Hier das Unboxing meiner neuen Maus und ein paar Vergleichs-Bilder zwischen dem alten und dem neuen Modell.

In letzter Zeit habe ich mich am Miniaturhäkeln versucht. Gar nicht so einfach, aber auch nicht so schwierig wie ich anfangs annahm…

Mini-Erdbeere

Lesezeichen-Maus

Imaginem isso mordendo o dedão do seu pé enquanto DORME!!!

Bloody hell…

‘There’s so much I’ll never be able to understand or visualize. I mean, reality is too complex for comics… So much has to be left out or distorted.’[1]

-Art Spiegelman, Maus

‘”La-la-la,” said Cruso, and motioned to Friday to repeat. “Ha-ha-ha,” said Friday from the back of his throat.’[2]

-J.M. Coetzee, Foe

I believe this to be a suitable way to begin this discussion of survival, storytelling, and silence. The question is how does contemporary literature cope in describing that which is beyond description? In Maus, Art Spiegelman creates what is essentially a Holocaust comic, yet despite the cultural implications of the form, his art is both distressing and beautiful. I intend to argue that he achieves his success through a process of visual defamiliarisation, which locates the historical and literary tensions in this sensitive issue, and then finds an aesthetic milieu at the centre at which to present what I believe can be seen as true sight. I intend to conclude with the character of Friday in Coetzee’s Foe to hopefully give weight to any discussion of silence, power and narrative that might arise from analysis of these tensions.

In Murder in our Midst, Omer Bartov discusses the problems of teaching students about the Holocaust: ‘Nor for that matter anyone who had experienced it or studied it from some geographical or chronological distance could quite grasp the essence…or make it understandable to others.’[3] If one aspect the Holocaust can be verbalised, it is the cliché that those events will remain one atrocity that is beyond our human power of description. As Omer Bartov digresses: ‘Somehow fiction and imagination seem to be unable to confront… Auschwitz, a place even those who had been there, both victims and perpetrators, kept describing as unimaginable.’[4] A secondary and rather sardonic cliché might be consideration of how history could have unfolded slightly differently had Adolf Hitler been successful in his goal of being an artist, rather than a politician. This link is often stated implicitly, for example in Glamorama, a postmodern satire on the image and destruction, Bret Easton Ellis begins his tale with a quote directly from Hitler: ‘You make a mistake if you see what we do as merely political.’[5] Indeed, it is impossible to study this period without considering the successful use of aesthetics in tyranny; the legacy of Nazi propaganda all the way from the Second World War to contemporary pop culture. Spiegelman also begins by merging the political and the aesthetic by taking Hitler’s view that ‘The Jews are undoubtedly a race but they are not human’[6] and manipulating the concept into something subversive to that ideology. The first tension provided to us is between the aesthetic power of Nazi Germany, and the void of representation it left behind through genocide. Spiegelman’s first success is retelling the story through his own images and those of his Father, highlighting both the success and failure of the image and its implicit work in politics of representation, both past and present.

Bartov also presents us with our second example of tension: Should the Holocaust be seen as the most important event of the epoch, or merely as a distraction which ‘obscures our perception and prevents us from a more vivid understanding of the real issues and cardinal problems’[7]? Indeed, the Holocaust may resist representation because it is being pulled apart from two opposing perspectives and cannot remain stable. All representations are also subject to varying motives, be they to achieve catharsis, or to promote a moral rhetoric. This myriad of tensions does create a problem for art. However, as Bartov relates, there is one solution: ‘Perhaps we can remember the unimaginable, but we can’t imagine it by definition.’[8] Although ultimately fragile, the personal memory seems to be the key in Maus, which is able to aim between the dichotomies, and strike ever so poignantly where prose would just remain ‘contrived.’[9]

However, this raises the question of whether Maus should be viewed as fiction or nonfiction. Despite critical acclaim upon release, it was initially relegated to the fiction section of The New York Times’ Bestseller List, until an acerbic letter was sent by a less than impressed Spiegelman and it changed category. Although the artist may not have approved of this error in journalism, he could surely have taken solace in the larger symbol of Maus moving freely between fiction and nonfiction so effortlessly, both artistically and inside the text, as well as outside in reproduction and consumption. As a piece of genre transcending art, Maus does achieve an almost ethereal status. Part of this is due to the fact that with its chosen subject matter, ‘poetic license and tolerant forbearance are not granted automatically’[10]; the Holocaust aesthetic means that Maus cannot be subjugated to regular media. Indeed, as Thomas Doherty also notes: ‘Maus redrew the contractual terms for depictions of the Holocaust in popular art.’ Of course, Maus is no regular text, as it has movement both in genre and through the tensions which complicate representation of the Holocaust.

The primary technique being used in Maus is what Viktor Shklovsky might label defamiliarisation. As Doherty observed, where the Holocaust is concerned, there are slightly different rules for attempts at media representation. Being a sensitive subject, there have to be boundaries constructed so that it is never treated flippantly. In this respect it can never become overly familiar because access is not so easily granted. However, with such fixed status, it could always remain static in perception. The result therefore requires a more spherical view of Shklovsky’s concept that ‘as perception becomes habitual, it becomes automatic.’[11] Indeed, he notes that ‘art exists that one may recover the sensation of life; it exists to make one feel things, to make the stone stoney.’[12] Maus is certainly an exposition of the latter parts of this statement, but its true success is not in recovering the sensation of life, but rather in penetrating the void and also recovering either the truth of loss, or perhaps the essence of death. A very subjective version of defamiliarisation is in effect in here, where Maus approaches the concept from both angles, once again manipulating tensions. Ironically, the idea seems reluctant to be articulated, but perhaps the best example of a similar interpretation can be found in the world of graffiti. On the website of urban artist Banksy, a manifesto is provided. This is an extract from a military man’s diary, and his recollections upon liberating a concentration camp. He can give ‘no adequate description’ of the terrors he saw, but one event stands out; when the Red Cross distributed lipstick. I believe this result to be very close to the visual defamiliarisation employed in Maus:

This was not at all what we men wanted, we were screaming for hundreds and thousands of other things and I don’t know who asked for lipstick. I wish so much that I could discover who did it, it was the action of genius, sheer unadulterated brilliance. I believe nothing did more for these internees than the lipstick. Women lay in bed with no sheets and no nightie but with scarlet red lips, you saw them wandering about with nothing but a blanket over their shoulders, but with scarlet red lips. I saw a woman dead on the post mortem table and clutched in her hand was a piece of lipstick. At last someone had done something to make them individuals again, they were someone, no longer merely the number tatooed on the arm. At last they could take an interest in their appearance. That lipstick started to give them back their humanity.[13]

By recovering both life and death as sensation and art, Maus finds a true sight that can only be described as human.

Much like the subversive effect of graffiti, defamiliarisation in Maus is enhanced by its style of illustration. The use of the comic form allows many techniques to flourish where in prose they may not be possible, or may also appear ‘contrived’ as stated earlier. In many places, Maus uses a dual technique of speech and symbolic imagery to add further metaphor to a point. For example, early in the story, Vladek is waylaid and nearly caught in an ambush by violent German officials. The frame captures him in a spotlight and is captioned ‘will I walk slowly, they will take me… will I run they can shoot me.’[14] The spotlight itself is shaped as the Star of David, matching the mandatory badge Vladek is forced to wear, which in turn creates a spotlight of race and difference in a crowd. It also points him out as a literal target to be shot, with the startled animal expression made more effective by Spiegelman’s use of actual creatures. Vladek is caught in the beam of something far worse than a car headlight, but the danger is equally imminent. An equivalent device is also employed much later in a frame captioned ‘Anja and I didn’t have where to go. We walked in the direction of Sosnowiec- but where to go?!’[15] Their sense of hopelessness and the futility of their journey can be brought right down to the terrain in this format, as they follow a road shaped like a Swastika. This further emphasises that all paths available to them lead to the same fate, as well as the fact that their world is under the control of a malevolent force; from the horizon to the ground under their feet. In prose this could certainly appear a spurious sentiment, but it is deadly effective in Maus.

As well as reinforcing larger themes, the comic format also encourages repetition as a device in a way language could not mirror so subtly. For example, as tension builds and Vladek is conversing about hiding his son with another family, the angle of the frame emphasises the young mice on the floor playing with a train set.[16] Their innocent play pre-empts a more sinister use of transport later in the narrative during Vladek’s train journeys to and away from Auschwitz. In the next frame, as the adults grow troubled and insistent (shown by the now straight angle) the children curiously dismantle the train. They won’t find what Vladek sees later on surrounded by corpses in a packed carriage. Another such repetition would be Anja’s hysterical expression upon realising the likely fate of her family and her own isolation: ‘Why are you pulling me, Vladek? Let me alone! I don’t want to live!’[17] Her expression seems purposefully identical to that of Vladek’s girlfriend Lucia when he informs her that he is leaving her for Anja much earlier in the memoir.[18] Instead, Lucia begs him to stay with her, whereas in the more traumatic circumstances Anja is begging to be left to die. This shows the effect of different levels of crisis on personal relationships. With Lucia, Vladek can be irresponsible, but his carelessness here intensifies his responsibility with his wife when their lives are threatened much later on. It also gives a human ambivalence to the mice, as Vladek is presented in both examples of a masculine role (carefree and restless, then later fiercely protective) showing that he is far from a faultless individual, but very much a human model.

In fact, Spiegelman’s primary mode of defamiliarisation is the use of animal characters in place of human facial features. Presumably, each species reflects either the stereotype or common misconception of each race or nationality as Spiegelman illustrates when he reflects on how to draw his wife. Her suggestion of a ‘bunny rabbit’ would be too cute to represent the French; ‘let’s not forget the years of anti-Semitism.’[19] However, Francoise appears as a mouse like her Jewish husband, showing that although the representation is a satire of generalisations its conditions are purely on personal experience level. This malleability is further highlighted when a supposed German war hero steps out from the captive Jews, begging for his life and a new definition. Mirroring his oppressor’s perceptions, he is drawn as a mouse, but in the next frame a shadow of the character (as well as his speech) appears with a feline form. German or Jew; cat or mouse, the character was still ‘dragged away’ by a guard who ‘jumped hard on his neck…’[20] Katalin Orbán suggests that the purpose of this device is to ‘prompt viewers to mobilize their imagination.’[21] Without wishing to compare Maus to a child’s colouring book, but the black and white figures often beg for definition and non-literal colour from the reader to fill in the gaps. Once again Spiegelman finds a true visuality, here by creating an absence of representation as a form of defamiliarisation.

There are also many connotations of using mice in particular to represent the Jews. As well as belonging to a food chain of prey (we could say: dogs, cats, mice), rodents are known to be quiet. This could mean in terms of storytelling; their perspective is silent. This could also play on derogatory perceptions of rodents as vermin, or pests which live quietly under the nose of society and unnerve the public when they reveal their malevolent presence. This generalisation is manipulated by Spiegelman to its full potential. One chapter begins with the illustration and the title ‘Mouse Holes’[22], but instead of lurking in society’s architecture waiting to sneak around, the mice are huddled for shelter, starving. This symbol is taken further as Vladek describes how his friends and family were forced to hide from their German oppressors. He draws Arty a picture of his ‘Mouse Hole’, which is a bunker in a coal cellar. The following three frames are structured around the diagram[23], as the comic form hides its characters in its own illustration, yet another method that prose could not articulate. It appears that Spiegelman’s methods of defamiliarisation often focus on absence as well as presence; silences and what remains unsaid (perhaps hidden, or in death) alongside the narrative that is actually explained to us.

Another technique employed in Maus is the framing device of the relationship between Vladek and Arty, as the narrative is structured through Vladek’s recollections which are recorded by his son. Memory is shown to be a painful process as Vladek mounts his exercise bike layered over three frames, and essentially begins pedalling into the past.[24] The number tattooed on his arm is clearly visible as a picture of his younger self appears in a circular frame where the wheel of the bike would be, presumably spinning to show a portal between past and present. Vladek cycles through a lot of his story until the exertion, either physically or mentally causes him to need rest.[25] Here we see Spiegelman assault the tension between past and present. Historians often assume that History benefits from a detached perspective, so to pierce the perceptions of his audience even more, Spiegelman uses an amalgamation of past and present to literally bring the effects of the Holocaust home: to introduce part two of Maus, we see a close up map of Auschwitz juxtaposed with a road map of New York State.[26] In the illustration of Birkenau we can see in personal detail the barracks where Vladek survived, whereas the road map merely shows impersonal interstates, and the location of Rego Park, where Vladek now resides. This contrasts Vladek’s two forms of survival; as a prisoner of race, but also as a prisoner of memory in his old age. Ironically, it is the modern map which appears akin to the detached historian’s perspective of History, simply added to the more immediate image of the concentration camp which consumes the page and our view of chronology in the tale.

As past and present are merged, Arty and Vladek’s relationship is shown to be complicated by the horrors we see conjured in the story. Their confrontations add a layer of struggle and legacy to the narrative, contributing to the tensions inherent in the idea of true sight. They argue over many things, which contrast the image of Vladek as a resourceful victim to his modern persona of utmost Jewish stereotype. Out of all things, it is Arty’s new tape recorder (the method of retelling Vladek’s story) that proves the stereotype to be correct, as Vladek criticises his son’s financial decision, saying he could have got the product cheaper elsewhere.[27] Also, whereas warmth and security are important in the Auschwitz narrative, Vladek is not averse to throwing out his son’s coat and replacing it with one of his own that he has no further use for.[28] It is important to note that later when Arty returns, he is wearing a different coat to the one his father gave him[29], rejecting part of his influence. Here we see how survival in the past has designed family life in the present. It is evident that Spiegelman’s true sight has a keen grasp on the layers of human relationships.

This humanity is continually shown through ambiguous representations of the characters. Vladek may be a hero by default because he survived, but as well as being a stereotype who collects wire from the street[30] and returns half eaten groceries[31], he is also a serious racist. When Francoise picks up a black hitchhiker, Vladek is quick to make similar negative generalisations to the prejudices which ultimately allowed the Holocaust to occur: ‘I thought really you are more smart than this, Francoise… It’s not even to compare the shvartsers and the Jews!’[32] Vladek’s ignorance helps dispel any notion of Maus being a didactic moral sermon. We see that once again it presents two contrasting points of tension, and finds a middle ground which best captures humanity, however hypocritical it might sometimes be.

To illustrate true sight and the contradictory nature of humanity, Spiegelman occasionally has his characters wear masks. When Vladek and Anja are forced to hide their race they appear drawn with pig masks to blend with the Poles, but the most notable example of masked behaviour is when Spiegelman deals with the subject of survivor’s guilt, through the character of himself. In the chapter ‘Time Flies’ the artist appears at his desk with a mouse mask over his human head, observing how quickly time has passed since events he is writing about occurred, whilst also surrounded by actual flies.[33] These flies are the pestilence of Auschwitz being summoned back by memory, although not his own. The mouse mask may symbolise his reluctance to adapt a story of his own race, or perhaps his sense of being an imposter for succeeding commercially with a personal narrative. As the frames continue, we see the bodies pile up underneath his desk, a watchtower appears outside the window, and an anonymous voice announce that they are ready to ‘shoot’[34]; either in media or military terms. Whereas the past and present had merely been juxtaposed before, here they literally return to plague the artist. The tensions in his relationship with his father gave Maus the middle ground of true sight, but his narrative also draws absence as much as it does presence, and here the ghosts of what hasn’t been said choose to surface.

Previously, Arty has tried to explain to Francoise the impossible task before him: ‘I feel so inadequate trying to reconstruct a reality that was worse than my darkest dreams.’[35] Her only advice is to be honest. Due to the fact that Arty can never comprehend some of the images he must present, he begins to be haunted, ironically by an image; that of his lost brother. Richieu’s death relegated him to a photograph; something Arty’s parents never needed of him because was alive. He therefore developed a ‘sibling rivalry with a snapshot!’[36] Arty is attempting to create an immortal image, yet the only which he finds is that of Richieu, who had he survived would have a grasp of the horrors he lived through in a way Arty can never have. Arty begins to develop a strange sense of guilt because his story (Part One of Maus) was a commercial success, yet he believes his brother’s story would have been closer to the truth. This gives Arty’s character the body of a child while Spiegelman meditates on his thought process with this difficult issue. In fact, Arty has the true sight because he includes both the presence of his father’s tale, and the absence of his brother’s ghost narrative which must remain as a silence.

The result this brings is another aspect of the defamiliarisation in Maus; recovering not life, but death. As both the narrative and Arty’s shrink suggest, there was a tension between luck and skill as a means of survival. The shrink suggests that Arty is the true ‘survivor’[37], and in many ways he has experienced the impact of the Holocaust through his relationship with Vladek. In terms of survival, the theme which is important is silence: ‘it’s as if life equals winning so death equals losing… the victims who died can never tell their side of the story.’[38] As Arty grasps this concept he regains his human form (but retains the rodent mask) and relocates his muse. By the end of the chapter Arty has realised that describing the indescribable is a dual form of defamiliarisation; regaining the sensation and poignancy by also including noted absences and untold narratives, such as his brother’s. The last frames end with a symbolic silence of speech disturbed only by Vladek, whose nightmares cause him to moan in his sleep (proving him to be the opposite of silence in the tale). The flies from the beginning of the chapter return to gnaw at the artist’s body and subjectivity—‘damn bugs are eating me alive’[39] – but they can be dispelled into silence also as Arty now holds an insect spray. The dead time flies fall outside the frame as the question of the indescribable has been answered in Maus. The answer is silence.

The first of these silences is that of Anja’s diaries which Vladek destroyed. Although they would have benefitted the memoir, their absence serves the larger symbol; Arty calls his Father a ‘murderer’[40] but this death is also vital. The other is of course Richieu’s ghost; an aesthetic (photographic) silence. This perhaps best explained by the inclusion of a real photo of Vladek towards the conclusion of the text. Posing in a camp uniform after the event makes this ‘souvenir photo’[41] looks decidedly unrealistic compared to the two hundred and ninety three pages of mouse comic which precede it. An aspect of realism is certainly lost when Maus chooses to borrow visually from reality. This photo also serves as a double form of defamiliarisation, reminding us of the relationships and tensions Maus has employed until this point that have only come as close as they can to what really happened. It also proposes that was has happened with the mice is the actual true sight, and that reality ultimately fails next to art in this task of representation.

Perhaps this is because reality relies on presence and life, whereas art can also include absence and death. Maus concludes with Vladek in poor health, and he ends his tale as such: ‘more I don’t need to tell you. We were both very happy and lived happy, happy ever after.’[42] Of course, we know from earlier that this is a fallacy; Anja committed suicide and Vladek becomes nothing but frustrated with his new partner Mala. Before the frames cease and the lives of the characters thereby end, Vladek’s final address is not to Arty, but to Richieu. Here, all the tensions previously mentioned meet in the middle and the last aspect of true sight cements its creation. The two narratives of life and death, of presence and absence, of voice and silence have met and created this space. The story belongs to the ghost of Richieu as much as Arty. This is unsettlingly effective both in its literary technique, and its poignancy.

Katalin Orbán reaches a similar conclusion about the text. This critic believes that as time passes (or perhaps ‘flies’) the Holocaust slowly becomes de-sanctified and reduced to melodrama as generations end and culture changes. The success of Maus is how it models these changes by finding a middle ground: ‘it cancels and yet authorizes its own visuality and thereby seems to validate both sides of the conflict in an ambivalent and dynamic way.’[43] This is much like Bartov describing the conflicting social and historical tensions which capture the Holocaust in a difficult web. Orbán describes how Maus has ‘an ability to see inwardly, without the eyes, cancelling the visual image’ creating ‘blindness as true sight’.[44] With the Holocaust as a web of representation, Maus manages to locate an aesthetic milieu in the centre of the numerous tensions, and uses the numerous opposing forces to capture that which cannot be described.

If we are discussing the concept of visual silence, we should at least mention Foucault and the relationship between silence and power: ‘There is not one but many silences, and they are an integral part of the strategies that underlie and permeate discourses.’[45] Here, we see that ‘for Foucault discourse is always inseparable from power, because discourse is the governing and ordering medium of every institution.’[46] In many ways Maus can be seen as a power struggle between Arty and Vladek; both in terms of their relationship, and in terms of the life and death narratives. Indeed, Arty comments that he only became an artist because his father would not threaten him in that field.[47] If we are probing the depths of Maus, power and discourse must be relevant. Our model for this conclusion is the theoretical labyrinth of Foe.

Initially, Foe can be seen as a text which also deals with race, in this case, contemporary South African racial politics. Brian Macaskill and Jeanne Colleran suggest that the eponymous ‘foe’ will be ‘those who design, uphold, live amidst, fail to dismantle, or fail to detach themselves from systematic racial dominance.’[48] Indeed, the character of Friday remains a silence throughout, as those who struggle to extract his story believe he ‘has no command of words and therefore no defence against being reshaped day by day in conformity with the desires of others.’[49] Susan Barton does find Friday’s presence (or perhaps absence) to be quite vexing at times, as she finds herself wiping ‘the utensils which his hands had touched’[50]. Presumably because these may have entered the mouth she is frightened to examine, and touched the neutered stump where a tongue once existed to promise a story she cannot control by herself. If we consider these racial terms alongside Maus, the story itself is both an object of power and oppression, leaving Friday as ‘helpless’[51] as a mouse shivering in its bunker.

There are many examples in Maus however where Vladek uses language as a means of survival[52]. Coetzee also painted a response to a reversal of power in the depths of the critical Foe. Lewis Macleod proposes that Friday may in fact have a tongue, and his silence is therefore ‘an epic gesture of defiance’[53].  This is certainly a possibility, as on the island we learn that Crusoe’s teeth have become rotten, yet Friday’s have remained ‘white as ivory’[54]. The contents of his mouth may be pure out of his choice to resist the seduction of storytelling offered by Barton: ‘unlike Susan, he refuses to put the story… of his life into anyone else’s hands and as a result he seems to avoid the kind of narrative conscription that troubles his more ambitious caretaker… he avoids becoming source material.’[55] If we see the tensions that Maus manipulates represented by Barton and Foe, each struggling for discourse and power, Friday’s silence is another example of what we can now more confidently label true sight.

Friday also represents the exhibition of death and absence in a story, as Barton recalls ‘townsfolk pay us no heed’[56] because they move like ghosts. There are several ways to interpret the almost incongruous final chapter of Foe, but if we are using it as a theoretical explanation of Maus we can see the endings of both texts as very similar. The now anonymous narrator informs us that ‘this is a place where bodies are their own signs. It is the home of Friday’[57]. It is a place of death that concludes Maus, where all the stories not told can exist, both Friday’s, and Richieu’s. As the speaker opens Friday’s mouth, his side of events flow forth, ‘up through his body and out upon me… soft and cold, dark and unending, it beats against my eyelids, against the skin of my face.’[58] These are all the tensions and contradictions, historical, cultural, even personal, and all the complications that give Maus a true sight. Of course, this is where the text ends, so the silent story remains untold, to us at least. Both texts have located the space that exists between the tensions, and successfully found a way to capture the indescribable in contemporary literature. As Holocaust survivor Primo Levi states: ‘Silence, the absence of signals, is in its turn a signal, but it is ambiguous, and ambiguity generates anxiety and suspicion. To say that it is impossible to communicate is false; one always can.’[59] Describing the indescribable is possible through true visuality, an aspect of which will always include silence.

Let us conclude simply with Katalin Orbán saying that Maus ‘alerts one to the artificiality of visual representation.’[60] If discourse and storytelling is a power struggle, then Maus is a warning of this. The true sight that it achieves is reclamation of the power through its various techniques of anti realism and defamiliarisation. The type of power it has is its invitation to think about the holocaust in light of contemporary media[61] and therefore question political discourse as well as the power of the image in general. This purpose is illustrated with a certain grace through Foe’s Friday, who responds with a mocking ‘ha-ha-ha’ when asked to repeat after Crusoe’s inane ‘la-la-la’. Perhaps he is laughing because ‘real power is executed through discourse, and… this power has real effects’[62] or because like many readers he did not envision a Holocaust comic about mice to be so delicate and powerful, until he also fell under its spell.

5225 words

Bibliography:

http://www.banksy.co.uk/manifesto/index.html (last checked 8/01/08)

Bartov, Omer, Murder in Our Midst: The Holocaust, Industrial Killing, and Representation, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996)

Coetzee, J.M., Foe, (London: Penguin, 1987)

Doherty, Thomas, ‘Art Spiegelman’s Maus: Graphic Art and the Holocaust’, Write Now: American Literature in the 1980s and 1990s, March 1996, Volume 68, No. 1

Easton Ellis, Bret, Glamorama, (London: Picador, 2006)

Foucault, Michael, The History of Sexuality Volume 1: An Introduction, trans. Robert Hurley, (London: Penguin 1979)

Levi, Primo, The Drowned and the Saved, trans. Raymond Rosenthal, (London: Michael Joseph, 1988)

Macaskill, Brian, and Jeanne Colleran, ‘Reading History, Writing Heresy: The Resistance of Representation and the Representation of Resistance in J. M. Coetzee’s Foe’, Contemporary Literature, Autumn 1992, Volume 33, No. 3

MacLeod, Lewis, ‘’Do we of necessity become puppets in a story?’; or, Narrating the world: on speech, silence, and discourse in J. M. Coetzee’s Foe’, Modern Fiction Studies, Spring 2006, Volume 52, Issue 1

Orbán, Katalin, ‘Trauma and Visuality: Art Spiegelman’s Maus and In the Shadow of No Towers’, Representations, Winter 2007, Issue 97

Selden, Raman and Peter Widdowson eds. A Reader’s Guide to Contemporary Literary Theory, 3^rd Edition, (Hertfordshire: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1993)

Shklovsky, Viktor, ‘Art as Technique’, in Literary Theory: An Anthology, Julie Rivkin and Michael Ryan eds. 2^nd Edition, (Cornwall: Blackwell, 2004)

Spiegelman, Art, The Complete Maus, (London: Penguin, 2003)

[2] J.M. Coetzee, Foe, (London: Penguin, 1987) p.22

[3] Omer Bartov, Murder in Our Midst: The Holocaust, Industrial Killing, and Representation, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996) p.115

[4] Murder in Our Midst p.129

[5] Bret Easton Ellis, Glamorama, (London: Picador, 2006) p.3

[6] Maus p.10

[7] Murder in Our Midst p.117

[8] Murder in Our Midst p.129

[9] Murder in Our Midst p.129

[10] Thomas Doherty, ‘Art Spiegelman’s Maus: Graphic Art and the Holocaust’, Write Now: American Literature in the 1980s and 1990s, March 1996, Volume 68, No. 1

[11] Viktor Shklovsky, ‘Art as Technique’, in Literary Theory: An Anthology, Julie Rivkin and Michael Ryan eds. 2^nd Edition, (Cornwall: Blackwell, 2004) p.15

[12] Art as Technique p.16

[13] http://www.banksy.co.uk/manifesto/index.html

[14] Maus p.82

[15] Maus p.127

[16] Maus p.83

[17] Maus p.124

[18] Maus p.22

[19] Maus p.171

[20] Maus p.210

[21] Katalin Orbán, ‘Trauma and Visuality: Art Spiegelman’s Maus and In the Shadow of No Towers’,  Representations, Winter 2007, Issue 97

[22] Maus p.97

[23] Maus pp.112-113

[24] Maus p.14

[25] Maus p.93

[26] Maus p.166

[27] Maus p.75

[28] Maus p.71

[29] Maus p.108

[30] Maus p.118

[31] Maus p.249

[32] Maus p.259

[33] Maus p.199

[34] Maus p.201

[35] Maus p.176

[36] Maus p.175

[37] Maus p.204

[38] Maus p.205

[39] Maus p.234

[40] Maus p.161

[41] Maus p.294

[42] Maus p.296

[43] Trauma and Visuality

[44] Trauma and visuality

[45] Michael Foucault, The History of Sexuality Volume 1: An Introduction, trans. Robert Hurley, (London: Penguin 1979) p.27

[46] Raman Selden and Peter Widdowson eds. A Reader’s Guide to Contemporary Literary Theory, 3^rd Edition, (Hertfordshire: Harvester Wheatsheaf, 1993) p.127

[47] Maus p.99

[48]Brian Macaskill and Jeanne Colleran, ‘Reading History, Writing Heresy: The Resistance of Representation and the Representation of Resistance in J. M. Coetzee’s Foe’, Contemporary Literature, Autumn 1992, Volume 33, No. 3

[49] Foe p.121

[50] Foe p.24

[51] Foe p.121

[52] For example, Vladek teaches his Kapo to speak English, and is treated less harshly as a result, Maus p.192

[53]Lewis MacLeod, ‘’Do we of necessity become puppets in a story?’; or, Narrating the world: on speech, silence, and discourse in J. M. Coetzee’s Foe’, Modern Fiction Studies, Spring 2006, Volume 52, Issue 1

[54] Foe p.22

[55] Narrating the world: on speech, silence, and discourse in J. M. Coetzee’s Foe

[56] Foe p.87

[57] Foe p.157

[58] Foe p.157

[59] Primo Levi, The Drowned and the Saved, trans. Raymond Rosenthal, (London: Michael Joseph, 1988) p.69

[60] Trauma and Visuality

[61] Trauma and Visuality

[62] Reader’s Guide to Contemporary Literary Theory p.158

…liegen bei uns herum. Unser Garten gleicht einem Übertagefriedhof. Am Freitag habe ich drei Leichen entdeckt. Die erste war ein ausgemergelter, aber ausgewachsener Frosch neben dem Teich. Die Katze ging dran vorbei und hat sich nicht dafür interessiert, entweder, weil er schon zu lange dort lag, oder weil sie ihn selbst aufgebahrt hat. Als Nächstes eine Eidechse mit weißem Bauch, die in einem Eimer Wasser schwamm. Dann noch eine Echse, kleiner, mit bunt gesprenkeltem Bauch. Ich weiß nicht, woher, auf einmal lag sie vor mir wie aus dem Himmel gefallen. Ich habe sie unter ein paar Blätter geschoben, weil ich nicht hundertprozentig sicher war, dass sie wirklich tot ist, und nicht etwa nur in Winterstarre. Steif war sie jedenfalls nicht.

Heute die nächste Entdeckung: Eine plattgewalzte Maus in unserer Einfahrt. Plattgewalzt deshalb, weil wir wohl schon ein paar Mal mit dem Auto drübergerollt sind.  Auch hier könnte die Katze (oder eine der Katzen, es gibt ja eigentlich mehrere Verdächtige) eine Hand im Spiel haben. Irgendwie ist es echt nicht so schön, tote Tiere entsorgen zu müssen. Zum Glück bin ich aber verheiratet und kann es delegieren.

Eine zumindest teilweise aus Holz gefertigte Maus aus Russland war ja schon hier zu sehen – jetzt kommt aus der selben Region ein  Modell, bei dem der ganze Korpus aus diesem Naturmaterial gefertigt ist, und es handelt sich nicht einmal um ein Designkonzept, sondern um ein käufliches Produkt.

Von der zugesagte Lieferung per Kurier in sämtliche Stadtteile Moskaus wird das Gros unserer Leserschaft wohl nicht profitieren können, aber Anbieter AlestRukov verspricht auch Lieferung per DHL oder UPS in den gesamten Rest der Welt; den Preis für die Maus gibt’s auf Anfrage zu erfahren. [dieter]

[via Yanko]

Insbesondere 2-Euro-Münzen kursieren als Falschgeld durch ganz Europa. Bis sie nach Spanien kommen, wo Weißkittel eine gewöhnliche Computermaus nutzen, um den Betrug aufzudecken.

Ein Wissenschaftsteam der Universität Lleida fand heraus, dass sich der optische Maussensor ganz hervorragend eigne, um echt von falsch zu unterscheiden: Mausgehäuse geöffnet, Münze aufgelegt, rotieren lassen und das Bild mit einem gespeicherten Modell des echten Geldstücks vergleichen. Das funktioniere laut den Spaniern bei einer optischen Auflösung von 30 x 30 Pixel – eventuell sogar schon mit niedriger Auflösung oder noch simpler per Webcam. Ich habe da mal eine Frage: Welcher Konsument interessiert sich dafür, ob seine Münzen echt sind? So lange die Parkuhr sie schluckt (was wegen der Gebühr ärgerlich genug ist), ist es doch in der Praxis egal… [Ralf]

[ElMundo]

WTF? Maus und Tastatur verschmolzen

18 Buttons sind doch gar nichts

Die dunkle Seite der Maus

Nie wieder mobile Mausprobleme. Danke, Logitech

“Ich irrte gerade hilflos durch den Baumarkt, da kam ein großer breiter Kerl auf mich zu und fragte: ‘Was geht denn mit Ihnen?’. Völlig verdutzt erwiderte ich: ‘Wie, was? Was soll denn bitteschön mit mir gehen!?’. ‘Na schauen Sie mal neben sich’, antwortete der Mann mit einem Fingerzeig auf mein rechtes Bein.

Tatsächlich erblickte ich neben mir eine kleine weiße Maus. Den ganzen Tag ratterte sie neben mir her. Ich habe alles mir human erscheinende versucht, um mein neues ungewolltes Anhängsel los zu werden: Ich ging eine Treppe hinauf, aber irgendwann musste ich diese ja auch wieder runter. Und die Maus wartete schon an der untersten Stufe auch mich. Ich überquerte barfuß einen eiskalten Bach, aber als ich frierend über die Brücke zurück schlotterte, war die Maus auch schon wieder da.

Abends dann erfassten mich Hilflosigkeit und Verzweiflung. Dieses ach so kleine Geschöpf schien mir haushoch überlegen zu sein! Also schrie ich das kleine weiße Wattestäbchen auf vier winzigen Beinchen an: ‘Was ist denn mit dir los? Hast du nichts besseres zu tun, als den ganzen lieben Tag neben mir her zu springen? Keine Frau? Kinder? Was willst du denn von mir?’. Die Maus krabbelte auf meinen Schuh, schiss einen schwarzen Streusel und verschwand – für immer.”

…tja, shit happens!

Hi everyone

Book club no.31 took place yesterday at Flemming’s place in Fulham. A small but perfectly formed group of Flemming, Pete, Andy and Camilla dined on roast duck, roast potatoes and red cabbage and found time between delicious mouthfuls to discuss Art Spiegelman’s Pulitzer Prize-winning “The Complete Maus”, the first graphic novel the book club has considered.

The issue of the relationship between words and pictures, and how a graphic novel can represent the action normally found in a literary novel – let alone something as complex as the Holocaust – was the focus of our discussion. Camilla kicked off a close ‘reading’ of Spiegelman’s pictures by noting how the mice – representing the Jews – do not have mouths except in images of them in pain, and how this suggested their essential ‘voicelessness’. The group discussed the use of different animals to represent the different nationalities and to what extend this was a successful or distracting conceit.

Andy’s interest was in the use of time and how the format of the comic allowed the representation of time to be more fluid, so the narration could flit back and forth between the 1940s and 1980s in a way that, he felt, would have been much harder for a literary novel to achieve.

Pete highlighted how the portrayal of a Jewish father from that generation mirrorred similar stories by other Jewish writers, including memoirs by Philip Roth. Flemming pointed out that the book’s long gestation period (it was written while the author’s father was alive but not published till after his death) suggests Spiegelman struggled to escape his father’s presence. Pete noted the Freudian resonances that echoed throughout the book. Andy – as is required in every book club – discussed the presence of the mouse’s ego, superego and id in the narrative.

The group also discussed whether the book demeaned or suitably comemmorated Holocaust victims, whether it worked as fiction or biography, the effect of using real photos at different points in the book, the reason for the absence of the mother’s suicide, and the impact of the ‘interchapter’ of Spiegelman’s previous comic.

Overall, prejudices about graphic novels were successfully challenged and the group agreed that the experience of reading “Maus” had been overwhelmingly positive.

Having looked at the list I think it’s Sophie’s turn next.

Pete

Die Modernität, der so viele Menschen so jappsend und geldschleudernd nachrennen, sie wird morgen schon so altbacken und hässlich aussehen, wie die gestrige Modernität heute aussieht. Was wird man wohl in zwei bis drei Jahren über den gegenwärtigen Unfug denken, in jedes Gerät ein paar blaue Leuchtdioden zu verbauen?

Die abgebildete Maus mit dem seltsamen Anschluss gehört zu einer etwas älteren Workstation von HP, und sie liegt genau so schlecht in der Hand, wie es auf dem Bild aussieht.

Eine kleine Maus
wohnt in unsrem Haus.
Frisst von Brot und Speck
alle Rinden weg.
Quietschvergnügt
das genügt.
Muss jetzt geh´n
Auf Wiedersehn!

Vorwort:
Es war mal wieder so ein Sonntag im Bett. Monitor (26Zoll) zur Seite gedreht, Funkmaus & Tastatur (Typhoon, Werbegeschenk aus 2005) auf den Schoß gelegt, aus 3 Metern Entfernung erstmal Schriftgröße auf XXL gestellt und vor’m Internet gechillt.

Unspektakulär und nicht das erste Mal. Tja, hätte ich nicht diesmal mit einem verkaterten Schwung nach rechts meine Maus quer vom Bett durch mein Zimmer befördert. *klatsch* Kaputt.
Nach diesem tragischen Unfall war die Maus zwar noch funktionsfähig, aber stark gehbehindert. Ich wollte Ihr weiteres Leid ersparen und hab Sie dann eingeschläfert.

Doch jetzt ging der eigentliche Spaß los. Die Große Suche nach einem Wireless Desktop (Masu & Tastatur) hat begonnen. Wichtig war mir, eine flache Tastatur mit weichem und möglichst leisem Tastenanschlag. Zudem mag ich keine “hohen” Tasten, Sie sollten also möglichst abgeflacht sein.

Auf der Arbeit benutze ich ein Microsoft Wireless Keyboard 2000 in leicht geschwungener Form. Also war ich zumindest diesmal eigentlich recht angetan von big MS.

Test:
Preisrahmen sollte bei 50€ liegen. Der Markt in dem viel Media verkauft wird bot sich an und euphorisiert stürmte ich hinein. Die erste Wahl viel auf das:
Microsoft Wireless Desktop 2000 (nicht geschwungen) für 35€. Gesagt, getan, getippt, gekauft. Die Wertung:

• Super Tastenanschlag
• leises Tippgeräusch
• Multimedia Sondertasten
• “großes” aber kompaktes Layout (also nicht diese mini-Notebooklike Tastaturen, wo jede Taste 12fach belegt ist)
• Standard-Maus ohne Vor/Zurück Taste

Fazit: Eine rundum gelungene Tastatur. Weicher Tasteanschlag, abgerundete “halbhohe” Taste, die ich definitiv bevorzuge, gute Reichweite. Trotzdem trat das System seinen Weg zurück in Mario Barths Laden an. Warum? Die Maus! Außer, dass man sich weitaus mehr an eine “Vor/Zurück Taste” an der Maus gewohnt als man sich vorstellen kann, lag der Hase hier nicht im Pfeffer, sondern im Scrollrad.

Das Scrollrad hat dermaßen abgehackt seine arbeit verrichtet, dass ein angenehmes punktgenaues scrollen nicht möglich war! Wer viel im Netz surft und Seiten durchstöbert weiß, wie wichtig ein angenehmes Scrollrad ist. Was mich auch etwas störte ist die MS-Software zum Desktop. Jeweils 2 Prozesse laufen im Hintergrund um die Funktionstasten zu steuern. Kann man darauf verzichten, spart man Ressourcen.

Test 2:

Also let’s try another one. Firma Cherry. Desktop System mit Maus und Tastatur. Für nur 29€ im Atelco erworben. Schönes Design, ansprechende Verarbeitung.

• Angehemner Tastenanschlag, nicht ganz so perfekt wie beim MS-Keyboard
• leises Tippgeräusch
• Multimedia Sondertasten
• “großes” aber kompaktes Layout (also nicht diese mini-Notebooklike Tastaturen, wo jede Taste 12fach belegt ist)
• Standard-Maus mit Vor- und Zurück Taste

Fazit: Für den Preis kann man nicht meckern! Cherry bietet hier eine angenehm flache und leise Tastaur mit gut in der Hand liegender Maus. Sondertasten und Co. sowie Vor- und Zurücktaste an der Maus sind ebenfalls lobenswert! Doch auch dieses Set wurde “returned to sender”.

Warum? HILFE: Scrollrad-Alarm Teil 2. Diesmal war es aber nicht die Scroll-Funktion, sondern die 3. Maustaste. Wozu man die braucht? Mit einem Druck auf das Scrollrad öffnet man z.B. einen Link in einem neuen Tab oder man schließt einen aktuellen Tab (im Firefox). Auch hier ganz klar, wer viel surft nutzt die dritte Maustaste. Was störte mich? Das Geräusch! Ein “Klick” auf das Scrollrad und im Nachbarzimmer fiel die Vase aus der Vitrine und aus der Küche schrien mich die Tassen an ich soll nicht so einen Krach machen! Unvorstellbar laut! Ihr denkt jetzt vielleicht ich sei penibel, aber eine Maus und Tastatur, die einzige Verbindung zwischen mir und dem PC muss perfekt sein!

Desweiteren: Reichweiteprobleme ohne Ende! Das Set wird via USB-Empfänger angesteuert. Der steckte bei mir hinten im Rechner. Pustekuchen mit den angepriesenen 10 Meter Reichweite. Es waren vll. 90cm! Der “vom Bett aus surfen – Test” scheiterte kläglich! Also zurück auf Start und ziehe deine 29€ wieder ein.

Test 3:

Zurück in Marios Laden. Nach Eingebung eines Arbeitskollegen der mich auf die Logitech Wave aufmkersam machte und einem wirklich kompetenten Berater mehr in meiner Sammlung, stand ich vor dem Regal und tippte auf allen möglichen Tastaturen. Die Wave, auf welche Lobeshymnen aller Art gesungen wurden konnte mich einfach nicht überzeugen. Die nicht-abgeflachten Tasten und die etwas größere Größe schreckten mich ab. Auch Tastenanschlag und Lautstärke wollten mir nicht zusagen.

Also was nun? Microsofts zweite Chance. Microsoft Desktop 3000 Bluetrack. Im Prinzip baugleich mit meinem ersten Versuch, unterscheidet sich hier aber etwas in der Optik. Das Keyboard hat einen “Klavierlackrahmen”. Größter Unterschied ist die Maus. Hier hat das Scrollrad keine Widerstände, ist mit Vor-Zurück Tasten ausgestattet und liegt noch besser in meiner Hand.

• Super Tastenanschlag
• leises Tippgeräusch
• Multimedia Sondertasten
• “großes” aber kompaktes Layout (also nicht diese mini-Notebooklike Tastaturen, wo jede Taste 12fach belegt ist)
• Standard-Maus mit Vor/Zurück Taste und Blutrack: Blauer Laser der auch auf Glas- und schwierigen Oberflächen funktioniert
• Erhöhte Funkreichweite

Ja da war Sie nun. Mein dritter und danbarerweise letzter Versuch. Hier ist wirklich alles so wie es sein soll zum Preis von 50 Euro. Die Maus scrollt punktgenau, die dritte Maustaste klickt leise und ist einfach zu drücken. Die Tastatur ist einwandfrei verarbeitet, die flachen Tasten schlagen weich und leise an. Die Reichweite ist bestens, obwohl es sich hier auch um einen USB-Stick als Empfänger handelt (steckt wieder hinten im Rechner). Auch auf dem Bettlaken läuft die Maus super. Hier habe ich also nach einer fast 10 tägigen Odysee meine Maus & Tastatur gefunden. Seit nunmehr 4 Wochen in Betrieb. Ich zocke damit Assassins Creed 1, surfe im Netz und tippe unter anderem diese Zeilen.

Fazit: Testen, testen und testen. Jeder hat andere Präferenzen und ist mehr oder weniger anspruchsvoll. Für den einen reines Arbeitsgerät für den anderen die Symbiose zwischen PC und Mensch, für den Dritten reines Designobjekt. Ich habe alle Tastaturen behutsam geöffnet und so verwendet dass ich sie wieder in verkaufsfähiger Form zurückgeben konnte. Jeder sollte für sich entscheiden, ob er an diesem Ende der Eingabekette spart oder investiert

In diesem Sinne
Gruß

Die neumodische 18-Button-Maus, die gestern hier debütierte, ist eigentlich eine lahme Sache: Boing Boing hat eine 40-Tasten-Maus aus dem Jahr 1990 ausgegraben. Seltsamerweise war das Gerät seinerzeit kein Verkaufsschlager.

Und dabei war die ProHance PowerMouse 100 doch so weit vorne: Für schlappe 195 Dollar (damals noch ein kleines Vermögen) konnte man sage und schreibe 38 Tasten programmieren.

Nun aber ist es zu spät – oder hat noch irgendwer DOS 2.0 als benötigtes Betriebssystem rumliegen? [dieter]

[via Boing Boing]

Makro-Fans und Hardcore-Gamer mögen sich ja mehr Tasten auf der Maus gewünscht haben, aber 18 (!) Buttons und ein integrierter Joystick ausgerechnet für Office-People klingt ein wenig nach Wahnwitz.

Zugegeben, die Maus sieht optisch nicht so schlimm aus wie das Konzept klingt. Ob die Zielgruppe der Office-Nutzer aber wirklich darauf anspricht, sich fröhlich Makros auf die vielen Knöpfe zu legen und die ganzen Abkürzungen zu merken, darf gepflegt bezweifelt werden. Zumal der Anbieter (mit dem bezeichnenden Namen WarMouse)
für die “OpenOffice Mouse” immerhin 75 Dollar ausruft.
Für die vielen Makros hat es extra 512 KByte Speicher intus. [Ralf]

[EverythingUSB]

Ultradünne Huckepack-Maus für Notebooks

Microsoft: Office 2010 gibt’s gratis – abgespeckt und mit Werbung

Die dunkle Seite der Maus

Nie wieder mobile Mausprobleme. Danke, Logitech

Maus nach Maß

Bei zack-zack.eu könnt ihr euch zurzeit die Logitech MX Revolution für nur 44,90 + 4,95 Versandkosten bestellen.

Eine Lasermaus von Logitech,für die ihr sonst 56,98€ bezahlen müsst.

Möchtet ihr keine Versandkosten bezahlen,könnt ihr auch einfach ein USB-Kabel mitbestellen.

Bei Amazon wird die Maus mit Sternen bei 167 Bewertungen bewertet.

Bei Testen bekommt die Maus 1,6 .

In unserer letzten Umfrage wollten wir von Euch wissen, wie zufrieden Ihr mit Eurer Magic Mouse seit. Das Ergebnis fiel erstaunlich aus. So werden sich ein Großteil unserer Leser sich keine Magic Mouse kaufen, die restlichen User sind sich noch unsicher. Vielleicht schafft hier unser in Kürze erscheinende Review für mehr Klarheit über das neue Eingabegerät von Apple zu sorgen.

In unserer neuen Umfrage würden wir gerne Eure Meinung zum Thema iTunes LP hören. Nutz Ihr das neue Format im iTunes Store? Wie sind Eure Erfahrungen damit? Vielen Dank fürs Teilnehmen.

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