Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant!!, 23 Oct 2008
Once you open this book it is nearly impossible to stop. Even people who normally do not like books will love this one. It's a comic but not comical.. (unless your sense of humour is very very dark). It let's you experience the horrors of the holocaust more realistically than any other book or film I have seen about it.

I love this book and could not recommend it more highly. Enjoy.

Are you trying to avoid it?, 25 May 2008
I had known of this book for about a year when i finally decided to buy it. I was put off by the slightly dodgy artwork and the very serious nature of the plot which to me is not what comics are about. Anyway,I wanted to read it so i could come on hear and rant about how it is an over-rated waste of time but I cant. The art isnt perfect i agree but it has its charms and as you read the story you really do get into the simplistic nature of it,it works for this,it doesnt distract from the story which over stylised art would. The story is VERY well written and everything i read totally shocked and moved me.
The jist of my review is - if you are put off by the art but you liked schindlers list or have a fascination with hearing about the holocaust from a personal perspective then you have to read this book. It would get 5 stars from me if I genuinely felt that everyone would like the artwork but I know thats not gonna happen but everyone who isnt an anti-semite must read this story!

Masterpiece, 11 Apr 2008
Only graphic novel to date to win the Pulitzer Price.

That should be compelling enough to endear anyone to this masterwork.

The drawing isn't perhaps as expressive as that of Sacco, but the novelty in Maus not only comes from the controversial bestialization of the characters (Poles are pigs, Jews are mice, Germans are cats, etc) but also from the timeline jumps that mix the chilling tale of Vladek's survival of Auschwitz and the author's process of discovery and acceptance of his father's personality as he is retold the survivor's tale.

So while we are presented with the horror's faced by Vladek, the book also deals with the strained relationship between the author and his father, his father's second wife and the author's converted wife.

One can only praise Spiegelman's honesty at the less than perfect portray of the old age Vladek and his own insecurities.


Searing honesty, 31 Mar 2008
"Maus" is an amazing accomplishment and a rightly revered classic. What I admire most about its narrative is its honesty. If Spielberg ever adapted this book as a film, it would become a simplistic, black-and-white affair: one-dimensional Nazi aggressors stamping on one-dimensional Jewish victims. Instead, Spiegelman has opted to respect our intelligence and throw the doors wide open on this repellent slice of human history. He pulls no punches and tells his father's story with abject truth - even when sometimes portraying the Jewish community in a less than flattering light.

In the unflinching pages of "Maus", Jews betray Jews. Jews steal from Jews. Jews discriminate against non-Jews. I sat up with a shock when Vladek, the tale's central holocaust survivor, displays unbelievable racism towards a black man. Having lived through unspeakable persecution, he speaks of African-Americans in the same way that a Nazi would speak of a Jew. Also, in his old age, Vladek has come to resemble the Nazi stereotype of the "miserly old Jew". This adds incredible power and depth to this already complex story, throwing up countless questions on morality, racial identity and the grey area between good and evil.

It is a staggeringly brave book and its courage has sealed its success. I only wish more artists out would get some guts and show the world some work that really matters.


Rupert in Nazi germany, 10 Mar 2008
I have respect for the author in that it was brave to explore the subject of the holocaust in comic book form- quite an original thing to do. His story is an important one to tell. However, this does not take away the fact that Spiegelman can't draw. The art is in black and white with no rendering and Spiegelman's style is flat and bland.
In this comic book, the jews are mice and the Nazis are cats. The people have animal heads and human bodies-like Rupert bear! That is the last thing you want to think about when reading a book about the holocaust.
And as a person who has experienced having mice in my house (mouse droppings in the cutlery drawer is not pleasant) I find it hard to sympathise with any cartoon mouse.

Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant!!, 23 Oct 2008
Once you open this book it is nearly impossible to stop. Even people who normally do not like books will love this one. It's a comic but not comical.. (unless your sense of humour is very very dark). It let's you experience the horrors of the holocaust more realistically than any other book or film I have seen about it.

I love this book and could not recommend it more highly. Enjoy.

Are you trying to avoid it?, 25 May 2008
I had known of this book for about a year when i finally decided to buy it. I was put off by the slightly dodgy artwork and the very serious nature of the plot which to me is not what comics are about. Anyway,I wanted to read it so i could come on hear and rant about how it is an over-rated waste of time but I cant. The art isnt perfect i agree but it has its charms and as you read the story you really do get into the simplistic nature of it,it works for this,it doesnt distract from the story which over stylised art would. The story is VERY well written and everything i read totally shocked and moved me.
The jist of my review is - if you are put off by the art but you liked schindlers list or have a fascination with hearing about the holocaust from a personal perspective then you have to read this book. It would get 5 stars from me if I genuinely felt that everyone would like the artwork but I know thats not gonna happen but everyone who isnt an anti-semite must read this story!

Masterpiece, 11 Apr 2008
Only graphic novel to date to win the Pulitzer Price.

That should be compelling enough to endear anyone to this masterwork.

The drawing isn't perhaps as expressive as that of Sacco, but the novelty in Maus not only comes from the controversial bestialization of the characters (Poles are pigs, Jews are mice, Germans are cats, etc) but also from the timeline jumps that mix the chilling tale of Vladek's survival of Auschwitz and the author's process of discovery and acceptance of his father's personality as he is retold the survivor's tale.

So while we are presented with the horror's faced by Vladek, the book also deals with the strained relationship between the author and his father, his father's second wife and the author's converted wife.

One can only praise Spiegelman's honesty at the less than perfect portray of the old age Vladek and his own insecurities.


Searing honesty, 31 Mar 2008
"Maus" is an amazing accomplishment and a rightly revered classic. What I admire most about its narrative is its honesty. If Spielberg ever adapted this book as a film, it would become a simplistic, black-and-white affair: one-dimensional Nazi aggressors stamping on one-dimensional Jewish victims. Instead, Spiegelman has opted to respect our intelligence and throw the doors wide open on this repellent slice of human history. He pulls no punches and tells his father's story with abject truth - even when sometimes portraying the Jewish community in a less than flattering light.

In the unflinching pages of "Maus", Jews betray Jews. Jews steal from Jews. Jews discriminate against non-Jews. I sat up with a shock when Vladek, the tale's central holocaust survivor, displays unbelievable racism towards a black man. Having lived through unspeakable persecution, he speaks of African-Americans in the same way that a Nazi would speak of a Jew. Also, in his old age, Vladek has come to resemble the Nazi stereotype of the "miserly old Jew". This adds incredible power and depth to this already complex story, throwing up countless questions on morality, racial identity and the grey area between good and evil.

It is a staggeringly brave book and its courage has sealed its success. I only wish more artists out would get some guts and show the world some work that really matters.


Rupert in Nazi germany, 10 Mar 2008
I have respect for the author in that it was brave to explore the subject of the holocaust in comic book form- quite an original thing to do. His story is an important one to tell. However, this does not take away the fact that Spiegelman can't draw. The art is in black and white with no rendering and Spiegelman's style is flat and bland.
In this comic book, the jews are mice and the Nazis are cats. The people have animal heads and human bodies-like Rupert bear! That is the last thing you want to think about when reading a book about the holocaust.
And as a person who has experienced having mice in my house (mouse droppings in the cutlery drawer is not pleasant) I find it hard to sympathise with any cartoon mouse.

A startling journey indeed, 05 Nov 2008
In Journey by Moonlight, the Hungarian writer Antal Szerb has produced one of the most memorable novels I have read for some time. When I finished it, I turned back to think about what to write in this review and was immediately drawn back into whichever part of the story I landed in, beguiled by the quality of writing and the narrative pace. Ostensibly about the marriage between Mihály and Erzsi, it would be incorrect to describe this as merely a novel, for it is also a series of statements about existence, relationships and our place in the world.

Mihály and Erzsi are newlyweds and we join them on their honeymoon in Venice. We rapidly learn that Mihály is a vague, other-worldly man, who seems barely planted on the earth.

Even during the first week of the honeymoon he finds himself one night wandering the back streets of Venice for in a sort of dream, not returning to the hotel until dawn. At one point we read a beautifully ironic and sarcastic letter to Mihály from Erzsi's ex-husband Zoltan, giving him instructions on how to care for Erzsi and perfectly describing Mihály's character:

"If I were a woman, and had to choose between the two of us, I too would have chosen you without hesitiation and Erzi surely loves you for being just the sort of person you are - so utterly withdrawn and abstracted that you haven no real relationship with anybody or anything, like someone from another planet, a Martian on earth, someone who never really notices anything, . . . who never pays proper attention when others speak, who often seems to act out of vague goodwill and politeness as if playing at being human"

Erzsi soon realises that her marriage is based on the fiction that the two understand each other perfectly. However when Erzi starts to explain himself, the more confusing he becomes because he holds secrets even from himself, and fails to understand that people other than himself also have an inner life. The marriage is not going to last! But the way it soon ends is uniquely strange, and perhaps shows the shallowness of its foundations from the start.

The story then divides, following the courses of both Mihály and Erzsi as they go their separate ways. Erszi goes to Paris and lives with a girl-friend, meeting up again with Zoltan and various other unique characters. At one point she seems to be offered up to a wealthy Persian as part of a business transaction but manages to assert herself sufficiently to extricate herself and make her own choices after the disastrous second marriage.

Mihály on the other hand continues journeying through Italy, having a series of misfortunes along the way which reveal much about the flaws in his character. An other-worldly but self-regarding and self-indulgent personality, but also self-deceiving, with high ideals which he drops at the merest hint of inconvenience to himself.

It is the energetic writing style which marks this book out as special. The narrative pace is fast, but it is the insights into human existence along the way which make it sparkle. Antal Szerb has no illusions about his characters for all are deeply flawed.

Antal Szerb is a new discovery to me but one of the most valuable. No doubt my enjoyment of this book owes much to the excellent translation by Len Rix and his Afterword sets the book in a wider context and I am pleased to see that he agrees that irony, distinctively Middle-European in character operates on every level of this sophisticated and remarkable novel. Although Mihály's actions are reprehensible, somehow our sympathies are never quite alienated - "some principle at the core of his being calls to us".

Wholly involving, 04 Nov 2007
Mihály, the central character of this elegant and stylish novel (beautifully translated by Len Rix) seems to belong to the early continental 19th century rather than to inter-war Budapest. He is a man in his late thirties, a neurotic and Romantic character, unworldly, more at home in history than in the present, ill at ease in his bourgeois setting at home and equally ill at ease about being in his late thirties. He has a great nostalgia for the time when, as an adolescent schoolboy, he was the hanger-on of a group of unconventional young people: Tamás (who several times tried to commit suicide and eventually managed it); his sister Eva (whom Mihály adored); Ervin (another of Eva's admirers, a convert to Catholicism from Judaism); and János, a suave trickster.

The book opens twenty years later, when Mihály is on his honeymoon in Venice with his wife Erszi. Erszi had left her first husband to marry Mihály because he was `different'; he had seduced and then married her because he was trying to be `normal'. But she did not understand just how `different' he was, and he could not cope with marriage; and, besides, he is haunted by the memory of the now mysterious Eva. During a stop-over on a railway journey, Mihály makes the Freudian error of getting onto one train while Erszi is travelling on another. He is relieved to be on his own and that noone can find him. He travels from one Italian location to another - all beautifully and sometimes hauntingly described. I must not reveal the many strange, mysterious and coincidental events that happen to him; but in any case his thought processes are at least as central to the story as are the various events.

Meanwhile Erszi, unable to face her family in Budapest as a deserted wife, makes her way to Paris. There she, too, in her own way, turns against the respectable bourgeois life she has hitherto been leading. Again I must not elaborate; but the story is full of fascinating psychological twists and turns (though one of them, in an ancient chateau on a rainy night, does, I must admit, strike me as uncharacteristically grotesque and over the top - quite out of tune with the delicacy of the rest of the novel.)

The note of death is heard throughout the novel. As a youngster Mihály had to take part in the theatricals staged by Tamás and Eva which invariably involved death, with Mihály willingly playing the sacrificial victim. Later, there are suicides, cemeteries, Etruscan sarcophagi and the apparent Etruscan notion that "dying is an erotic art", which so resonates with Mihály and had done so for Tamás. Mihály hears a remarkable lecture on that subject from Professor Waldheim, one of his former class-mates whom he meets in Rome - and from that moment onwards Szerb plays some extraordinary games with his readers.

A subtle, rich and wonderful book.

A beautiful novel of discovery and escape from the world, 11 Jun 2007
This is one of the most absorbing books I have read this year - there was no way I could put it down until I got to the end of it. Peopled with unforgettable characters like every one of us, this is a tale of love, death, individuality, courage, and conforming. The main characters are on a honeymoon trip in Rome, where they talk about their past lives and the people that affected them. There comes a point where the past and present meet, when it is not possible for love or life to continue; each character must make a choice to decide his or her own fate. The language is beautiful and the whole novel has eerie, Gothic undertones as we follow characters to their death, to isolated houses and mountains where they make an attempt to escape from a common, ordinary world. The language flows beautifully and makes you think about your own life as if you were being swept along by a stream of wisdom. This was wonderful, touching and self-reflective...highly recommended.

a hidden classic.., 20 Dec 2006
having just finished this masterpiece of a novel, i am truly surprised that i had not heard of it before seeing it in my local charity shop. this beautiful story of a man not able to let go of his childhood captivated me and i couldn't put it down until i'd finished. i'd just love to learn hungarian so i could read the original and see whether it's even better!

Simply magical, 08 Oct 2004
With a subtle wit that allows the reader to be amused at the pretensions and foibles of the characters without making them unsympathetic or into just cyphers, Szerb tells the story of Mihaly and Erzsi and how their honeymoon unfolds. The novel is largely set in Italy and France, with flashbacks to the earlier life of Mihaly in Hungary which build into the picture of his character.
Journey by Moonlight is supposed to be a classic of Hungarian literature and I found that easy to understand from the English Translation by Len Rix. This novel and author deserve to be much more widely known.
The actual physical production of this volume by Pushkin Press is impressive with a sewn binding and very high quality paper used.

Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant!!, 23 Oct 2008
Once you open this book it is nearly impossible to stop. Even people who normally do not like books will love this one. It's a comic but not comical.. (unless your sense of humour is very very dark). It let's you experience the horrors of the holocaust more realistically than any other book or film I have seen about it.

I love this book and could not recommend it more highly. Enjoy.

Are you trying to avoid it?, 25 May 2008
I had known of this book for about a year when i finally decided to buy it. I was put off by the slightly dodgy artwork and the very serious nature of the plot which to me is not what comics are about. Anyway,I wanted to read it so i could come on hear and rant about how it is an over-rated waste of time but I cant. The art isnt perfect i agree but it has its charms and as you read the story you really do get into the simplistic nature of it,it works for this,it doesnt distract from the story which over stylised art would. The story is VERY well written and everything i read totally shocked and moved me.
The jist of my review is - if you are put off by the art but you liked schindlers list or have a fascination with hearing about the holocaust from a personal perspective then you have to read this book. It would get 5 stars from me if I genuinely felt that everyone would like the artwork but I know thats not gonna happen but everyone who isnt an anti-semite must read this story!

Masterpiece, 11 Apr 2008
Only graphic novel to date to win the Pulitzer Price.

That should be compelling enough to endear anyone to this masterwork.

The drawing isn't perhaps as expressive as that of Sacco, but the novelty in Maus not only comes from the controversial bestialization of the characters (Poles are pigs, Jews are mice, Germans are cats, etc) but also from the timeline jumps that mix the chilling tale of Vladek's survival of Auschwitz and the author's process of discovery and acceptance of his father's personality as he is retold the survivor's tale.

So while we are presented with the horror's faced by Vladek, the book also deals with the strained relationship between the author and his father, his father's second wife and the author's converted wife.

One can only praise Spiegelman's honesty at the less than perfect portray of the old age Vladek and his own insecurities.


Searing honesty, 31 Mar 2008
"Maus" is an amazing accomplishment and a rightly revered classic. What I admire most about its narrative is its honesty. If Spielberg ever adapted this book as a film, it would become a simplistic, black-and-white affair: one-dimensional Nazi aggressors stamping on one-dimensional Jewish victims. Instead, Spiegelman has opted to respect our intelligence and throw the doors wide open on this repellent slice of human history. He pulls no punches and tells his father's story with abject truth - even when sometimes portraying the Jewish community in a less than flattering light.

In the unflinching pages of "Maus", Jews betray Jews. Jews steal from Jews. Jews discriminate against non-Jews. I sat up with a shock when Vladek, the tale's central holocaust survivor, displays unbelievable racism towards a black man. Having lived through unspeakable persecution, he speaks of African-Americans in the same way that a Nazi would speak of a Jew. Also, in his old age, Vladek has come to resemble the Nazi stereotype of the "miserly old Jew". This adds incredible power and depth to this already complex story, throwing up countless questions on morality, racial identity and the grey area between good and evil.

It is a staggeringly brave book and its courage has sealed its success. I only wish more artists out would get some guts and show the world some work that really matters.


Rupert in Nazi germany, 10 Mar 2008
I have respect for the author in that it was brave to explore the subject of the holocaust in comic book form- quite an original thing to do. His story is an important one to tell. However, this does not take away the fact that Spiegelman can't draw. The art is in black and white with no rendering and Spiegelman's style is flat and bland.
In this comic book, the jews are mice and the Nazis are cats. The people have animal heads and human bodies-like Rupert bear! That is the last thing you want to think about when reading a book about the holocaust.
And as a person who has experienced having mice in my house (mouse droppings in the cutlery drawer is not pleasant) I find it hard to sympathise with any cartoon mouse.

A startling journey indeed, 05 Nov 2008
In Journey by Moonlight, the Hungarian writer Antal Szerb has produced one of the most memorable novels I have read for some time. When I finished it, I turned back to think about what to write in this review and was immediately drawn back into whichever part of the story I landed in, beguiled by the quality of writing and the narrative pace. Ostensibly about the marriage between Mihály and Erzsi, it would be incorrect to describe this as merely a novel, for it is also a series of statements about existence, relationships and our place in the world.

Mihály and Erzsi are newlyweds and we join them on their honeymoon in Venice. We rapidly learn that Mihály is a vague, other-worldly man, who seems barely planted on the earth.

Even during the first week of the honeymoon he finds himself one night wandering the back streets of Venice for in a sort of dream, not returning to the hotel until dawn. At one point we read a beautifully ironic and sarcastic letter to Mihály from Erzsi's ex-husband Zoltan, giving him instructions on how to care for Erzsi and perfectly describing Mihály's character:

"If I were a woman, and had to choose between the two of us, I too would have chosen you without hesitiation and Erzi surely loves you for being just the sort of person you are - so utterly withdrawn and abstracted that you haven no real relationship with anybody or anything, like someone from another planet, a Martian on earth, someone who never really notices anything, . . . who never pays proper attention when others speak, who often seems to act out of vague goodwill and politeness as if playing at being human"

Erzsi soon realises that her marriage is based on the fiction that the two understand each other perfectly. However when Erzi starts to explain himself, the more confusing he becomes because he holds secrets even from himself, and fails to understand that people other than himself also have an inner life. The marriage is not going to last! But the way it soon ends is uniquely strange, and perhaps shows the shallowness of its foundations from the start.

The story then divides, following the courses of both Mihály and Erzsi as they go their separate ways. Erszi goes to Paris and lives with a girl-friend, meeting up again with Zoltan and various other unique characters. At one point she seems to be offered up to a wealthy Persian as part of a business transaction but manages to assert herself sufficiently to extricate herself and make her own choices after the disastrous second marriage.

Mihály on the other hand continues journeying through Italy, having a series of misfortunes along the way which reveal much about the flaws in his character. An other-worldly but self-regarding and self-indulgent personality, but also self-deceiving, with high ideals which he drops at the merest hint of inconvenience to himself.

It is the energetic writing style which marks this book out as special. The narrative pace is fast, but it is the insights into human existence along the way which make it sparkle. Antal Szerb has no illusions about his characters for all are deeply flawed.

Antal Szerb is a new discovery to me but one of the most valuable. No doubt my enjoyment of this book owes much to the excellent translation by Len Rix and his Afterword sets the book in a wider context and I am pleased to see that he agrees that irony, distinctively Middle-European in character operates on every level of this sophisticated and remarkable novel. Although Mihály's actions are reprehensible, somehow our sympathies are never quite alienated - "some principle at the core of his being calls to us".

Wholly involving, 04 Nov 2007
Mihály, the central character of this elegant and stylish novel (beautifully translated by Len Rix) seems to belong to the early continental 19th century rather than to inter-war Budapest. He is a man in his late thirties, a neurotic and Romantic character, unworldly, more at home in history than in the present, ill at ease in his bourgeois setting at home and equally ill at ease about being in his late thirties. He has a great nostalgia for the time when, as an adolescent schoolboy, he was the hanger-on of a group of unconventional young people: Tamás (who several times tried to commit suicide and eventually managed it); his sister Eva (whom Mihály adored); Ervin (another of Eva's admirers, a convert to Catholicism from Judaism); and János, a suave trickster.

The book opens twenty years later, when Mihály is on his honeymoon in Venice with his wife Erszi. Erszi had left her first husband to marry Mihály because he was `different'; he had seduced and then married her because he was trying to be `normal'. But she did not understand just how `different' he was, and he could not cope with marriage; and, besides, he is haunted by the memory of the now mysterious Eva. During a stop-over on a railway journey, Mihály makes the Freudian error of getting onto one train while Erszi is travelling on another. He is relieved to be on his own and that noone can find him. He travels from one Italian location to another - all beautifully and sometimes hauntingly described. I must not reveal the many strange, mysterious and coincidental events that happen to him; but in any case his thought processes are at least as central to the story as are the various events.

Meanwhile Erszi, unable to face her family in Budapest as a deserted wife, makes her way to Paris. There she, too, in her own way, turns against the respectable bourgeois life she has hitherto been leading. Again I must not elaborate; but the story is full of fascinating psychological twists and turns (though one of them, in an ancient chateau on a rainy night, does, I must admit, strike me as uncharacteristically grotesque and over the top - quite out of tune with the delicacy of the rest of the novel.)

The note of death is heard throughout the novel. As a youngster Mihály had to take part in the theatricals staged by Tamás and Eva which invariably involved death, with Mihály willingly playing the sacrificial victim. Later, there are suicides, cemeteries, Etruscan sarcophagi and the apparent Etruscan notion that "dying is an erotic art", which so resonates with Mihály and had done so for Tamás. Mihály hears a remarkable lecture on that subject from Professor Waldheim, one of his former class-mates whom he meets in Rome - and from that moment onwards Szerb plays some extraordinary games with his readers.

A subtle, rich and wonderful book.

A beautiful novel of discovery and escape from the world, 11 Jun 2007
This is one of the most absorbing books I have read this year - there was no way I could put it down until I got to the end of it. Peopled with unforgettable characters like every one of us, this is a tale of love, death, individuality, courage, and conforming. The main characters are on a honeymoon trip in Rome, where they talk about their past lives and the people that affected them. There comes a point where the past and present meet, when it is not possible for love or life to continue; each character must make a choice to decide his or her own fate. The language is beautiful and the whole novel has eerie, Gothic undertones as we follow characters to their death, to isolated houses and mountains where they make an attempt to escape from a common, ordinary world. The language flows beautifully and makes you think about your own life as if you were being swept along by a stream of wisdom. This was wonderful, touching and self-reflective...highly recommended.

a hidden classic.., 20 Dec 2006
having just finished this masterpiece of a novel, i am truly surprised that i had not heard of it before seeing it in my local charity shop. this beautiful story of a man not able to let go of his childhood captivated me and i couldn't put it down until i'd finished. i'd just love to learn hungarian so i could read the original and see whether it's even better!

Simply magical, 08 Oct 2004
With a subtle wit that allows the reader to be amused at the pretensions and foibles of the characters without making them unsympathetic or into just cyphers, Szerb tells the story of Mihaly and Erzsi and how their honeymoon unfolds. The novel is largely set in Italy and France, with flashbacks to the earlier life of Mihaly in Hungary which build into the picture of his character.
Journey by Moonlight is supposed to be a classic of Hungarian literature and I found that easy to understand from the English Translation by Len Rix. This novel and author deserve to be much more widely known.
The actual physical production of this volume by Pushkin Press is impressive with a sewn binding and very high quality paper used.

Entertaining look into the Yiddish experience., 01 Sep 1999
This book satisfied my craving to learn the type of world mygrandparents came from, their language and attitutes. I laughed so hard from Singers descriptions of his characters that I thought I would bust. This is a book for all to learn to appreciate a rich culture that existed in Eastern Europe and was transported to America with those remaining lost in the Holocaust. Singer has some imagination and the talent to relay his thoughts clearly that you feel that you are among the characters. The translation from Yiddish to English was well done and conveyed the message completely. A must for those who want to expand their knowledge of the roots of the Jewish people and their lives and experiences in a world lost.

Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant!!, 23 Oct 2008
Once you open this book it is nearly impossible to stop. Even people who normally do not like books will love this one. It's a comic but not comical.. (unless your sense of humour is very very dark). It let's you experience the horrors of the holocaust more realistically than any other book or film I have seen about it.

I love this book and could not recommend it more highly. Enjoy.

Are you trying to avoid it?, 25 May 2008
I had known of this book for about a year when i finally decided to buy it. I was put off by the slightly dodgy artwork and the very serious nature of the plot which to me is not what comics are about. Anyway,I wanted to read it so i could come on hear and rant about how it is an over-rated waste of time but I cant. The art isnt perfect i agree but it has its charms and as you read the story you really do get into the simplistic nature of it,it works for this,it doesnt distract from the story which over stylised art would. The story is VERY well written and everything i read totally shocked and moved me.
The jist of my review is - if you are put off by the art but you liked schindlers list or have a fascination with hearing about the holocaust from a personal perspective then you have to read this book. It would get 5 stars from me if I genuinely felt that everyone would like the artwork but I know thats not gonna happen but everyone who isnt an anti-semite must read this story!

Masterpiece, 11 Apr 2008
Only graphic novel to date to win the Pulitzer Price.

That should be compelling enough to endear anyone to this masterwork.

The drawing isn't perhaps as expressive as that of Sacco, but the novelty in Maus not only comes from the controversial bestialization of the characters (Poles are pigs, Jews are mice, Germans are cats, etc) but also from the timeline jumps that mix the chilling tale of Vladek's survival of Auschwitz and the author's process of discovery and acceptance of his father's personality as he is retold the survivor's tale.

So while we are presented with the horror's faced by Vladek, the book also deals with the strained relationship between the author and his father, his father's second wife and the author's converted wife.

One can only praise Spiegelman's honesty at the less than perfect portray of the old age Vladek and his own insecurities.


Searing honesty, 31 Mar 2008
"Maus" is an amazing accomplishment and a rightly revered classic. What I admire most about its narrative is its honesty. If Spielberg ever adapted this book as a film, it would become a simplistic, black-and-white affair: one-dimensional Nazi aggressors stamping on one-dimensional Jewish victims. Instead, Spiegelman has opted to respect our intelligence and throw the doors wide open on this repellent slice of human history. He pulls no punches and tells his father's story with abject truth - even when sometimes portraying the Jewish community in a less than flattering light.

In the unflinching pages of "Maus", Jews betray Jews. Jews steal from Jews. Jews discriminate against non-Jews. I sat up with a shock when Vladek, the tale's central holocaust survivor, displays unbelievable racism towards a black man. Having lived through unspeakable persecution, he speaks of African-Americans in the same way that a Nazi would speak of a Jew. Also, in his old age, Vladek has come to resemble the Nazi stereotype of the "miserly old Jew". This adds incredible power and depth to this already complex story, throwing up countless questions on morality, racial identity and the grey area between good and evil.

It is a staggeringly brave book and its courage has sealed its success. I only wish more artists out would get some guts and show the world some work that really matters.


Rupert in Nazi germany, 10 Mar 2008
I have respect for the author in that it was brave to explore the subject of the holocaust in comic book form- quite an original thing to do. His story is an important one to tell. However, this does not take away the fact that Spiegelman can't draw. The art is in black and white with no rendering and Spiegelman's style is flat and bland.
In this comic book, the jews are mice and the Nazis are cats. The people have animal heads and human bodies-like Rupert bear! That is the last thing you want to think about when reading a book about the holocaust.
And as a person who has experienced having mice in my house (mouse droppings in the cutlery drawer is not pleasant) I find it hard to sympathise with any cartoon mouse.

A startling journey indeed, 05 Nov 2008
In Journey by Moonlight, the Hungarian writer Antal Szerb has produced one of the most memorable novels I have read for some time. When I finished it, I turned back to think about what to write in this review and was immediately drawn back into whichever part of the story I landed in, beguiled by the quality of writing and the narrative pace. Ostensibly about the marriage between Mihály and Erzsi, it would be incorrect to describe this as merely a novel, for it is also a series of statements about existence, relationships and our place in the world.

Mihály and Erzsi are newlyweds and we join them on their honeymoon in Venice. We rapidly learn that Mihály is a vague, other-worldly man, who seems barely planted on the earth.

Even during the first week of the honeymoon he finds himself one night wandering the back streets of Venice for in a sort of dream, not returning to the hotel until dawn. At one point we read a beautifully ironic and sarcastic letter to Mihály from Erzsi's ex-husband Zoltan, giving him instructions on how to care for Erzsi and perfectly describing Mihály's character:

"If I were a woman, and had to choose between the two of us, I too would have chosen you without hesitiation and Erzi surely loves you for being just the sort of person you are - so utterly withdrawn and abstracted that you haven no real relationship with anybody or anything, like someone from another planet, a Martian on earth, someone who never really notices anything, . . . who never pays proper attention when others speak, who often seems to act out of vague goodwill and politeness as if playing at being human"

Erzsi soon realises that her marriage is based on the fiction that the two understand each other perfectly. However when Erzi starts to explain himself, the more confusing he becomes because he holds secrets even from himself, and fails to understand that people other than himself also have an inner life. The marriage is not going to last! But the way it soon ends is uniquely strange, and perhaps shows the shallowness of its foundations from the start.

The story then divides, following the courses of both Mihály and Erzsi as they go their separate ways. Erszi goes to Paris and lives with a girl-friend, meeting up again with Zoltan and various other unique characters. At one point she seems to be offered up to a wealthy Persian as part of a business transaction but manages to assert herself sufficiently to extricate herself and make her own choices after the disastrous second marriage.

Mihály on the other hand continues journeying through Italy, having a series of misfortunes along the way which reveal much about the flaws in his character. An other-worldly but self-regarding and self-indulgent personality, but also self-deceiving, with high ideals which he drops at the merest hint of inconvenience to himself.

It is the energetic writing style which marks this book out as special. The narrative pace is fast, but it is the insights into human existence along the way which make it sparkle. Antal Szerb has no illusions about his characters for all are deeply flawed.

Antal Szerb is a new discovery to me but one of the most valuable. No doubt my enjoyment of this book owes much to the excellent translation by Len Rix and his Afterword sets the book in a wider context and I am pleased to see that he agrees that irony, distinctively Middle-European in character operates on every level of this sophisticated and remarkable novel. Although Mihály's actions are reprehensible, somehow our sympathies are never quite alienated - "some principle at the core of his being calls to us".

Wholly involving, 04 Nov 2007
Mihály, the central character of this elegant and stylish novel (beautifully translated by Len Rix) seems to belong to the early continental 19th century rather than to inter-war Budapest. He is a man in his late thirties, a neurotic and Romantic character, unworldly, more at home in history than in the present, ill at ease in his bourgeois setting at home and equally ill at ease about being in his late thirties. He has a great nostalgia for the time when, as an adolescent schoolboy, he was the hanger-on of a group of unconventional young people: Tamás (who several times tried to commit suicide and eventually managed it); his sister Eva (whom Mihály adored); Ervin (another of Eva's admirers, a convert to Catholicism from Judaism); and János, a suave trickster.

The book opens twenty years later, when Mihály is on his honeymoon in Venice with his wife Erszi. Erszi had left her first husband to marry Mihály because he was `different'; he had seduced and then married her because he was trying to be `normal'. But she did not understand just how `different' he was, and he could not cope with marriage; and, besides, he is haunted by the memory of the now mysterious Eva. During a stop-over on a railway journey, Mihály makes the Freudian error of getting onto one train while Erszi is travelling on another. He is relieved to be on his own and that noone can find him. He travels from one Italian location to another - all beautifully and sometimes hauntingly described. I must not reveal the many strange, mysterious and coincidental events that happen to him; but in any case his thought processes are at least as central to the story as are the various events.

Meanwhile Erszi, unable to face her family in Budapest as a deserted wife, makes her way to Paris. There she, too, in her own way, turns against the respectable bourgeois life she has hitherto been leading. Again I must not elaborate; but the story is full of fascinating psychological twists and turns (though one of them, in an ancient chateau on a rainy night, does, I must admit, strike me as uncharacteristically grotesque and over the top - quite out of tune with the delicacy of the rest of the novel.)

The note of death is heard throughout the novel. As a youngster Mihály had to take part in the theatricals staged by Tamás and Eva which invariably involved death, with Mihály willingly playing the sacrificial victim. Later, there are suicides, cemeteries, Etruscan sarcophagi and the apparent Etruscan notion that "dying is an erotic art", which so resonates with Mihály and had done so for Tamás. Mihály hears a remarkable lecture on that subject from Professor Waldheim, one of his former class-mates whom he meets in Rome - and from that moment onwards Szerb plays some extraordinary games with his readers.

A subtle, rich and wonderful book.

A beautiful novel of discovery and escape from the world, 11 Jun 2007
This is one of the most absorbing books I have read this year - there was no way I could put it down until I got to the end of it. Peopled with unforgettable characters like every one of us, this is a tale of love, death, individuality, courage, and conforming. The main characters are on a honeymoon trip in Rome, where they talk about their past lives and the people that affected them. There comes a point where the past and present meet, when it is not possible for love or life to continue; each character must make a choice to decide his or her own fate. The language is beautiful and the whole novel has eerie, Gothic undertones as we follow characters to their death, to isolated houses and mountains where they make an attempt to escape from a common, ordinary world. The language flows beautifully and makes you think about your own life as if you were being swept along by a stream of wisdom. This was wonderful, touching and self-reflective...highly recommended.

a hidden classic.., 20 Dec 2006
having just finished this masterpiece of a novel, i am truly surprised that i had not heard of it before seeing it in my local charity shop. this beautiful story of a man not able to let go of his childhood captivated me and i couldn't put it down until i'd finished. i'd just love to learn hungarian so i could read the original and see whether it's even better!

Simply magical, 08 Oct 2004
With a subtle wit that allows the reader to be amused at the pretensions and foibles of the characters without making them unsympathetic or into just cyphers, Szerb tells the story of Mihaly and Erzsi and how their honeymoon unfolds. The novel is largely set in Italy and France, with flashbacks to the earlier life of Mihaly in Hungary which build into the picture of his character.
Journey by Moonlight is supposed to be a classic of Hungarian literature and I found that easy to understand from the English Translation by Len Rix. This novel and author deserve to be much more widely known.
The actual physical production of this volume by Pushkin Press is impressive with a sewn binding and very high quality paper used.

Entertaining look into the Yiddish experience., 01 Sep 1999
This book satisfied my craving to learn the type of world mygrandparents came from, their language and attitutes. I laughed so hard from Singers descriptions of his characters that I thought I would bust. This is a book for all to learn to appreciate a rich culture that existed in Eastern Europe and was transported to America with those remaining lost in the Holocaust. Singer has some imagination and the talent to relay his thoughts clearly that you feel that you are among the characters. The translation from Yiddish to English was well done and conveyed the message completely. A must for those who want to expand their knowledge of the roots of the Jewish people and their lives and experiences in a world lost.

Not one of her best., 11 Jan 2008
This was not one of bernice rubens` best in my opinion. I found it rather drawn out and oppressive, and could have put it down at any point - and almost did.

Not my favourite, 29 May 2003
A bit more difficult than her other books it nevertheless shows a very interesting situation. Solid work!

Despairingly realistic, 11 Dec 2001
"The Elected Member" is the story of Norman, a mentally disturbed high-achiever in a close-knit Jewish family confined to a mental institution when his family feel they can no longer cope, and it is sensational in its achievements. It is written in such a way as to involve the reader to the highest possible degree, making him cry, laugh, and experience all the devestating emotions of the characters about which he is reading. The problems and situations it presents are for many easy to identify with, making it a book that is painful to read at the same time as being, for this very reason, impossible to put down. It is Rubens's style - pure storytelling - that makes the book so effective. Lack of too-involved description or her own opinions makes us focus on her subject instead, which is, of course, the most important thing, and the portrayal of her characters and their various reactions to Norman's illness as they face up to their own involvement with it is probably more believable than anything else I have ever read that it almost seems autobiographical.
This is a superb book, the author having gone almost too far into such a taboo issue as mental illness and the culpability of the family of the sick member. I felt guilt, I felt sadness, I felt despair...then I read it all over again.

Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant!!, 23 Oct 2008
Once you open this book it is nearly impossible to stop. Even people who normally do not like books will love this one. It's a comic but not comical.. (unless your sense of humour is very very dark). It let's you experience the horrors of the holocaust more realistically than any other book or film I have seen about it.

I love this book and could not recommend it more highly. Enjoy.

Are you trying to avoid it?, 25 May 2008
I had known of this book for about a year when i finally decided to buy it. I was put off by the slightly dodgy artwork and the very serious nature of the plot which to me is not what comics are about. Anyway,I wanted to read it so i could come on hear and rant about how it is an over-rated waste of time but I cant. The art isnt perfect i agree but it has its charms and as you read the story you really do get into the simplistic nature of it,it works for this,it doesnt distract from the story which over stylised art would. The story is VERY well written and everything i read totally shocked and moved me.
The jist of my review is - if you are put off by the art but you liked schindlers list or have a fascination with hearing about the holocaust from a personal perspective then you have to read this book. It would get 5 stars from me if I genuinely felt that everyone would like the artwork but I know thats not gonna happen but everyone who isnt an anti-semite must read this story!

Masterpiece, 11 Apr 2008
Only graphic novel to date to win the Pulitzer Price.

That should be compelling enough to endear anyone to this masterwork.

The drawing isn't perhaps as expressive as that of Sacco, but the novelty in Maus not only comes from the controversial bestialization of the characters (Poles are pigs, Jews are mice, Germans are cats, etc) but also from the timeline jumps that mix the chilling tale of Vladek's survival of Auschwitz and the author's process of discovery and acceptance of his father's personality as he is retold the survivor's tale.

So while we are presented with the horror's faced by Vladek, the book also deals with the strained relationship between the author and his father, his father's second wife and the author's converted wife.

One can only praise Spiegelman's honesty at the less than perfect portray of the old age Vladek and his own insecurities.


Searing honesty, 31 Mar 2008
"Maus" is an amazing accomplishment and a rightly revered classic. What I admire most about its narrative is its honesty. If Spielberg ever adapted this book as a film, it would become a simplistic, black-and-white affair: one-dimensional Nazi aggressors stamping on one-dimensional Jewish victims. Instead, Spiegelman has opted to respect our intelligence and throw the doors wide open on this repellent slice of human history. He pulls no punches and tells his father's story with abject truth - even when sometimes portraying the Jewish community in a less than flattering light.

In the unflinching pages of "Maus", Jews betray Jews. Jews steal from Jews. Jews discriminate against non-Jews. I sat up with a shock when Vladek, the tale's central holocaust survivor, displays unbelievable racism towards a black man. Having lived through unspeakable persecution, he speaks of African-Americans in the same way that a Nazi would speak of a Jew. Also, in his old age, Vladek has come to resemble the Nazi stereotype of the "miserly old Jew". This adds incredible power and depth to this already complex story, throwing up countless questions on morality, racial identity and the grey area between good and evil.

It is a staggeringly brave book and its courage has sealed its success. I only wish more artists out would get some guts and show the world some work that really matters.


Rupert in Nazi germany, 10 Mar 2008
I have respect for the author in that it was brave to explore the subject of the holocaust in comic book form- quite an original thing to do. His story is an important one to tell. However, this does not take away the fact that Spiegelman can't draw. The art is in black and white with no rendering and Spiegelman's style is flat and bland.
In this comic book, the jews are mice and the Nazis are cats. The people have animal heads and human bodies-like Rupert bear! That is the last thing you want to think about when reading a book about the holocaust.
And as a person who has experienced having mice in my house (mouse droppings in the cutlery drawer is not pleasant) I find it hard to sympathise with any cartoon mouse.

A startling journey indeed, 05 Nov 2008
In Journey by Moonlight, the Hungarian writer Antal Szerb has produced one of the most memorable novels I have read for some time. When I finished it, I turned back to think about what to write in this review and was immediately drawn back into whichever part of the story I landed in, beguiled by the quality of writing and the narrative pace. Ostensibly about the marriage between Mihály and Erzsi, it would be incorrect to describe this as merely a novel, for it is also a series of statements about existence, relationships and our place in the world.

Mihály and Erzsi are newlyweds and we join them on their honeymoon in Venice. We rapidly learn that Mihály is a vague, other-worldly man, who seems barely planted on the earth.

Even during the first week of the honeymoon he finds himself one night wandering the back streets of Venice for in a sort of dream, not returning to the hotel until dawn. At one point we read a beautifully ironic and sarcastic letter to Mihály from Erzsi's ex-husband Zoltan, giving him instructions on how to care for Erzsi and perfectly describing Mihály's character:

"If I were a woman, and had to choose between the two of us, I too would have chosen you without hesitiation and Erzi surely loves you for being just the sort of person you are - so utterly withdrawn and abstracted that you haven no real relationship with anybody or anything, like someone from another planet, a Martian on earth, someone who never really notices anything, . . . who never pays proper attention when others speak, who often seems to act out of vague goodwill and politeness as if playing at being human"

Erzsi soon realises that her marriage is based on the fiction that the two understand each other perfectly. However when Erzi starts to explain himself, the more confusing he becomes because he holds secrets even from himself, and fails to understand that people other than himself also have an inner life. The marriage is not going to last! But the way it soon ends is uniquely strange, and perhaps shows the shallowness of its foundations from the start.

The story then divides, following the courses of both Mihály and Erzsi as they go their separate ways. Erszi goes to Paris and lives with a girl-friend, meeting up again with Zoltan and various other unique characters. At one point she seems to be offered up to a wealthy Persian as part of a business transaction but manages to assert herself sufficiently to extricate herself and make her own choices after the disastrous second marriage.

Mihály on the other hand continues journeying through Italy, having a series of misfortunes along the way which reveal much about the flaws in his character. An other-worldly but self-regarding and self-indulgent personality, but also self-deceiving, with high ideals which he drops at the merest hint of inconvenience to himself.

It is the energetic writing style which marks this book out as special. The narrative pace is fast, but it is the insights into human existence along the way which make it sparkle. Antal Szerb has no illusions about his characters for all are deeply flawed.

Antal Szerb is a new discovery to me but one of the most valuable. No doubt my enjoyment of this book owes much to the excellent translation by Len Rix and his Afterword sets the book in a wider context and I am pleased to see that he agrees that irony, distinctively Middle-European in character operates on every level of this sophisticated and remarkable novel. Although Mihály's actions are reprehensible, somehow our sympathies are never quite alienated - "some principle at the core of his being calls to us".

Wholly involving, 04 Nov 2007
Mihály, the central character of this elegant and stylish novel (beautifully translated by Len Rix) seems to belong to the early continental 19th century rather than to inter-war Budapest. He is a man in his late thirties, a neurotic and Romantic character, unworldly, more at home in history than in the present, ill at ease in his bourgeois setting at home and equally ill at ease about being in his late thirties. He has a great nostalgia for the time when, as an adolescent schoolboy, he was the hanger-on of a group of unconventional young people: Tamás (who several times tried to commit suicide and eventually managed it); his sister Eva (whom Mihály adored); Ervin (another of Eva's admirers, a convert to Catholicism from Judaism); and János, a suave trickster.

The book opens twenty years later, when Mihály is on his honeymoon in Venice with his wife Erszi. Erszi had left her first husband to marry Mihály because he was `different'; he had seduced and then married her because he was trying to be `normal'. But she did not understand just how `different' he was, and he could not cope with marriage; and, besides, he is haunted by the memory of the now mysterious Eva. During a stop-over on a railway journey, Mihály makes the Freudian error of getting onto one train while Erszi is travelling on another. He is relieved to be on his own and that noone can find him. He travels from one Italian location to another - all beautifully and sometimes hauntingly described. I must not reveal the many strange, mysterious and coincidental events that happen to him; but in any case his thought processes are at least as central to the story as are the various events.

Meanwhile Erszi, unable to face her family in Budapest as a deserted wife, makes her way to Paris. There she, too, in her own way, turns against the respectable bourgeois life she has hitherto been leading. Again I must not elaborate; but the story is full of fascinating psychological twists and turns (though one of them, in an ancient chateau on a rainy night, does, I must admit, strike me as uncharacteristically grotesque and over the top - quite out of tune with the delicacy of the rest of the novel.)

The note of death is heard throughout the novel. As a youngster Mihály had to take part in the theatricals staged by Tamás and Eva which invariably involved death, with Mihály willingly playing the sacrificial victim. Later, there are suicides, cemeteries, Etruscan sarcophagi and the apparent Etruscan notion that "dying is an erotic art", which so resonates with Mihály and had done so for Tamás. Mihály hears a remarkable lecture on that subject from Professor Waldheim, one of his former class-mates whom he meets in Rome - and from that moment onwards Szerb plays some extraordinary games with his readers.

A subtle, rich and wonderful book.

A beautiful novel of discovery and escape from the world, 11 Jun 2007
This is one of the most absorbing books I have read this year - there was no way I could put it down until I got to the end of it. Peopled with unforgettable characters like every one of us, this is a tale of love, death, individuality, courage, and conforming. The main characters are on a honeymoon trip in Rome, where they talk about their past lives and the people that affected them. There comes a point where the past and present meet, when it is not possible for love or life to continue; each character must make a choice to decide his or her own fate. The language is beautiful and the whole novel has eerie, Gothic undertones as we follow characters to their death, to isolated houses and mountains where they make an attempt to escape from a common, ordinary world. The language flows beautifully and makes you think about your own life as if you were being swept along by a stream of wisdom. This was wonderful, touching and self-reflective...highly recommended.

a hidden classic.., 20 Dec 2006
having just finished this masterpiece of a novel, i am truly surprised that i had not heard of it before seeing it in my local charity shop. this beautiful story of a man not able to let go of his childhood captivated me and i couldn't put it down until i'd finished. i'd just love to learn hungarian so i could read the original and see whether it's even better!

Simply magical, 08 Oct 2004
With a subtle wit that allows the reader to be amused at the pretensions and foibles of the characters without making them unsympathetic or into just cyphers, Szerb tells the story of Mihaly and Erzsi and how their honeymoon unfolds. The novel is largely set in Italy and France, with flashbacks to the earlier life of Mihaly in Hungary which build into the picture of his character.
Journey by Moonlight is supposed to be a classic of Hungarian literature and I found that easy to understand from the English Translation by Len Rix. This novel and author deserve to be much more widely known.
The actual physical production of this volume by Pushkin Press is impressive with a sewn binding and very high quality paper used.

Entertaining look into the Yiddish experience., 01 Sep 1999
This book satisfied my craving to learn the type of world mygrandparents came from, their language and attitutes. I laughed so hard from Singers descriptions of his characters that I thought I would bust. This is a book for all to learn to appreciate a rich culture that existed in Eastern Europe and was transported to America with those remaining lost in the Holocaust. Singer has some imagination and the talent to relay his thoughts clearly that you feel that you are among the characters. The translation from Yiddish to English was well done and conveyed the message completely. A must for those who want to expand their knowledge of the roots of the Jewish people and their lives and experiences in a world lost.

Not one of her best., 11 Jan 2008
This was not one of bernice rubens` best in my opinion. I found it rather drawn out and oppressive, and could have put it down at any point - and almost did.

Not my favourite, 29 May 2003
A bit more difficult than her other books it nevertheless shows a very interesting situation. Solid work!

Despairingly realistic, 11 Dec 2001
"The Elected Member" is the story of Norman, a mentally disturbed high-achiever in a close-knit Jewish family confined to a mental institution when his family feel they can no longer cope, and it is sensational in its achievements. It is written in such a way as to involve the reader to the highest possible degree, making him cry, laugh, and experience all the devestating emotions of the characters about which he is reading. The problems and situations it presents are for many easy to identify with, making it a book that is painful to read at the same time as being, for this very reason, impossible to put down. It is Rubens's style - pure storytelling - that makes the book so effective. Lack of too-involved description or her own opinions makes us focus on her subject instead, which is, of course, the most important thing, and the portrayal of her characters and their various reactions to Norman's illness as they face up to their own involvement with it is probably more believable than anything else I have ever read that it almost seems autobiographical.
This is a superb book, the author having gone almost too far into such a taboo issue as mental illness and the culpability of the family of the sick member. I felt guilt, I felt sadness, I felt despair...then I read it all over again.

Brought my own family history to life, 03 Jul 2008
'Last Days in Babylon' left me frustrated and disappointed with myself for not finding out more about my own relatives' lives as Jews in Baghdad, while I still had the chance.

'Last Days' superbly provided a moving true story, with a wonderful illustration of the social history of the lives of Baghdad Jewry between WW1 and the exodus of the 1950s. Reading it, I became so thoroughly absorbed in Benjamin's family's story that they felt like my own - and indeed - some of the traits and anecdotes of my late father began to make more sense.

Cleverly, the story doesn't end with the exodus from Babylon. It's brought straight up to the present through Benjamin's visit in 2004 to see the last remaining handful of Jews from what had been a thriving, prosperous and respected population.

If I have one small criticism, it's that Benjamin's negative critique of the attitude of the fledging State of Israel to the new immigrants from Iraq doesn't sufficiently consider the difficulties with which the State was faced in having to absorb so many refugees so quickly. (There were hundreds of thousands from other Arab countries as well as survivors from the European Holocaust). Whilst it is true that the European dominated government was somewhat prejudiced against the Mizrachi (Eastern) Jews in these early years, they were soon absorbed and now play the same role in society as their European counterparts.

Despite the above, "Last Days in Babylon" is a wonderful book that I would recommend to anyone whose family may originate from that area. Thank you Ms Benjamin for bringing my own family story to life.

Nice photos, but not much substance, 18 Feb 2008
This book has some valuable and beautiful photos of the life of the Jews in Baghdad in the last two or three generations. It has interesting stories about the life of the author's family. This is not enough for publishing a book or buying it. The author admits that she grew up knowing nothing about her family history and roots. Unfortunately, the book proves that she has to learn much more before she can write meaningfully about that period.

This book is lacking in historical insight and presents a distorted interpretation. Such a distorted message was picked up by a reviewer in The Times. The review of the 16 of February 2008 issue says "Benjamin challenges a Shibboleth by criticising Israel's response. The promised land welcomed Iraqi Jews -but by putting them in crowded camps and employing them, at best, as labourers". Where else can a State house hundreds of thousands of penniless refugees who arrived in the span of two or thre years after the state was established? Particularly when the total population of the new State of Israel was only six hundred thousands? Could Britain have coped with a flood of 30 or 40 million refugees in one year, shortly after the end of the Second World War?

The Iraqi Jews were persecuted, humilated, threatened and robbd of their jobs, homes, property, furniture, jewellery -everything - by the Iraqi government. Their Muslim neighbours with whom and their ancestors they have been living peacefully for generations did not protest. The Iraqi Jews fled and found refuge among total strangers, mainly East Europeans - the Jews in israel. At first they were given tents, then sheds, then subsided built houses. There were not enough jobs available but some were created artificially. The idea was to give some trainig in agriculture, and avoid the humiliation of giving dole money.

Professionals like doctors and teachers were sent to Hebrew crash courses and appointd to jobs in the government and public institutes, often caring for their fellow refugees.

There was a quick programme of Hebrew lessons and job related training. The refuges obtained jobs, bought subsidised housing, and then moved and excelled in all fields of the Econommy. It took one generation or two before the refugees recoverd from the dispossession by the Iraqi Geovernement.

It seems that the author has swallowed the Arab propagandists, and their habit always to accuse others. The book accuses everybody - including the inevitable "British Imperialism" - except the perpetrators of the ethnic cleansing - the Government and population of Iraq.

Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant!!, 23 Oct 2008
Once you open this book it is nearly impossible to stop. Even people who normally do not like books will love this one. It's a comic but not comical.. (unless your sense of humour is very very dark). It let's you experience the horrors of the holocaust more realistically than any other book or film I have seen about it.

I love this book and could not recommend it more highly. Enjoy.

Are you trying to avoid it?, 25 May 2008
I had known of this book for about a year when i finally decided to buy it. I was put off by the slightly dodgy artwork and the very serious nature of the plot which to me is not what comics are about. Anyway,I wanted to read it so i could come on hear and rant about how it is an over-rated waste of time but I cant. The art isnt perfect i agree but it has its charms and as you read the story you really do get into the simplistic nature of it,it works for this,it doesnt distract from the story which over stylised art would. The story is VERY well written and everything i read totally shocked and moved me.
The jist of my review is - if you are put off by the art but you liked schindlers list or have a fascination with hearing about the holocaust from a personal perspective then you have to read this book. It would get 5 stars from me if I genuinely felt that everyone would like the artwork but I know thats not gonna happen but everyone who isnt an anti-semite must read this story!

Masterpiece, 11 Apr 2008
Only graphic novel to date to win the Pulitzer Price.

That should be compelling enough to endear anyone to this masterwork.

The drawing isn't perhaps as expressive as that of Sacco, but the novelty in Maus not only comes from the controversial bestialization of the characters (Poles are pigs, Jews are mice, Germans are cats, etc) but also from the timeline jumps that mix the chilling tale of Vladek's survival of Auschwitz and the author's process of discovery and acceptance of his father's personality as he is retold the survivor's tale.

So while we are presented with the horror's faced by Vladek, the book also deals with the strained relationship between the author and his father, his father's second wife and the author's converted wife.

One can only praise Spiegelman's honesty at the less than perfect portray of the old age Vladek and his own insecurities.


Searing honesty, 31 Mar 2008
"Maus" is an amazing accomplishment and a rightly revered classic. What I admire most about its narrative is its honesty. If Spielberg ever adapted this book as a film, it would become a simplistic, black-and-white affair: one-dimensional Nazi aggressors stamping on one-dimensional Jewish victims. Instead, Spiegelman has opted to respect our intelligence and throw the doors wide open on this repellent slice of human history. He pulls no punches and tells his father's story with abject truth - even when sometimes portraying the Jewish community in a less than flattering light.

In the unflinching pages of "Maus", Jews betray Jews. Jews steal from Jews. Jews discriminate against non-Jews. I sat up with a shock when Vladek, the tale's central holocaust survivor, displays unbelievable racism towards a black man. Having lived through unspeakable persecution, he speaks of African-Americans in the same way that a Nazi would speak of a Jew. Also, in his old age, Vladek has come to resemble the Nazi stereotype of the "miserly old Jew". This adds incredible power and depth to this already complex story, throwing up countless questions on morality, racial identity and the grey area between good and evil.

It is a staggeringly brave book and its courage has sealed its success. I only wish more artists out would get some guts and show the world some work that really matters.


Rupert in Nazi germany, 10 Mar 2008
I have respect for the author in that it was brave to explore the subject of the holocaust in comic book form- quite an original thing to do. His story is an important one to tell. However, this does not take away the fact that Spiegelman can't draw. The art is in black and white with no rendering and Spiegelman's style is flat and bland.
In this comic book, the jews are mice and the Nazis are cats. The people have animal heads and human bodies-like Rupert bear! That is the last thing you want to think about when reading a book about the holocaust.
And as a person who has experienced having mice in my house (mouse droppings in the cutlery drawer is not pleasant) I find it hard to sympathise with any cartoon mouse.

A startling journey indeed, 05 Nov 2008
In Journey by Moonlight, the Hungarian writer Antal Szerb has produced one of the most memorable novels I have read for some time. When I finished it, I turned back to think about what to write in this review and was immediately drawn back into whichever part of the story I landed in, beguiled by the quality of writing and the narrative pace. Ostensibly about the marriage between Mihály and Erzsi, it would be incorrect to describe this as merely a novel, for it is also a series of statements about existence, relationships and our place in the world.

Mihály and Erzsi are newlyweds and we join them on their honeymoon in Venice. We rapidly learn that Mihály is a vague, other-worldly man, who seems barely planted on the earth.

Even during the first week of the honeymoon he finds himself one night wandering the back streets of Venice for in a sort of dream, not returning to the hotel until dawn. At one point we read a beautifully ironic and sarcastic letter to Mihály from Erzsi's ex-husband Zoltan, giving him instructions on how to care for Erzsi and perfectly describing Mihály's character:

"If I were a woman, and had to choose between the two of us, I too would have chosen you without hesitiation and Erzi surely loves you for being just the sort of person you are - so utterly withdrawn and abstracted that you haven no real relationship with anybody or anything, like someone from another planet, a Martian on earth, someone who never really notices anything, . . . who never pays proper attention when others speak, who often seems to act out of vague goodwill and politeness as if playing at being human"

Erzsi soon realises that her marriage is based on the fiction that the two understand each other perfectly. However when Erzi starts to explain himself, the more confusing he becomes because he holds secrets even from himself, and fails to understand that people other than himself also have an inner life. The marriage is not going to last! But the way it soon ends is uniquely strange, and perhaps shows the shallowness of its foundations from the start.

The story then divides, following the courses of both Mihály and Erzsi as they go their separate ways. Erszi goes to Paris and lives with a girl-friend, meeting up again with Zoltan and various other unique characters. At one point she seems to be offered up to a wealthy Persian as part of a business transaction but manages to assert herself sufficiently to extricate herself and make her own choices after the disastrous second marriage.

Mihály on the other hand continues journeying through Italy, having a series of misfortunes along the way which reveal much about the flaws in his character. An other-worldly but self-regarding and self-indulgent personality, but also self-deceiving, with high ideals which he drops at the merest hint of inconvenience to himself.

It is the energetic writing style which marks this book out as special. The narrative pace is fast, but it is the insights into human existence along the way which make it sparkle. Antal Szerb has no illusions about his characters for all are deeply flawed.

Antal Szerb is a new discovery to me but one of the most valuable. No doubt my enjoyment of this book owes much to the excellent translation by Len Rix and his Afterword sets the book in a wider context and I am pleased to see that he agrees that irony, distinctively Middle-European in character operates on every level of this sophisticated and remarkable novel. Although Mihály's actions are reprehensible, somehow our sympathies are never quite alienated - "some principle at the core of his being calls to us".

Wholly involving, 04 Nov 2007
Mihály, the central character of this elegant and stylish novel (beautifully translated by Len Rix) seems to belong to the early continental 19th century rather than to inter-war Budapest. He is a man in his late thirties, a neurotic and Romantic character, unworldly, more at home in history than in the present, ill at ease in his bourgeois setting at home and equally ill at ease about being in his late thirties. He has a great nostalgia for the time when, as an adolescent schoolboy, he was the hanger-on of a group of unconventional young people: Tamás (who several times tried to commit suicide and eventually managed it); his sister Eva (whom Mihály adored); Ervin (another of Eva's admirers, a convert to Catholicism from Judaism); and János, a suave trickster.

The book opens twenty years later, when Mihály is on his honeymoon in Venice with his wife Erszi. Erszi had left her first husband to marry Mihály because he was `different'; he had seduced and then married her because he was trying to be `normal'. But she did not understand just how `different' he was, and he could not cope with marriage; and, besides, he is haunted by the memory of the now mysterious Eva. During a stop-over on a railway journey, Mihály makes the Freudian error of getting onto one train while Erszi is travelling on another. He is relieved to be on his own and that noone can find him. He travels from one Italian location to another - all beautifully and sometimes hauntingly described. I must not reveal the many strange, mysterious and coincidental events that happen to him; but in any case his thought processes are at least as central to the story as are the various events.

Meanwhile Erszi, unable to face her family in Budapest as a deserted wife, makes her way to Paris. There she, too, in her own way, turns against the respectable bourgeois life she has hitherto been leading. Again I must not elaborate; but the story is full of fascinating psychological twists and turns (though one of them, in an ancient chateau on a rainy night, does, I must admit, strike me as uncharacteristically grotesque and over the top - quite out of tune with the delicacy of the rest of the novel.)

The note of death is heard throughout the novel. As a youngster Mihály had to take part in the theatricals staged by Tamás and Eva which invariably involved death, with Mihály willingly playing the sacrificial victim. Later, there are suicides, cemeteries, Etruscan sarcophagi and the apparent Etruscan notion that "dying is an erotic art", which so resonates with Mihály and had done so for Tamás. Mihály hears a remarkable lecture on that subject from Professor Waldheim, one of his former class-mates whom he meets in Rome - and from that moment onwards Szerb plays some extraordinary games with his readers.

A subtle, rich and wonderful book.

A beautiful novel of discovery and escape from the world, 11 Jun 2007
This is one of the most absorbing books I have read this year - there was no way I could put it down until I got to the end of it. Peopled with unforgettable characters like every one of us, this is a tale of love, death, individuality, courage, and conforming. The main characters are on a honeymoon trip in Rome, where they talk about their past lives and the people that affected them. There comes a point where the past and present meet, when it is not possible for love or life to continue; each character must make a choice to decide his or her own fate. The language is beautiful and the whole novel has eerie, Gothic undertones as we follow characters to their death, to isolated houses and mountains where they make an attempt to escape from a common, ordinary world. The language flows beautifully and makes you think about your own life as if you were being swept along by a stream of wisdom. This was wonderful, touching and self-reflective...highly recommended.

a hidden classic.., 20 Dec 2006
having just finished this masterpiece of a novel, i am truly surprised that i had not heard of it before seeing it in my local charity shop. this beautiful story of a man not able to let go of his childhood captivated me and i couldn't put it down until i'd finished. i'd just love to learn hungarian so i could read the original and see whether it's even better!

Simply magical, 08 Oct 2004
With a subtle wit that allows the reader to be amused at the pretensions and foibles of the characters without making them unsympathetic or into just cyphers, Szerb tells the story of Mihaly and Erzsi and how their honeymoon unfolds. The novel is largely set in Italy and France, with flashbacks to the earlier life of Mihaly in Hungary which build into the picture of his character.
Journey by Moonlight is supposed to be a classic of Hungarian literature and I found that easy to understand from the English Translation by Len Rix. This novel and author deserve to be much more widely known.
The actual physical production of this volume by Pushkin Press is impressive with a sewn binding and very high quality paper used.

Entertaining look into the Yiddish experience., 01 Sep 1999
This book satisfied my craving to learn the type of world mygrandparents came from, their language and attitutes. I laughed so hard from Singers descriptions of his characters that I thought I would bust. This is a book for all to learn to appreciate a rich culture that existed in Eastern Europe and was transported to America with those remaining lost in the Holocaust. Singer has some imagination and the talent to relay his thoughts clearly that you feel that you are among the characters. The translation from Yiddish to English was well done and conveyed the message completely. A must for those who want to expand their knowledge of the roots of the Jewish people and their lives and experiences in a world lost.

Not one of her best., 11 Jan 2008
This was not one of bernice rubens` best in my opinion. I found it rather drawn out and oppressive, and could have put it down at any point - and almost did.

Not my favourite, 29 May 2003
A bit more difficult than her other books it nevertheless shows a very interesting situation. Solid work!

Despairingly realistic, 11 Dec 2001
"The Elected Member" is the story of Norman, a mentally disturbed high-achiever in a close-knit Jewish family confined to a mental institution when his family feel they can no longer cope, and it is sensational in its achievements. It is written in such a way as to involve the reader to the highest possible degree, making him cry, laugh, and experience all the devestating emotions of the characters about which he is reading. The problems and situations it presents are for many easy to identify with, making it a book that is painful to read at the same time as being, for this very reason, impossible to put down. It is Rubens's style - pure storytelling - that makes the book so effective. Lack of too-involved description or her own opinions makes us focus on her subject instead, which is, of course, the most important thing, and the portrayal of her characters and their various reactions to Norman's illness as they face up to their own involvement with it is probably more believable than anything else I have ever read that it almost seems autobiographical.
This is a superb book, the author having gone almost too far into such a taboo issue as mental illness and the culpability of the family of the sick member. I felt guilt, I felt sadness, I felt despair...then I read it all over again.

Brought my own family history to life, 03 Jul 2008
'Last Days in Babylon' left me frustrated and disappointed with myself for not finding out more about my own relatives' lives as Jews in Baghdad, while I still had the chance.

'Last Days' superbly provided a moving true story, with a wonderful illustration of the social history of the lives of Baghdad Jewry between WW1 and the exodus of the 1950s. Reading it, I became so thoroughly absorbed in Benjamin's family's story that they felt like my own - and indeed - some of the traits and anecdotes of my late father began to make more sense.

Cleverly, the story doesn't end with the exodus from Babylon. It's brought straight up to the present through Benjamin's visit in 2004 to see the last remaining handful of Jews from what had been a thriving, prosperous and respected population.

If I have one small criticism, it's that Benjamin's negative critique of the attitude of the fledging State of Israel to the new immigrants from Iraq doesn't sufficiently consider the difficulties with which the State was faced in having to absorb so many refugees so quickly. (There were hundreds of thousands from other Arab countries as well as survivors from the European Holocaust). Whilst it is true that the European dominated government was somewhat prejudiced against the Mizrachi (Eastern) Jews in these early years, they were soon absorbed and now play the same role in society as their European counterparts.

Despite the above, "Last Days in Babylon" is a wonderful book that I would recommend to anyone whose family may originate from that area. Thank you Ms Benjamin for bringing my own family story to life.

Nice photos, but not much substance, 18 Feb 2008
This book has some valuable and beautiful photos of the life of the Jews in Baghdad in the last two or three generations. It has interesting stories about the life of the author's family. This is not enough for publishing a book or buying it. The author admits that she grew up knowing nothing about her family history and roots. Unfortunately, the book proves that she has to learn much more before she can write meaningfully about that period.

This book is lacking in historical insight and presents a distorted interpretation. Such a distorted message was picked up by a reviewer in The Times. The review of the 16 of February 2008 issue says "Benjamin challenges a Shibboleth by criticising Israel's response. The promised land welcomed Iraqi Jews -but by putting them in crowded camps and employing them, at best, as labourers". Where else can a State house hundreds of thousands of penniless refugees who arrived in the span of two or thre years after the state was established? Particularly when the total population of the new State of Israel was only six hundred thousands? Could Britain have coped with a flood of 30 or 40 million refugees in one year, shortly after the end of the Second World War?

The Iraqi Jews were persecuted, humilated, threatened and robbd of their jobs, homes, property, furniture, jewellery -everything - by the Iraqi government. Their Muslim neighbours with whom and their ancestors they have been living peacefully for generations did not protest. The Iraqi Jews fled and found refuge among total strangers, mainly East Europeans - the Jews in israel. At first they were given tents, then sheds, then subsided built houses. There were not enough jobs available but some were created artificially. The idea was to give some trainig in agriculture, and avoid the humiliation of giving dole money.

Professionals like doctors and teachers were sent to Hebrew crash courses and appointd to jobs in the government and public institutes, often caring for their fellow refugees.

There was a quick programme of Hebrew lessons and job related training. The refuges obtained jobs, bought subsidised housing, and then moved and excelled in all fields of the Econommy. It took one generation or two before the refugees recoverd from the dispossession by the Iraqi Geovernement.

It seems that the author has swallowed the Arab propagandists, and their habit always to accuse others. The book accuses everybody - including the inevitable "British Imperialism" - except the perpetrators of the ethnic cleansing - the Government and population of Iraq.


Why couldn't it be longer?, 03 Sep 2008
What a shame. I bought this book on the strength of the cover. Artistically, it is hard to be disappointed. The drawing is top quality, and in spite of the simple black and white depictions, the characters are truly expressive, particularly the nazi soldiers.

Unfortunately, the story is done and dusted too soon, which in some sort of way says a lot about the work, you just want it to carry on for longer, it's that good. Clearly, Spiegelman's Maus looms in the background, and what Aushwitz lacks in depth and first hand experience relative to Maus, it compensates on the chilling artwork and depiction of the gas chambers.

The extra interview with the author at the end is a very nice complementary addition to the book. Upon finishing Aushwitz, I went straight to the internet to learn more about it, so I guess it fulfilled its objective. I look forward to new stuff from Monsieur Croci.

Apocalypse Then, 04 Mar 2006
Obviously the shadow of Art Spiegelman's acclaimed Maus books fall long over any graphic story relating the Holocaust. Fortunately Croci's oversized book takes a very different visual approach, using grim pencil illustrations toned with gray watercolor washes to create an oppressively bleak monochrome world. The story is about a couple who manage to survive internment at Auschwitz-Birkenau, but not without losing their daughter. Their straightforward tale takes the form of a lengthy flashback bookended by their plight somewhere in former Yugoslavia, circa 1993. (This tie to present-day ethnic cleansing, while admirable in spirit, feels a forced and awkward.) Faced with imminent discovery and execution by unnamed forces, the couple recounts to each other their experience at Auschwitz. Their memories share the nightmarish brutality of all Holocaust survivor stories, and Croci's expressionist-influenced and heavily researched artwork brings it all to awful life. From the gaunt forms of the inmates to the hooded dark eyes of the camp guards and officers, there is no humor, no respite, none of the ridiculous "Life is Beautiful" hope, just the haunted, bitter resignation of captured prey. At the back of the book, Croci discusses his obvious influences (Lanzmann's Shoah documentary, Spielberg's film Schindler's List, and Bernadac's book The Naked Mannequins) as well as how his own interviews with survivors shaped the work. The ultimate tone of the book can perhaps best be captured in his statement "Nazi violence is beyond forgiveness." There are a few missteps, such as the lifting of an incident from Schindler's List, and the rather strange misspelling of Mengele, but on the whole it does what all Holocaust literature ought to: horrify.

Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant!!, 23 Oct 2008
Once you open this book it is nearly impossible to stop. Even people who normally do not like books will love this one. It's a comic but not comical.. (unless your sense of humour is very very dark). It let's you experience the horrors of the holocaust more realistically than any other book or film I have seen about it.

I love this book and could not recommend it more highly. Enjoy.

Are you trying to avoid it?, 25 May 2008
I had known of this book for about a year when i finally decided to buy it. I was put off by the slightly dodgy artwork and the very serious nature of the plot which to me is not what comics are about. Anyway,I wanted to read it so i could come on hear and rant about how it is an over-rated waste of time but I cant. The art isnt perfect i agree but it has its charms and as you read the story you really do get into the simplistic nature of it,it works for this,it doesnt distract from the story which over stylised art would. The story is VERY well written and everything i read totally shocked and moved me.
The jist of my review is - if you are put off by the art but you liked schindlers list or have a fascination with hearing about the holocaust from a personal perspective then you have to read this book. It would get 5 stars from me if I genuinely felt that everyone would like the artwork but I know thats not gonna happen but everyone who isnt an anti-semite must read this story!

Masterpiece, 11 Apr 2008
Only graphic novel to date to win the Pulitzer Price.

That should be compelling enough to endear anyone to this masterwork.

The drawing isn't perhaps as expressive as that of Sacco, but the novelty in Maus not only comes from the controversial bestialization of the characters (Poles are pigs, Jews are mice, Germans are cats, etc) but also from the timeline jumps that mix the chilling tale of Vladek's survival of Auschwitz and the author's process of discovery and acceptance of his father's personality as he is retold the survivor's tale.

So while we are presented with the horror's faced by Vla