic on 5/12/04; 8:45:33 AM
from the dept.
|
|
| Tuesday, May 11, 2004
|
|
|
I just finished Maus. On the whole it was a well worth read. The use of different animals to illustrate the different ethnic identities was pretty clever. Although, I couldn't help but notice that separating each identity in to a different species enforces some form racism. I really liked how Spiegelman brought this question up, not in the same way but talking about his characature of his father seems to enforce the stereotypes of the jewish culture: miserly, etc. I think it's important to remember that racism is culturally defined, and especially nationalism; which my old history professor chose as the main cause of the war. One part that I thought was original book, was the relationship the son had with his father, with two unuasual distinguishing aspects, both related: his mother had committed suicide, and his parents were holocaust victims. This question of "how do you live your life after you had gone through the holocaust" intrigues me. It's hard for me to imagine what I'd do so I turn the the valuable information Art Spiegalmen provides us. The insert of the comic, with the drastically different style, credulates the validity of the comic. I do believe that it was real, at least it felt real in that it felt like a piece jammed in the puzzle. Many parts of it went unexplained (at least in Maus 1 since I never read the sequel).
Posted by Rudolph Klemencic on 5/11/04; 11:41:27 PM
from the dept.
|
|
|
|
May 2004 |
Sun |
Mon |
Tue |
Wed |
Thu |
Fri |
Sat |
| |
1 |
2 |
3 |
4 |
5 |
6 |
7 |
8 |
|
10 |
|
|
|
|
|
16 |
17 |
|
19 |
|
21 |
22 |
23 |
24 |
25 |
26 |
27 |
28 |
29 |
30 |
31 |
|
Apr
Jun
|
