First off, I absolutely loved this book. The Holocaust (well, WWII in general) is one of my favorite things to learn about. It was definitely a depressing time full of unnecessary death, but it showed the world how severe and wrong discrimination can be. What I enjoyed about this book was the fact that it was finally a personal Holocaust story that WASN'T Anne Frank. His father's journey during and long after the Holocaust sheds new light on the way it had affected the lives of the survivors. One example is his tendency to hoard and save. He had to do that so much during the war that it just makes sense that it would become habit and continue.
But what I really want to discuss is his use of animals to represent the characters and the scenes where he draws the characters with masks on human bodies. As we talked about in class, it is obvious that he used such simplified characters in order to give you the chance to put yourself into the story and try to get a deeper feel for how difficult it was. It was also a great way to make a distinction between the Polish Jews, the Nazi's, the French, etc. This way you can focus more on story that is being told than the pictures.
I also found it quite interesting that at certain points in the book he drew characters with animal masks on. In class, we discussed that this could represent him putting on a facade; that he was raised Jewish but feels disconnected from this. But another thing I thought that it could be interpreted is that this is his way of reminding the reader that this is real, it's scary, and it needs to be recognized as serious. You see the hair sticking out of the back of the mask and remember that this was his father's life and it seems to haunt Art in a way. The Holocaust seemed to cause his mother's suicide and caused his father to be obsessive and cold-hearted. It goes to show that this major event in history affected more generations than just the ones that were involved in it.
Now i haven't read this book, but you make make me able to imagine what its like. I have read 1984, so i can relate. I would say V was both crazy and did it for Justice. But in the movie, (Since i haven't read the book), he seems very intelligent to the point of insanity because he's right and the people around him are just too dumb to realize it. I like to compare this to Modern society with Ron Paul. A lot of what he has said has come true and he told us how we could prevent it and people where too dumb to listen. The housing market collapsed. The government started printing money to bail out big businesses, thus causing the economy to suffer. No he doesn't kill people or anything, but he has spread his message and has an enormous number of young loyal followers. So I feel that this Message of V is just as important now as ever.
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