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What Is the What (Vintage) | 
 enlarge | Author: Dave Eggers
Publisher: Vintage
Category: Book
List Price: $15.95
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Avg. Customer Rating:  166 reviews
Sales Rank: 1350
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 560
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.9
Dimensions (in): 7.9 x 5.1 x 0.9
ISBN: 0307385906
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.6
EAN: 9780307385901
ASIN: 0307385906
Publication Date: October 9, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
What Is the What is the epic novel based on the life of Valentino Achak Deng who, along with thousands of other children--the so-called Lost Boys--was forced to leave his village in Sudan at the age of seven and trek hundreds of miles by foot, pursued by militias, government bombers, and wild animals, crossing the deserts of three countries to find freedom. When he finally is resettled in the United States, he finds a life full of promise, but also heartache and myriad new challenges. Moving, suspenseful, and unexpectedly funny, What Is the What is an astonishing novel that illuminates the lives of millions through one extraordinary man.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 161 more reviews...
 What was the What? October 23, 2008
Valentino Achak Deng's story alone would have been enough to win my approval of this fine piece of literature. Although What is the What by Dave Eggers was officially published as a novel, it is the true survival story of a Sudanese boy and his eventual transition to American culture. This is the type of book that can make you laugh and cry. Although it is a tragic story, Eggers includes scenes that show life in such a dark time, which can leave a smile on the reader's face.
Perhaps the most amazing thing about this first person novel is that it is not an autobiography. Although Eggers writes Valentino's story, Eggers masterfully takes on Valentino's voice. As I read the novel, I completely forgot that 8 year old Valentino himself had not authored the book.
Through the doorway I saw some kind of airplane, coming low over the village. It was a fascinating kind of plane, black everywhere and dull, unreflective. The planes I had seen before resembled birds in a rudimentary way, with noses and wings and chests, but this machine looked nothing so much as a cricket (75).
Eggers is one of the few talented writes that can maintain the simplicity of a child point of view, and simultaneously use the skill of a great writer to create a sophisticated passage. The helicopters that attacked Valentino's village look like "crickets," but only in a "rudimentary way." Eggers's contrast in diction in this scene shows his talent to merge simplicity and complexity.
The book is essentially two different stories that are beautifully woven together. The first is about Valentino's childhood hardships as a refugee, and the second is about some of the hardships he experiences once living in America. Eggers transitions between the two flawlessly which implicitly compares and contrasts the two worlds Valentino struggled through. He even completely combines present and past when he tells Valentino's past to various characters in present America including Julian, a hospital attendant: "The walk to Ethiopia, Julian, was only the beginning. Yes we had walked for months across deserts and wetlands, our ranks thinned daily. There was war all over southern Sudan... (256)." The story is not being told to the reader, but rather to Julian. Julian is an insignificant character to the story, but using him as a listener creates informality in the writing. Because Eggers writes to a certain person, he can really expand on the emotions that Valentino felt as he fled his country. It was a brilliant way for Eggers to narrate the story.
What is the What is a literary masterpiece with an epic story. It is written in such a beautiful way and describes such a moving story that this book cannot be left unread once started. It teaches the reader much about Sudanese history, human rights, and assimilation to American culture. Dave Eggers and Valentino Achak Deng share with us a magnificent story that should have a place on every bookshelf.
What is What is the What October 23, 2008
David Eggers beautifully tells the tale of the struggles and triumphs of Valentino Achak Deng, a Lost Boy of Sudan. Raised in peaceful, pre-Civil War Sudan, growing up walking for months to Ethiopia, maturing in various refugee camps, and reaching adulthood struggling to learn a new culture, Valentino has had a life of constant movement and hardship. Yet, the book does not leave the reader feeling depressed; Valentino's personality and strength reminds the reader of the resiliency of the human soul. At times it even manages to find humor despite the heavy subject matter.
Eggers' beautiful description and agility with language paints a portrait of the life Valentino led, the places he saw, the people he knew, and the events he witnessed. Labeled as a work of fiction, Valentino's preface ensures that this tale is an honest account of the life he knew. Relatable, imaginative, and descriptive in the most creative way, Eggers made this 535 paged book an addictive and enjoyable read. The novel has a high level of intensity, only stopping briefly just long enough for the audience to catch their breath. Showing rather than telling, his words hold much more weight and provoke vivid images: "She fell, and the white parts of her dress became red."
Rather than just only telling a "sob story" about Valentino's life, the book provides insightful social and political commentary. In the Sudanese Civil War, there were obvious enemies and oppressors, but Valentino tells about the unexpected enemies and rivals that Civil War creates: "I came to resent the sight of my own people, to loathe how many of them there were, how needful, gangrenous, bug-eyed and wailing." In the refugee camp, these issues became deeper with the mixing of many nationalities and ethnicities. He does an excellent job of making the reader understand the paranoia, suspicion and distrust that festers underneath the surface of refugee life. When Valentino is interviewing applicants for a job in Kakuma refugee camp he faces a conflict of race. "I found myself trusting the Kenyan, whom I did not know, more than my own countrymen. This happened occasionally and always it was a conundrum."
The book shows the identity crisis caused from moving quickly from country to country, always having an uncertain future. "What was life in Kakuma? Was it life? There was a debate about this. On the one hand, we were alive which meant that we were living a life, and that we were eating and could enjoy friendships and learning and could love. But we were no where." As he traveled from place to place during war times, his attitude became bleaker and bleaker, yet reveals an unsettling truth, "I knew that the world was the same everywhere, that there were only inconsequential variations between the suffering in one place and another."
Probably the most surprising struggle Valentino faced was adjusting to life in America. He looked to America as a haven, a holy land with no problems or worries. The reality of America was much different and caused conflict in the hearts of Valentino and the other Lost Boys. The duality of African refugee life in America is troubling. Facing poverty, theft, racism, and intolerance in America, the refugees have to be careful as to not seem ungrateful. "[America] is a miserable place, of course, a miserable and glorious place that I love dearly and of which I have seen far more than I could have expected."
Provocative and informative, this book is a must read for anyone interested in the story of the Lost Boys or East African Affairs. This clear tale of one man's journey is emotional and thought-provoking all at once. Eggers and Deng make great storytellers as documented in What is the What.
-JULIA Z
Heartbreaking and uplifting October 14, 2008
This is, of course, the story of one of the Lost Boys of Sudan - Valentino Atchak Deng. The preface makes explicit that "many of the passages are fictional" and "the result is called a novel." Given the liberties (or outright fabrications) that pass for memoirs these days, one gets the feeling that WITW is probably a lot closer to the truth than accounts without such caveats.
The book itself is divided into three sections, each composed of a cross-talk between Deng's struggle for survival in Africa and, perhaps a bit more esoterically, in America. Deng's journey in both places is compelling -- in both places the fight is both physical and spiritual. In Africa, the physical threat is more immediate, but in the last section of the book, the emphasis flip-flops in a very unexpected way.
Eggers has given a wonderful voice to Deng. The first-person is used throughout, but it never becomes annoying or whiny. There are beautiful turns of phrases, such a "It was a broken world, I knew then, that would allow a boy such as me to bury a boy such as [spoiler name omitted]." One can almost hear the distinct Sudanese accent of Deng as the narrator -a firm, breathy and measured cadence. Throughout, Deng implicates the rest of the world for its ignorance and its callousness, but he never preaches - his criticism is a valid complaint but is also tempered by recognition of the people who did help him once they became aware of his burden. Eggers achieves a delicate balancing act, one that would probably be less successful if told as straighht non-fiction and staying solely on the African side of the ledger.
Very highly recommended.
a must read September 25, 2008
Dave Eggers' writing is superb and really allows the voice of Valentino Achak Deng, one of the Sudanese Lost Boys, to really come out. It's a very touching story and gives you a view on a part of Africa most people know nothing about.
Incredibly Moving September 9, 2008
This is a book that should be part of required reading in schools, colleges and in book clubs. Moving and inspirational true story about a people (The Dinka of Sudan...think Lost Boys) and of one boy/man in particular and his experiences. I find it hard to express how deeply moving and incredible this book is - not an easy summer read. You have to invest time and emotion into these pages. The author writes this story in a way that it would be impossible to do otherwise.
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