What Is the What

Yemek getirdiğini düşündükleri helikopterlere koşan çocukların karşılık olarak mermi yedikleri bir coğrafyayı düşünün. Bir de şunu ekleyin: Uçurtma Avcısı ve Bin Muhteşem Güneş'in yazarı Khaled Hosseini'nin son zamanlarda okuduğu en etkileyici roman.

Sanırım ne ile karşı karşıya olduğunuzu az çok anlatabildim. İnsanın boğazında düğüm bir kitap, orası kesin.

In lesser hands than Dave Eggers’, 500+ pages of tragedy, violence and deprivation would have been intolerable reading material. Fortunately for me, Eggars writes this story of the Lost Boys of Sudan with care, courage and even some humor so that I never lost interest or felt it went on too long.

Although it’s classified as fiction, it reads more like a memoir. We learn the personal tragedy of Valentino, a Sudanese boy whose world and family is ripped apart by war. He runs from his village under attack and just continues to run from refugee stop to stop, with violence and uncertainty trailing him.

"I do not want to think of myself as important enough the God would choose me for extraordinary punishment, but then again, the circumference of calamity that surrounds me is impossible to ignore."

This “circumference of calamity” seems to expand exponentially as the book switches between his childhood and current day, when he is being robbed and held prisoner in Atlanta. Yet, the book never grows depressing or hopeless. Without creating any emotional distance, Eggers never over-dramatizes the tragedy; he uses the see-sawing timeline to continually remind the reader that our hero does indeed “get out.”

This novel (really a history lesson) never loses hope. These tens of thousands of children walked through a hell that never seemed to end, and yet many of them never gave up or gave in.

“Now we can stand and decide. This is our first chance to choose our own unknown...As impossible as it sounds, we must keep walking."

It also helps that Valentino is so likably human, even when repeating the same mistakes.

“I wanted to be alone with my stupidity, which I cursed in three languages and with all my spleen."

Truth be told, What is the What has been on my “To Read” shelf almost as long as it’s been published, but its sheer size and my love/hate relationship with Eggers’ books kept it from moving to the top. Three things finally pushed me to read this: 1) The VERY high recommendation of my friend Kathy, RA Librarian and someone who knows my reading taste well. 2) My 2014 reading goal to read more books that take place outside the US or England. 3) A May challenge in one of my on-line book groups to read a book with “What,” “Where,” “Who” or “Why” in its title.

Sometimes I just have to give it up to fate. This is an outstanding book.

Apart from a sometimes painfully awkward framing device and a style of writing that is dull enough to actively distance readers from emotionally connecting to the life and pain of one Valentino Achak Deng (a.k.a. Dominic), What Is the What ended up being not half bad. I suppose it was only a third bad.

Or maybe not actually bad. Maybe just one-third Not Great. Which is okay. We can't all be great.

"What is the what?" is a question that Valentino had been asking himself for a long time. Ever since he was Achak. Back before being reintroduced to his Christian name. The story goes: God approached the ancient Dinka, a people pregnant with hope and dignity, and offered them mastery of cattle, the source of life and greatness. That or the What. God never adequately explained the What to the Dinka and the Dinka, having seen UHF and knowing that there was nothing in the box and that box-pickers are so stupid, chose the safe bet. Cattle. And therefore, life and that abundantly. The other people got the What. Which is why apparently they took out their aggressions on the Dinka.

Okay, so that was a very loose paraphrase.

In any case, Valentino is busy wondering what the What could be when some of his Dinka brethren decide to begin a civil war against the northern half of Sudan (which is largely Muslim and Arab). The North is not a fan of this idea and so does its best to extinguish the Dinka (whether they own cattle or not). This started in 1983 or so and went on a good twenty years before stopping only to maybe start up again in the near future. In the end it really only has anything to do with the What if the What happens to be a thirst for money (and preexistent religious incompatibility). But Valentino doesn't know that. He's only six.

Or he is at first. He grows up over the course of the story. While a lot of his companions die, are killed, are kidnapped, or are lost.

Speaking frankly, Sudan has been an unmitigated disaster of country-running pretty much since it gained indepedence from its colonial British overlords. Since the war began in 1983, well over 2 million Dinka were genocidally put to pasture. What little infrastructure the Southern half of the country had thirty years ago is long since evaporated. There is hope for the country, but it's a slender hope. And a tenuous one. By the way, in case you missed it: 2 million.

To be certain, the subject matter of What Is the What is important for a largely ignorant American audience. We react easily, as a nation, to massacres like Columbine or the World Trade Center destruction, but compared to Sudan, these are mere stubbed toes while Sudan features sheared limbs and exposed organs. We should react easily and emotionally to the Columbines and the World Trade Centers, but we should react as well to the other terrors humanity perpetrates upon itself. Since 1999 I've been part of an organization that has worked with and in Southern Sudan (and Uganda and Kenya). I've met Rebecca Garang (wife of John Garang, the guy who essentially started the civil war by rebelling against an oppressive government). I've seen pictures, heard stories, and met those affected immediately by the situation. The story Eggers presents has more than the ring of truth to it. So far as things go, it is true—in that it represents with unflinching veracity the reality of the Sudanese problem.

I only wish it had been better written.

Eggers does not merely tell his story. He offers a framing device. One that does not adequately capture the life of Valentino and occasionally draws one so far out of story that it becomes difficult to reign back in. (I actually put the book down twice in order to read other books, despite having a limited time to complete What Is the What.) The book opens with Valentino being robbed and assaulted and he takes the opportunity over the next day and a half to think his story at his assailants and other non-Sudanese who come into his path. He's a good man and I feel for him, but the narrative trick just didn't work.

On top of this, Eggers' style here is rather lifeless. He's trying to write in the authentic voice of the very real Valentino Achak Deng, but the work suffers for it. The story content is fascinating but its delivery robs it of much of its fire and zest. It's not incompetent writing. It's just not enjoyable. Or interesting.

And that's just a shame.

It was difficult to decide on a rating for this. In many ways it deserves a 5 star rating. The story is at different times harrowing, vivid, touching, and even funny. There were points though where my interest tailed off, though I can't really explain why.

In conversation people tend to over-use words like "incredible". I do it myself. Valentino Achak Deng's story is however close to being "incredible" in the narrow sense of the word. He escapes the horrifying Civil War in Sudan to reach refugee camps in first Ethiopia and then Kenya, before being resettled in the USA. Even in these places though, horrible things keep happening to him. I'm not sure I would have had the strength to get through all the reverses this man has suffered. Despite everything he seems rather unworldly, and some of his misfortunes are because he is too trusting of others. Deng tells his story in a way that seems completely honest, in fact at times painfully so. There is no sense though of a man saying "Poor me!" He simply deals with what life throws at him.

Although this is just one man's story, this book probably taught me more about the Sudanese Civil War, and about South Sudan, than hundreds of hours of reading newspapers or watching TV documentaries. It's a story that will stay with me a long time.

You know who should read What is the What? Um…everyone. It’s one of those rare books that are really easy to read, really gripping—it will grip you!—but also globally consequential.

What is the What, by Dave Eggers, is a docu-drama-type "novel" based on the real life of Valentino Achak Deng. At the age of seven (maybe eight) he watches his Sudanese village be attacked and destroyed by government-sponsored militia. Not knowing if his family is alive or dead, he's forced to run and ends up trekking (on foot with thousands of other boys) across the deserts of three countries. They walk for months, pursued by militiamen on horseback, government bombers and predatory animals, carrying with them almost nothing in terms of clothing, shoes, shelter, food or water. After this epic journey in which he faces down every imaginable hardship, Achak spends many years in desolate Ethiopian and Kenyan refugee camps before finally being resettled in the U.S. where he finds "a life full of promise, but also heartache and myriad new challenges." (So lazy, I quote the back of the book)

I don’t know if Valentino is the unluckiest person ever, or the luckiest for having survived a lifetime of horrors you and I could only conjure in our worst nightmares. But whatever he is, his story is extraordinary. This book is suspenseful, intense, horrifying, heartbreaking, at times surprisingly sweet and funny, but always incredibly moving — if you don’t at least have the urge to make large donations to Mercy Corps after reading this, you’re an absolute robot. I don’t know if there’s a word strong enough to sum up this guy’s life — the tragedy, trauma, loss, deprivation — but it was crazy to read his story and know it had all really happened while I sat around watching Seinfeld and picking the onions off my cheeseburger.

Things that are really great about this book:

1. Eggers lays out the decades-old conflict in Sudan in a way that people like me who knew little about it can wrap their brains around. He weaves the history into his story really naturally and without ever making it a political invective.

2. The author drops the self-consciously clever post-modernist act and assumes the voice of Achak telling his story in first person. And outside of a few overly sophisticated turns of phrase, it works — sounds authentic and believable, as if it really were Achak telling his own story. Eggers does a terrific job of creating a "character" that is super lovable and pitiable but also respectable.

3. Despite the fairly devastating subject matter, What is the What is not depressing or the type of horrifying that makes you have to put it down. As a work of literature, it’s incredibly impressive and I found myself reading on because I was wowed. And too, Eggers makes this young Sudanese so very human and real that I felt a strong sense of commonality, which made me not want to turn away from him. And the book ends on a rather hopeful note.

So I recommend this book to you and everyone you know. It really is amazing, definitely top 10 material. If you want to learn more about it or read a (way) more articulate review, visit McSweeney’s Web site — they seem to have republished everything ever written about What is the What.

Sudan'daki Müslüman ve Hrıstiyanlar arasında çıkan iç savaş sonrasında ülkelerinden kaçıp önce Etiyopya sonra Kenya'daki mülteci kamplarına yerleştiren binlerce masum çocugun hikayesi.. Hikaye uzun, detaylı ve fazlasıyla dokunaklı. Hassas insanlara önermem, yaşanan olaylara dayanması, kurgu da olsa üç aşagı beş yukarı gerçeklere ışık tutuyor olması hazmını çok zorlaştırıyor kitabın. En sonda da baş kahramanımızın bir sayfalık teşekkür yazısını okuyoruz ve anlıyoruz ki bütün bunlar gerçekten yaşandı.

Kitabın baş kahramanı Amerika'da yaşayan bir Sudanlı göçmen, Sudan'daki savaşın yaklaşık on beş senesi boyunca sayısız acı tecrübeler edinmek zorunda kalmıs. Bu arada bu bir spoiler degil, kitap Amerika'da baslıyor zaten. Ama sanmayın ki Amerika'ya yerleşmek sorunları çözüyor, orada da apayrı problemlerle yüz yüze kalmak zorunda kalıyor göçmenler. Bu açıdan kurgu güzel ve tamamlayıcı olmus. Yaklasık altı yüz sayfa boyunca Achak'ın ve arkadaşlarının trajedisine tanık oluyoruz.

---spoiler---
Günlerce hatta aylarca yürüyorlar, sırf kendilerine barınacak bir yer bulabilmek icin, ülke değiştirip, koca çölü geçip Etiyopya'ya sıgınıyorlar. Yolda arkdaslarını aslanlar mı yemiyor, hastalıktan ölenler, düşman askerler tarafından öldürülenler vs.. Etiyopya'ya yerleşmeyi başardıktan sonra da sorunlar bitmiyor, iki hükümet anlaşmazlığa düşüyor ve orada da mülteciler büyük küçük demeden kaçarken öldürülüyor, nehirde boguluyor, timsahlara yem oluyor. Ve kurtulabilenler tekrar yürümeye baslıyor, bu sefer Kenya'ya.. Tam on sene de buradaki mülteci kampında açlıkla hatta hiçlikle baş etme mücadelesi..
----spoiler---

Kitabın bir yerinde bunca çabaya değer mi acaba diye sordum.. Ölmek yaşamaktan yeğdir belki bazen diye düşündüm ve karşıma şu satırlar çıktı;

"Öylece oturup ölmeyi bekliyoruz. Hepimiz aynı ölümün parçasıyız ama senle ben, biz diğerlerinden daha yavaş ölüyoruz. Gidip savaşı bulsak ve bir an evvel öldürülsek daha iyi.."

Sayfaları çevirdikçe insanlığımdan utandığım bir roman oldu. Bazı romanlarda kişisel trajedileri okumak yıpratıcı olabiliyor ama roman bu diyorsunuz ve kendiniz avutuyorsunuz belki ama bu romanda binlerce cocuğun gerçek hayatlarında yaşadıklarını çıplak bir şekilde okumak biraz farklı bir tecrübe oldu. Kendimi sorguladım, ihtiyaç sahibi insanlara ne kadar yardımcı olabildiğimi.. Her gün sıkılarak , burun kıvırarak yaptığım basit şeylerin ne kadar büyük birer nimet olduğunu bir kere daha anladım. Herkesin okuması dileğimle..

I don't have the words but one thing I'm sure of... The world has been inflected with destruction and agony since the birth of Adam. Some people were asking me, what are you reading? I told them about the civil war of Sudan. I was able to recite to them as much events as possible simply because the author and Valentino concocted the story in the best and simple way possible despite its density of long pages and atrocious events. I congratulate everyone out there fighting the agonies and consequences of a war and congratulate their given strength in every step they're taking.

Βαρύ βιβλίο, τόσο σαν ιστορία όσο και σαν γραμμάρια. Μου πήρε σχεδόν δύο βδομάδες να το διαβάσω. Δεν είναι ότι το βρήκα βαρετό, απλά ήταν λίγο κουραστικό να διαβάζω τόσα πολλά για τη ζωή στο στρατόπεδο προσφύγων (ναι, εκεί με κούρασε). Δεν ξέρω πώς και γιατί κουράστηκα, δεν επαναλαμβάνεται ούτε και έχει ανούσιες περιγραφές, απλά ήταν λίγο κάπως σαν να ένιωσε ότι έπρεπε να μας πει σχεδόν όλα όσα συνέβησαν στα χρόνια που έζησε εκεί. Επίσης, δεν υπάρχει ένταση στη τμήμα που αφορά αυτήν την περίοδο της ζωής του, ήταν λίγο μονότονο.
Έχει όμως και πολλές καλές στιγμές το βιβλίο. Βασικά, όλη η υπόλοιπη ιστορία είναι πολύ καλή, ειδικά το κομμάτι που αφορά τη ζωή στο Σουδάν και την πορεία μέχρι την Αιθιοπία. Απλά είναι λίγο αποστασιοποιημένο, δεν είναι καθόλου φορτισμένο συναισθηματικά ενώ θα μπορούσε να είναι πολύ έντονο.

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