精選書評：Maus

Maus

Vol. I: My Father Bleeds History
Vol. II: And Here My Troubles Began

作者：Art Spiegelman
出版社：Penguin Books

• 這是史上第一本獲得普立茲獎的漫畫，內容以第一人稱角度帶領讀者走進納粹集中營，重現屢被忽視的屠殺歷史。
• 《Maus》以對比鮮明的風格、精彩的視覺敘事呈現陰暗的歷史文本，漫畫體裁將讓你有獨一無二的閱讀體驗。

預估閱讀時間：02:55
文章難度： ★★★☆☆

Every form of media has masterworks that define what it truly means to be that medium -- film has The Godfather Pt. 1, music has The Dark Side of the Moon, and painting has Guernica. To be a classic, a work must activate the unique character of that medium.

每一種形式的藝術，都會有幾部大師之作，堪稱定義了該種藝術。例如電影有《教父I》；音樂有Pink Floyd的《The Dark Side of the Moon》（月之暗面）專輯；繪畫有畢卡索的《Guernica》（格爾尼卡）。一部作品若要成為經典，必須將該種媒材不可取代的特質激發出來。

This is a comic book, and it is a story of the Holocaust. It is told by the author's father Vladek as he recounts his experiences as a Polish Jew surviving what the Nazis called "the final solution to the Jewish question" -- Hitler's plan to exterminate the Jewish race (which succeeded in wiping out 6 million of the Jewish people).

這是一本漫畫，一個關於納粹種族屠殺的故事。故事來自作者父親Vladek的親身經歷，Vladek是一位倖存於大屠殺的波蘭猶太人，述說著當時納粹所謂「猶太問題最終解決方法」的恐怖屠殺歷史。

It's drawn in a postmodernist, cartooned black-and-white style with expertly-crafted visual storytelling that gifts the incredibly heavy, rich material with the spark of life. The book's heavy inked lines and compelling insights reflect a deeply personal story filled with as much emotional as historical detail, and showing perspectives and realities of the war that are rarely detailed and often forgotten.

這本漫畫以後現代風格呈現，黑白的卡通風格、高超的視覺敘事，賦予這個極度飽和又沈重的文本無限的生命力。粗獷的繪畫線條和引人入勝的觀點，勾勒出角色深刻的情感，亦折射出背後深藏的個人故事。書中鉅細彌遺的歷史情節，也將這段常被草草帶過的戰爭史，重新攤開在我們眼前。

The artist's recorded interviews with his father taken in 1978-79 frame our story, which we pick up in the mid-1930s and follow until the end of the war. As Vladek Spiegelman's words carry us through the realities as the Holocaust unfolded, the book spends as much time establishing and caring for the lives of the survivors after the war. The markings of atrocity and survival rest upon every fragment of the narrative, and in reading Maus you will be walking with our heroes as they scrape and struggle to survive. Meanwhile, Spiegelman's inclusion of irony or humor through the details and style of Vladek's story lend a special sense of humanity to the story that makes it possible for the book, a totally unique historical record created in visual form, to be what it is.

在一段攝於1978-79年的訪談中，作者父親Vladek以1930中期到二戰結束的回憶，為我們建構了故事的框架。書中一面揭開大屠殺的種種殘酷現實，一面形塑並關懷這些倖存者的生命，戰爭的暴行與生存，深深烙印在書中的每一段故事裡。閱讀《Maus》時，書中主角會帶你經歷一趟九死一生的生存奮鬥。作者Spiegelman在細節中暗藏的諷刺與幽默，以及父親Vladek獨特的故事風格，也都乘載了對於人性的特殊情懷，讓這部作品成為歷史上不可取代的獨特視覺作品。

Maus was originally serialized by Raw magazine, a major publication of the alternative comics movement, from 1980 to 1991. It went on in 1992 to become the first comic book to win the prestigious Pulitzer Prize, and prior to this event the English-speaking world had basically regarded comics as being inescapably frivolous. Spiegelman's art for Maus will permanently redefine how you see cartoons and regard them as storytelling tools, and perfectly expresses what makes a comic book a comic book -- it does the things that could not work in any other medium.

《Maus》起初連載於《Raw》這本發行於1980-1991年間的漫畫雜誌，搭上了美國當時興盛的「另類漫畫運動」風潮。《Maus》也在1992年成為史上第一本獲得普立茲獎的漫畫，在此之前，漫畫仍被整個英語社會視為輕浮的作品形式。Spiegelman在《Maus》作品中的精采表現，將徹底改變你對卡通的想法，你會重新視它為一種敘事工具，並看見漫畫相較於其他藝術形式，那不可取代的特質。

文/ Max Power

本文收錄於英語島English Island 2018年9月號
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