رواية ملحمية عظيمة، تحكي قصة حياة فالانتينو اتشاك وهروبه المأساوي الطويل من الحرب الأهلية السودانية والأمل بالنجاة من عالم لا يرحم.
‏رحلة هروبه غريبة وعجيبة، فتى لم يتجاوز الرابعة عشر يهرب وحيداً إلى إثيوبيا قاطعاً الغابات ومهاجمة الحيوانات..

‏وخلال رحلة هروبه يمر بالكثير من العراقيل والتحديات ولكنه يحاول ولا يستسلم بأعجوبة..

‏مع انها مليئة بصور البؤس، الا انها رواية غزيرة بتفاصيل رائعة وسخرية من مسار الحياة المر وتجعلنا نراجع ونتفحص عالمنا وإنسانيتنا الف مرة..

Iedereen zou dit waargebeurde verhaal moeten lezen. De veerkracht van een mens is verbijsterend !

These days - when it comes to finding and selecting reading material, it seems I'm all on my own. (Well, not entirely alone, thanks to websites like Goodreads.) I have set a goal to buy two new books a month, or one new book every two weeks. This past year I have decided to start my own little library, and prefer to own all of the books that I read. I carry my books around with me (sometimes in my messenger bag), and read only when I know that I can REALLY READ. I don't want to race over the pages, and run through the words - I want to sit in the scenery, open my eyes, and SEE what I am reading. The way I see it - it's not a race, these books have been on shelves for longer then I know, and have been patiently been waiting to be Experienced and Remembered. But, you're not going to remember or get the full experience if you're just trying to Finish it. When I was reading Kafka On the Shore, I wanted to know the end, to see where this road led Kafka, But I didn't want the story to be Finished - I hesitated and postponed reading the final pages because I wanted to stay there with Kafka for a little longer.

Today is March 28th, 2008 and I have purchased my own copy of What is the What from Booklink in Northampton, MA. (The events that led to my purchasing this book from this store may have some significance later on.)

I once met a so-called Lost Boy this past year at the end of a Yo La Tengo show. At that time, I didn't know anything about these Lost Boys or the conflict in Sudan. The girl who introduced me to this Sudanese refugee said that this young man was temporarily living with her family. She also instructed me to do some research on the Lost Boys of Sudan as soon as I could. Later that night, I jumped on Wikipedia, and read the short entry about the Lost Boys. In shock and in awe - a few thoughts came to my mind: Why is this the first time I head about this? What is the current condition in Sudan, and why did these young men/people feel the need to flee their county? What did these people have to do to escape, and what did they endure to make it out safely? What do they have to endure now as Refugees? What is it like to dwell in another land so different from the one they came from? What is their future, and what is the future of their country? Will they ever go home?

Mostly, I thought to myself - I MET A LOST BOY.

Nine years after this was published I've finally read it. Have meant to read it since loving Zeitoun a few years ago. Wife listened to audiobook on long commute and deemed it a truly heartbreaking work of staggering genius -- also proclaimed herself an Eggers fan after not being so into his memoir. I didn't get to it for so long in part thanks to reviews on here that called it boring, unreadable, a mess, lacking structure and characterization, on and on, all of which I can now officially deem sort of nutso -- more a result of Eggersfraude most likely than anything else. At most maybe the second half is 100 pages too long, could've been accelerated in parts, but overall it sure seemed to me like a gripping quasi-autobiographical novel, conventionally structured in alternating sections of front and back story that more or less unite at the end, with the narrator directly addressing various front-story characters when he tells his history. Valentino is sort of like the Sudanese Job, afflicted at every turn by the worst from marauding Arabs to helicopters strafing his village to crocodiles to starvation to dysentery to lions to fatal accidents to burglars to deranged jealous ex-boyfriends to terrorists, on and on. (He has a lot of luck, too.) Well-characterized characters abound. Generally, it's an engaging, moving story of perseverance that makes you omni-aware of your privilege to have a goodreads account on which to right the wrongs of reviewers of yore.

I’ve been thinking a lot about this book this morning. I’ve recommended it a few dozen times over the years. I didn’t even ‘think’ about whether or not I had written a review. I hadn’t.
I read this before I joined Goodreads —- in the days before I wrote reviews. Those days are coming back again in my near future — ‘review retirement ‘—- but that’s another story (to review?-ha)....

But I’d like to share a little about this book. I read in in 2006 - and I still remember it like yesterday. It’s the type of book that leaves a lasting impression. It’s extremely well written. And for those who don’t like other books by Dave Eggers (I’m not one of them) - this is not the book people turn their nose against. This is a great book!

It was horrific how the Lost Boys lived day after day in Sudan- starving - being chased from village location to the next - disease - killing - etc....and there is another appalling story to read about as well.

Dave Eggers gives us a fictional autobiography of the horrendous journey of one boy in particular named Valentino Deng. It’s a novel that reads like a memoir.
But what also makes this story unbelievable is what happens when Valentino is brought over to the United States. He knows his host family and has made a few friends. He is given an apartment to live in by himself. He plans on attending community college. ( I’m leaving out lots of details)....
but in a very short time -new in his apt. - Valentino gets mugged- robbed- and tied up. For days nobody knew he was alone in bad condition on the floor of his own apt.
Welcome to America!

I can’t recommend this book enough!

Jesus, this was long. And I'm not just talking the length of the book. The chapters were loooonggg. And if there's one thing I hate, it's long chapters in a book. I'm glad, though, that this was a good read, because I probably would have thrown it in the garbage out of sheer frustration.
Touted as a biographical novel, it tells the story of Valentino Achak Deng, one of the Lost Boys from Sudan, and how he eventually achieved asylum in the US. His ordeals are never-ending, but I got the sense that that was the point. How else can we truly understand the horrors of war and genocide if we skirt the details of what actually happens to the innocent?
It's a really good book, one that unfortunately took me way too long to read. Would I recommend it? You bet. Would I read it again? Absolutely not.

This is a fictional account of a real-life Sudanese refugee which is kind of confusing because it reads like a memoir. Deng writes in the prologue that all of the story is true This was a real education to me about the Sudanese civil war and its affect on its people. Although it was tough to read, Deng's voice makes it matter-of-fact and even humorous at times. Very glad I read it! If you do read it, it's absolutely worth is and uplifting to read about Deng's life after the book.

I guess it doesn't matter much if one is fleeing Sudan, Syria, China, Pakistan or any other country that is torn by conflict and violence. Pretty much quintessential reading for those who still do not understand the plights of refugees worldwide, this book. Even if it does have its downsides.

For one, it's an autobiography of the Sudanese refugee Valentino Achak Deng, as written by Dave Eggers. There is, without a doubt, some degree of mediation going on in this novel. It is unclear where Valentino's story ends and Eggers' narrative begins. It is, furthermore, unclear whether Valentino has a very "African" way of speaking or whether Eggers is just using the exoticisms in his speech to construct a more compelling character.

But in the end, who cares really. "What is the What" is a solid book about the troubles of a Sudanese refugee, who is part of the so-called 'Lost Boys', a generation of male Sudanese children who has nothing to hope for except to be alive. It is a book about hunger and thirst. It is a book with sad moments throughout. Strangely, the saddest moment in the whole book is the death of a Japanese person. Sadness makes no sense whatsoever.

I felt like crying softly into a cushion after finishing this book, but I also felt like punching the cushion. There should be a punishment involved in the use of items which promise softness, sweetness, a soothing sensation as a whole. There should be a punishment for those who do not care for cushions, who push them aside and voluntarily sleep on their arms instead. Pain should be inflicted on those who leave the tap running when they brush their teeth.

But above all, I feel like "What is the What" is a story of hope - of believing in a sort of salvation, without discrediting the bad sides of daily life. Valentino chose the "what", the void - he was left thundering into a new world of his own.

I am left wondering if there is a "what" in my own life; a gamble which is to be preferred over reality. I am left wondering quite a lot of things.

TOO MUCH, AND NOT ENOUGH : A PARADOX

With her open and confident sexuality, she was the constant igniter of everything flammable within us

Hmm, if this Sudanese refugee & now American Valentine Achak Deng can turn a phrase like that, how come he needs Dave Eggars to shape his book and cop the byline? Okay, maybe he can't, maybe those delightful sentences are pure Dave. So what about this:

"I had feared for a long time that secretly Tabitha was well versed in the ways of love and that the moment we were alone she would want to move too quickly."

Now this sounds like the authentic voice of an African trying to speak of delicate matters in his second language to me, and comes off as horribly stilted, but understandably so. Okay, so no Dave Eggars there, that's pure Valentine. Now since it's the clunky uber-sincere stilted voice which tells 98% of this long tale, why is this book not bylined like all those celeb autobiographies - "by Valentine Achak Deng, as told to Dave Eggars". Does this matter much? Well, at the point where the ventriloquism starts to creep you out, yes it does.

As everyone knows, this is a long catalogue of ghastly horrors suffered in Africa interspersed with a long catalogue of banal indignities suffered in Atlanta: "As we swam across the river I saw a crocodile swim by with a boy I knew slightly in its mouth... I was unfulfilled being the receptionist at a gym and I deeply regretted not being accepted by the Jesuit college of my choice... when I woke up I found my closest friend had died in the night...I gradually realised my girlfriend was playing fast and loose with other gentlemen..." etc etc. This flipfloppery clashed dissonantly in my ears like an untuned church bell, but nevertheless is it not profoundly human? As soon as the crocodile lets you go you start bitching about how his fangs ruined your only good Hugo Boss shirt. In Art Spiegelman's brilliant memoir "Maus" - another tale of horror told to someone who then tells it to us - the difficulties of Art's relationship with his survivor father loom just as large in the book as the atrocities of Auschwitz. Is this tastelessness? No, it's life as she is lived. I mean, is there a God? Do you think this jacket, or the other one? But would God allow such evil just for the sake of human free will, I mean, does that justify all this agony? So are you saying the brown shoes? Really?

WHY THIS AND WHY NOT THAT?

Three stars, not four or five? Well, there were so many aspects covered, great swathes of I confess tedious detail I could have done without, and yet so many other things not included - why this, why that? How? And of course, what? (Or more likely in this book WHAT??!!) And yet it was very compelling. Valentine is indeed a modern Ancient Mariner compelled to stop us wedding guests and fix us with a powerful gaze so that we have to hear his dreadful over-politely-phrased tale to the end.

It would take a whole long essay to discuss the politics of this intensely political book. Was the airlift of the Lost Boys to America a "failed experiment"? Can the West ever really do anything about these decades-long conflicts in Africa? And further - is one lot of humans (here, the Sudanese Arabs) really wholly evil and another group (here the Sudanese Dinka) complete and utter innocent victims? Is this Valentine Achak Deng's whole story, or as I suspect do we now need another 537 pages of footnotes giving us all the context that's missing from this almost essential but extremely frustrating book?

Er zit zoveel in dit verhaal dat ook ik even gedacht heb dat de hoofdpersoon ‘vervloekt’ was. Eigenaardig, doch verduidelijkend hoeveel misconcepties men heeft over de ander, of een andere cultuur en hoeveel verbondenheid er tegelijkertijd is. Een boek vol pijnlijke waarheden, maar ook een boek gevuld met hoop, levenskracht en doorzettingsvermogen.

"What is the What is the soulful account of my life: from the time I was separated from my family in Marial Bai to the thirteen years I spent in Ethiopian and Kenyan refugee camps, to my encounter with vibrant Western cultures beginning in Atlanta, to the generosity and the challenges that I encountered elsewhere," Valentino Achak Deng writes.

Dave Eggers did such a great job bringing Deng's story to life, that I enjoyed this book even more than I did Egger's memoir. This is a novel that is "historically accurate" and "all of the major events in the book are true," Deng writes.

The voice is clearly that of a Sudanese man, the descriptions vivid, the story-telling riveting. The story starts in the present with a dramatic beginning, Deng is a refugee in America, alone in his sparsely furnished apartment, when robbers enter his apartment and tie him up. As he lays there helplessly, the book veers to retrospective narration when Deng goes into backstory about his childhood in Sudan--how ironic it is, he thinks, that he, a former soldier, is being attacked in his own home. He views his attackers with scorn and something akin to pity because of what he perceives to be their naiveté. The prose gets a bit lengthy at times, yet includes great introspection from the narrator who also seems to recount meaningful historical data that could only have been obtained from someone who has "been there, done that." Towards the end, you see him come to terms with his experiences, the mistakes he made as he grew older and wiser, and the plans he has for improving his life.

At a time when it was so important to obtain the story of the infamous "Lost Boys," perhaps this book is a crucial addendum.

I finished listening to "What is the What" by Dave Eggers, narrated by Dion Graham, a couple of days ago, but didn't have a chunk of quiet time to write about it until now. It's the somewhat fictionalized biography of Valentino Achak Deng, a young boy in the Sudan at the outbreak of the civil war, through to his adulthood as a refugee in America.

The story is epic in scope, but is told in a very personal, down-to-earth fashion. You're as likely to hear about the title character's first fumbling attempts at typing or his volunteer guard duty of a neighbour's bicycle as to hear about tanks and land-mines. This really anchors the story and helps the focus remain on telling the story of Valentino, and telling the wider story through his story rather than making it about the wider situation with his story being a tacked-on footnote. The material itself is striking, and eye-opening. Even if you've been aware of what happened in the Sudan, I expect hearing about what the people endured as part of the story of an individual life would still be eye-opening. I wasn't that well-informed, so it was certainly interesting for me.

Despite the excellent source matter, however, the story is somewhat crudely told. While Eggers has a fantastic sense of voice and really personalizes all of the characters, the overall handling of the plot arc felt clumsy and gimmicky at times, and the way the historical material is introduced through the Valentino's present-day inner monologue addressed at various people in his daily life gets to be a tired trick after a while. Also, the attempt to include everything possible about the Sudanese people's experiences in this one person's individual story leads to a certain straining of plausibility after a while that's only partly explained away by having the other characters themselves remark that God must have something against him. The pacing of the context switches seems slightly off in a way that often leaves you wanting to hear more about the part you're not hearing about now, whichever part that may be. There are a couple of things which are introduced multiple times during the course of the story in a way that seems more accidental than artistic, and oddly, given that at several points the story felt a little long, the book eventually just sort of ... stops, dropping the story in an unsatisfying fashion.

All of that said, the source material is so compelling that even a muddled rendition of it provides for an extremely worthwhile read, and Dion Graham does a riveting job as the narrator, with excellent voices for most of the characters (his female characters become a little generic, but I haven't heard many male narrators do great women, so I'll forgive him that) and a fantastic command of the cadence and character of the principal character's voice that makes the book wonderful to hear.

Overall, the writing is matter-of-fact enough and the delivery of the material is somewhat ho-hum (other than the excellent audio production) in a way that makes it hard for me to jump up and down waving my arms in the air about this book, but I definitely still think that it's a worthwhile listen, probably even more gripping in audio than on the printed page.