What is the What
by
Dave Eggers
Order:
USA
Can
Vintage, 2007 (2006)
Hardcover, Softcover, CD
Read an Excerpt
Reviewed by Mary Ann Smyth
W
hat Is the What
is a very difficult book to read. I don't think anyone can completely comprehend the atrocities that Valentino Achak Deng witnessed. He is one of the
Lost Boys
of the Sudan, brought to the United States, along with four thousand others, to get his education and then, hopefully, return to his own country and work to help it survive.
T
he only thing the southern Sudan did was to have oil under its feet. Those in power in Northern Sudan wanted the riches that come with oil and unleashed genocide. From the age of six, Valentino was separated from his family and village and lived in refugee camps. His tales of the unbelievably cruel walks to those camps break a reader's heart. They did this reader. All through his ordeal, Valentino kept what had to have been his natural goodness. His story reeks of humor as well as trials of spirit. He marvels at the generosity of his sponsors. His story is a heart-wrenching but simply told tale.
V
alentino becomes disenchanted with Atlanta, the city in which he began his new life, when he is beaten and robbed inside his own apartment. Then, after fourteen hours in an emergency room, he leaves the hospital without his wounds being dressed. Discrimination again? He grew from a six-year-old boy to a man in the camps. It's a wonder he has the positive attitude he does to even just continue with his life as well as reach his goal - to be of assistance to his beloved country of Sudan.
W
hat Is the What
is presented as fiction because Valentino can't remember the exact conversations he had over the years with his fellow refugees.
What Is the What
is almost an autobiography, written as it was told to the author, Dave Eggers. Dashes are used in place of quotation marks – which seems to give greater import to the spoken words.
T
his book is written with grace and dignity, without any sense of Valentino's blaming the world at large for his troubles. It is told as it happened. I wonder how many of us could have survived seeing one of our fellow travelers – children all - taken back into the bush by a lion, and hearing the sounds of a child being eaten. Or seeing men lined up and shot just for existing.
What is the What
is a survivor's tale of constant threats from predators (both four-footed and two-footed), rebel liberation armies, and the possibility of – no, the probability of - disease and starvation.
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