Now that was a lot of information. Too much.

Valentino Achak Deng is one of the lost boys of the civil war in Sudan. He survived a genocide, walking from Sudan to Ethiopia where boys were getting picked off one by one by lions in the night. Crocodiles, vultures, dysentery, soldiers tying to blow him up, starvation, a car accident, and a robbery in Atlanta after being relocated to the US.

Life has not been easy for Valentino. Yet he somehow keeps going with a positivity that is hard to believe. The story is moving, and Dave Eggers can sure turn a phrase, but there was so much detail.....(oh my poor overloaded head) if this hadn't been an audiobook I never would have gotten through it.

But that does not mean that I don't admire Valentino, or that I believe his story (and that of Sudan) should not have been told. I do.

It just that, less is more sometimes.

3.5 stars.

Written in the first-person, this book started off as a captivating epic tale of a Sudanese boy's life, from Southern Sudan village life to genocide; from many hundred mile walks with others mostly boys, escaping for their lives; through to refugee status, through to resettlement in the US... with this very book's proceeds going to help people like him; a story told, by looking back as the narrator himself is robbed in his own home and tied up!
Some of the Lost Boys of Sudan

However what started of as a compelling and painful look at what was happening in Sudan became an almost monotonous read which yet again on rereading was a bit of a struggle to get to the end of. It almost feels like the escape from Genocide is the story that I wanted to really dig deep into, and having a whole second story about life in a refugee camp although illuminating, took away a lot of the momentous first half of this book? Still very much a must read for people that want to know a little more about Southern Sudan and refugee camp life. 7 out of 12

2022 read; 2009 read

No longer using this website, but I'm leaving up old reviews. Fuck Jeff Bezos. Find me on LibraryThing: https://www.librarything.com/profile/...

A the tail-end of my college experience, the campus craze to "Save Darfur" popularized. The coalitions that came together at my school to speak out against the atrocities committed in Sudan's Darfur region were varied: campus Christian groups and College Republicans as well as Fair Trade boosters and liberals. I found their politics to be abhorrent and irresponsible. In 2006, the US was three years into a war on Iraq which had recently been recast as a humanitarian intervention. On the one hand, the Christians and the Republicans gathered to chant, "Out of Iraq, Into Sudan!" at tiny, ignored rallies. On the other hand, paternalizing liberals begged the campus to save the poor Africans from violence by Raising Awareness (TM). These threads of white supremacy throughout the "Save Darfur" campaigns gave me compassion fatigue. I didn't consciously avoid becoming better informed about refugee struggles in Africa, but I never bothered to try to understand them either. I'm not proud of my reactionary thought pattern. I saw idiots saying dumb shit about things towards with I should be sympathetic and I ignored that towards which I should have been sympathetic.

It is therefore embarrassing that almost all of what I know about the Sudan is from a book written by a white hipster writer who streamlined the autobiography of Valentino Achak Deng, an actual living Sudanese man who had endured a thousand-mile walk as a child to become an international refugee. I am choosing to believe that everything good I drew from this book came from the recorded sessions he had with the author.

When it seemed like his whole life had lead up to arriving in America to enjoy the fruits of his decades-long struggle for a dignified life, the story of Valentino Achak Deng didn't end. That is what was beautiful about this book. With the goal of going to college, Achak is sidelined by the disappointment from his US benefactors that the Sudanese are not immaculate immigrant archetypes but actual human beings. He is sidelined by poverty and the rat-race that is the attempt to attain middle-class status. And he leads a normal, banal life.

I can't say I would recommend this book to others, but I'm glad I listened to it myself.

The thing about this novel was that it was hard to read but impossible to put down. It also served as a pretty solid argument that understatement augments the impact of a tragedy, though knowing that these things actually happened and not everyone lived to recall the horrors detailed within this book certainly added an extra layer of misery to a tale already caked with it.

It wasn’t all sad stories, which made the the little victories seem like epic wins against a backdrop of profound physical and mental anguish. While I couldn’t help but grin like an idiot during the few celebratory highs in the story, it made the inevitable backlash of suffering pack more of a punch. I didn’t actually cry until Noriyaki’s family and fiancée showed up, and pretty much sniffled my way through the remainder of the book. The realization that Valentino, both as a child and an adult, only wants the kinds of things I’ve taken for granted did not help.

This is an autobiography based on the life of a Lost Boy of Sudan, Valentino Achak Deng. Because he was so young and went through so much trauma many of his memories had to be reconstructed and that is why this is listed as fiction. I was really engrossed in this novel. Achak and the other boys who had to run from the war in their villages had to be brave and resourceful. I’m amazed by his story and everything he had to go through. Imagine having the boy next to you snatched and eaten by a lion. Eventually Achak did end up in the United States and I guess he did find his calling as he is now managing schools in Sudan.

On the cosmic scale of noble publishing ventures, “What is the What” must rank near the top. Though billed as a novel, the book is the story of one of the Lost Boys of Sudan by the name of Valentino Achak Deng and, though written by Dave Eggers, all proceeds from the book go to Deng's foundation. Noble.

Deng’s story is a harrowing one. A brief and characteristic example comes after he buries a friend during the long march (spoiler-redacted);
n  

”When I was finished, I told (him) that I was sorry. I was sorry that I had not known how sick he was. That I had not found a way to keep him alive. That he could not say goodbye to his mother and father, that only I would know where his body lay. It was a broken world, I knew then, that would allow a boy such as me, to bury a boy such as (him) “

n
The subject, and the telling, clearly hold immeasurable dramatic power, so why did I give the book three stars?

This was my first foray into Dave Eggers territory, so I can’t say with any erudition whether the voice, as some have complained, is that of the author rather than his subject - that’s one of the problems with writing a book like this, I guess. What I can say is the voice is extraordinarily believable and it tells a story that borders on the unimaginable. Truth, as they say, is stranger than fiction or, in this case, considerably more inhumane and I found the revelations of abject disregard for humanity as compelling as I found them disturbing.

Nor did I have the usual complaints about the story; that it’s too damnatory of American culture, or that it’s too saccharine. My most significant complaint would simply be that it was too long. I love an epic story but this one just seemed to get weaker with the telling. I feel as though this should be one of the more important books I’ve read - the tale it tells is one that so needed to be told in such a thorough, personal fashion - but the portrayal eventually rendered itself almost commonplace. Perhaps the author tamped down his inclinations for drama when, in this case, more was called for.

If there’s one area where this “novel” shines, though, that would be in its unadorned depiction of mortal desire. Deng is stripped of everything but his corporeality and, still, he possesses universal, intrinsic human longings: to be loved, to find kinship and, most important of all, to be recognized as real. The story of Valentino Achak Deng is in some ways a classic one, of total loss and the noble struggle to regain the barest foundation of his humanity; the simple recognition that his existence matters. Eggers chronicles his saga with humor and pathos, tenderness and dignity, and that alone may be reason enough to read “What is the What”.

A truly stunning work based on the” Lost Boys” of Sudan – Valentino Achak Deng (a real person) - who is violently uprooted from his family and village. His journey though Southern Sudan to Ethiopia, back to Sudan and finally to Northern Kenya is juxtaposed against his current experiences in the U.S.

This story contains many themes – struggle, friendship, love and death. He embarks on a journey to adulthood and tries to find stability in his many adversarial environments. All the “Lost Boys” (and there are a few girls) are deeply traumatized by their experiences – the starvation, the long walks, the camps where they attempt a life of “normalcy”. Many cannot adjust properly to life in the United States. They cannot forsake the anguish they have suffered in their young lives.

The book is written with tenderness and compassion and at times with sardonic humour – particularly some of the passages about life in the U.S. If you find current novels inwardly narcissistic and claustrophobic (as I do) this may be the book for you – it reaches out. It did take me over one hundred pages to adjust to and start absorbing. Also I found the descriptions of violent episodes somewhat awkward.

It describes a real world that North Americans and Europeans are remote from. It is a journey and a magnificent struggle to achieve humanity.

Vídeo opinião no Instagram @os_livros_da_lena

Parte I - https://www.instagram.com/tv/CXl5jYyl...

Parte II - https://www.instagram.com/tv/CXl77_3l...

Valentino Achak es arrastrado por la incertidumbre inmisericorde de la guerra civil sudanesa. Su vida, su huida, es la narración de un mundo que para muchos nos es ajeno: el de los refugiados en la espera de recobrar su dignidad, los desplazados que cargan con el miedo y la amenaza permanente, el de los marginados por la mala voluntad de los poderosos y la indiferencia del resto de acomodados. Me tienta decir que la suya es la “Odisea” del hombre contemporáneo, pero pecaría de ingrato desde el escritorio de mi privilegio.

Eggers logra convertir la narración oral de su protagonista en una novela que se agarra al corazón del lector y le exprime tantas lágrimas como esperanzas. “Qué es el qué” conmueve hasta la gratitud; pero asusta con el más crudo de los realismos. Siento que esta es una de esas obras que me harán evocar escenas, sensaciones y diálogos en momentos importantes de mi vida. Por eso mismo, se ha convertido en uno de esos libros que servirán de presente para las personas que abrigan la calidez de mi alma.

Beautiful story, terribly written. Took me ages to finish this book.

When reading this book, you have to separate two things: the story of the Sudanese refugee Valentino/Dominic Achak Deng and what Dave Eggers did with it. I'll start with Deng.

It's impossible not to feel sympathy for Deng's story. What he describes is horrendous and endearing at the same time: the persecution of the dinka minority in South Sudan by the Islamic-Arab regime in Khartoum, the long deadly marches of the 'Lost Boys' to Ethiopia and, after their expulsion there, to Kenya , the difficult life in refugee camps, the existential choice between joining the armed resistance or staying aside, between accepting the offer to resettle in the rich West or returning to your family, and finally the problematic integration in the United States. The way Deng brings us his story is very authentic, especially because he tells it without much frills, even at the hardest of moments, and with great attention for the very mixed feelings he had towards what happened around him. The great merit of this story is that you learn how complex the refugee existence is, and how daunting the challenges are a refugee has to face.

The story is not only horrendous, but also endearing. Deng seems to be someone who has an unrestrained and open attitude, always tries to see the good and almost never gives up. That can be incredible: with all that happened to him you would expect him to be cynical and bitter or very fanatical and radical. That's not the case, and I believe him. The endearment also stems from the fact that his story at times becomes a very classic 'coming of age' story, for example, where he talks about the confrontation with the great mature world of the rebels, and more so when he describes his struggle with the other gender. At such moments, it seems like you're getting a picture of an ordinary puberty in an ordinary context, but of course that's not the case at all. And precisely that's one of the charms of this book.

Of course there also are a few shortcomings. As Deng says in the introduction, he brings a very personal and thus subjective story. The reader better be warned that he shall absolutely not get an objective picture of the complex conflict in Sudan in recent decades. For example: Deng is very short on the ethnic conflicts within South Sudan itself (between dinka and nuer), which, unfortunately, have become all too clear after the independence in 2011, with another awefull round of civil war as a consequence.

But then there's the role of Dave Eggers. The American author has been working with Deng for three years, listening to his story for hours and hours on end, and processing all of it in this book. Initially, I found that the method used by Eggers, a frame-story, really works. The opening scene in which our main character is brutally attacked and robbed in his Atlanta appartment, is brilliant: it immediately avoids that the whole story of Deng csan be seen as a succesfull rescue story ("Sudanese refugee is pulled out of the African pool of misery and builds a glorious future in the paradisiacal United States of America"). Also, the rapid succession of Deng's internal monologues to the robbers, looking back on more violent episodes in Sudan, has been done brilliantly. But then the dynamic of the story slows, and Eggers lets Deng bring longer and longer flashbacks, often also about his highly personal feelings, and thus at the expense of the tempo of the story.

So from a literary point of view, the book is not an overall success. But let’s not make too much of a fuss about that. "What's the What?" is a worthy human document. Maybe the tragedy it deals with wasn't the biggest of the last decades (what happened in Rwanda and Congo was actually much and much worse), but it remains a gruesome testimony of what people are doing to each other in this modern age and how the victims are dealing with this tragedy, each in their own way.

Finally of course, the question remains, "What is the What?". Do not expect an explicit answer to this question, even though the attentive reader will probably find enough clues to formulate a satisfying answer. Fortunately, Eggers uses this gimmick only very sparingly, because actually it’s not more than that: a gimmick.

First up - I did enjoy this book but in some ways it was a really tough slog. The good: fascinating story, heartbreaking at times, and gave me an insight into a part of the world I knew next to nothing about. The bad: went on for probably about 200 pages too long with a dwindling story line. It could have ended on such a powerful note but it felt like the writer ran out of steam. It's not a long book but it took me a long time to read. Overall I'm glad I read it but wish I could have kept some momentum going towards the end there.