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.

https://kiallovivlio.blogspot.com/

https://thematofylakes.gr

GREAT STORY, NOT-SO-GREAT BOOK!

This took me THREE MONTHS to finish!!! I did read other books in the meantime, but believe me, I wouldn't have dragged my feet on this one if the storytelling hadn't been so TERRIBLY AWFUL!

Examples of STORIES told particularly badly ....
a) The drama teacher Miss Gladys and the Dominics
b) The romance between Achak and Tabitha
c) Life at Kakuma
d) The story of Maria, the girl who called him Sleeper
e) The walk from Pinyudo to Kakuma
f) The play times with Achak and the Royal Girls of Pinyudo
g) Achak's trip to the hospital
h) Achak's job at the fitness club
i) Achak's attempts to go to college in America
j) The night when the Sudanese were invited to the basketball game

AND MANY MORE .... Some of the above should have been interesting stories, but they were written in such a matter-of-fact style, I could barely bring myself to read each line on the page. It was like forcing myself to read engineering textbooks!!!! OHHHHHH!

Another thing ... this is supposed to be a fictional autobiography. It's not a REAL autobiography, because if it were, it would be all about Dave Eggers. NO, NO, it's all about Valentino Achak Deng. OK, so I get it ... Dave Eggers is PRETENDING to be Achak, and writing it just the way he thinks Achak would write it. And this (in part) is what makes it fictional. OK, FINE. Now the narrator of the autobiography (or, the fictional entity that Dave Eggers was conjuring up when he was pretending to be Achak) ... maybe he's the kind of guy who refuses to go on and on about his philosphical beliefs. Well, fine. But as a READER wanting to hear the story of Valentino Achak Deng, I want to know about that stuff. And we get practically nothing!

For example, from reading the book, I would think this is the autobiography of an atheist. But our fictional narrator is Catholic. I know this because of occasional instances of praying, various run-ins with priests, and occasional times when God is mentioned. But I find it really annoying that the central character never seems to care enough about spirituality to discuss it.

The lack of discussion about the narrator's beliefs extends to other areas besides just religion ... I wish he had discussed his motivation and ambitions that led him to be in charge at so many stages in his life, and his political views about the government of Sudan, hopes for peace, and so much more.

Maybe the real VAD wouldn't have discussed philosophical matters in such a public forum as a book, and maybe that's why Dave Eggers, in pretending to be Achak, left these kinds of discussion out. I don't know. But I wish the real VAD would come out and write his autobiography so I could find out. From the web site valentinoachakdeng.org, I can see the great work Achak is doing to lift up the people of Sudan. He seems like a great man. And you know what, I do not get that impression from this book. Honestly, I think the real VAD could do a much better job of writing his autobiography than Dave Eggers did of pretending to be him.

This fictionalized autobiography device simply DID NOT WORK.

Now, to be fair (and this is why the book gets 2 stars for "it was ok" instead of 1), there were a few parts of the book that I enjoyed.

BITS OF PLOT TOLD RATHER WELL ...

a) The portrait of Achak's life in southern Sudan before the fighting began, where his prosperous father owned a shop and had many wives; and there were various religions (Catholic, Muslim, and African/pagan/something?) intermingling somewhat peacefully; where he was loved by his mother in the yellow dress, played with William K and Moses, and would try to spy on Amath and her sisters
b) Achak's first visit at Phil and Stacy's house, when a bunch of other Sudanese came in for dinner uninvited, and the ensuing story of Achak's friendship with Phil's family
c) Achak's running escape, as a 6-year-old boy, from the fighting
d) The story of William K walking with Achak
e) Moses' story about being captured and turned into a slave
f) The story told by the old man who was brought by the SPLA to speak to the Kakuma refugees about being the lone survivor of an attack on all the chiefs of the local tribes
g) The friendship between Achak and Noriyaki
h) The story of a woman who comes to Achak's adopted family's home in Kakuma with news for Achak regarding his biological family
i) Achak's experiences on the drama group's trip to Nairobi when he gets to stay with Mike and Grace and go to the shopping mall with Tabitha
j) The last week of Achak's time in Kakuma, and his weeks spent in Goal waiting for a plane to take him to America.

This may seem like a lot, but bear in mind, this book is 535 pages, and some of these plotlines above only lasted a few pages.

Looking back, it seems that the first 100 or so pages were good, and the last 100 pages were good. It was the part in the middle that made me want to tear my toe nails out.

Hmmmm ... maybe those 335 pages in the middle are THE WHAT.

Oooooooooooooooooh!

"Meninos perdidos não é uma alcunha que muitos de nós apreciem, mas é suficientemente adequada. Fugimos ou fomos obrigados a abandonar as nossas casas, muitos de nós tornados órfãos, e vagueámos aos milhares por desertos e florestas durante o que pareceram anos. "

"O que é o quê?", de Dave Eggers, conta-nos a história de Valentino Achak Dens, um dos meninos perdidos do Sudão, pela voz do proprio.
Passa-se na época da segunda guerra civil sudanesa (1983-2005), uma das guerras mais longas e mais mortíferas do final do século XX. O conflito que durou mais de 21 anos deixou aproximadamente dois milhões de civis mortos, como resultado da guerra, fome e doenças causadas pelo conflito, e mais de quatro milhões de refugiados e deslocados internos.
Ao longo destas 514 páginas conhecemos a saga de Valentino para fugir à morte, à fome e ao final funesto que tiveram muitos dos seus compatriotas. Conhecemos o percurso de milhares de crianças que acabam por ser criadas em campos de refugiados imensos, autênticas cidades de lona, e todos os perigos extremos por que passaram para chegar a este local relativamente seguro.
Esta guerra acabou por dar origem à região autónoma do Sudão do Sul, mas infelizmente esta área continuou a ser fustigada por conflitos vários ao longo dos anos que se seguiram, no entanto, através dos seus estudos e do seu trabalho, Valentino conseguiu melhorar a sua vida e melhorar também a vida dos seus compatriotas. O nosso protagonista é o fundador da @vadfoundation que leva instrução e uma melhor vida aos que ficaram e aos que regressam.

A while back I'd slogged through the simultaneously compelling and and head-scratchingly-moribund epic "Acts of Faith" by Philip Caputo which dealt with the Sudanese Civil War (of the mid-1980s through today) and ensuing humanitarian efforts; while I wasn't terribly impressed by that novel, it did leave me with many questions about the situation in Sudan, many of which were addressed (if not exactly answered) by the far-superior "novel" "What Is the What" by Dave Eggers.

I put quotes around novel primarily because it's not a novel in the classical sense of the term; it's more a first-person account from the very real Valentino Achak Deng as written by Eggers (whose soleraison d'etre these days is to give a voice to the disenfranchised). And, oh my goodness, what an account. If there was ever a story that makes a reader pause to assess his problems as meaningless piffles, this is the one. Mr. Deng takes us down a 2-decade-long rabbit hole of sheer horror, from fleeing for his life as his village is shelled first by helicopters, then by Arab murahaleen horseback raiders; running for miles and miles with hundreds of other displaced "Lost Boys" looking for rumored humanitarian aid encampments across the borders of Ethiopia and Kenya, only to be decimated by famine, thirst, hunger, wild animals, random attacks and massacres; then focusing on survival in the camps while being recruited to go off to a totally unwinnable war against the ruling regime in the capital city of Khartoum. It would seem like it would be the bleakest reading experience imaginable slogging through the travails of Mr. Deng's life, but there is an amazing undercurrent of optimism that buoys the non-stop negativity, and makes it more a fascinating portrait of a fascinating life than the total bummer it could've been. It helps that the recollection is broken up by present-day musings by Mr. Deng after he is selected to come to the United States and tries to cope with a completely different set of ordeals (in adjusting to living in Atlanta, GA). Even the most jaded, surly curmudgeon would be hard-pressed not to be moved by this guy's plight.

One could argue that Eggers pseudo-autobiography is shamelessly manipulative. If I think about it for too long I might possibly agree with that statement, but for now I think I'd rather give this book 5 stars and let you decide for yourself whether Eggers' story is one worth reading. While it doesn't answer many questions, it does bring to light the very serious and dire situation in Sudan (that evidently goes on to this day) and if that requires some heart-string pulling, so be it.

HIGHLY recommended.

My Spanish teacher, Senor Serrano has been telling us about this book. He is currently reading it. He tells us bits and pieces that have me dying to read the book! I'm seconds away from begging my Mom to take to me to the bookstore!