[!@#$%!]

i dont know what it was about maus. i thought it was very good, but somehow i had been expecting more. i think i have problems with the art character. basically i didn’t like him i suppose. he spoils it a bit for me. the dad’s story is amazing. but the son kinda ruins it for me, the fucking brat, ha ha ha ha. i don’t know. he gets in the way of the dad for me i suppose. i really just don’t know.

timerman’s family fled to argentina from russia pre-holocaust. he grew up nevertheless as a refugee and supported by jewish charities to an extent. throughout his life he dealt mostly with latin american politics and wrote about them as a journalist. in the late 70s he’s imprisoned and tortured by the argentinian junta that tortured murdered and “disappeared” some 30,000 people. israel intervenes, they save his hide, take him home (he had been a zionist all his life). he gets there and blam, the lebanon war happens.

he then proceeds to bite the hand that feeds him and writes THE LONGEST WAR, where he condems israel and its treatment of the palestinians, mixing recolletions of his refugee childhood with what he’s seeing happen in front of his eyes, and constrasts this mess with the zionist ideals he grew up with. he took a lot of shit for it but wow—it’s a potent read.

ETA: oh, the book was mostly ignored at the time of publication and israelis dimissed timerman as in ingrate who didn’t know what he was talking about, so it’s not a famous book by any means and i don’t think it won any awards. but read it and see.