What is the What? That is the question...

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	• What Is the What (Vintage) Dave Eggers Vintage, 2007 - 560 pages average customer review:based on 163 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Frightening and moving

I liked it because it is such an unusual, almost improbable story. There are so many words to descibe it: funny, sweet, compelling, strange, unforgettable. One of the best "coming of age" stories I've ever read.

What is the What? That is the question...

I just completed this novel and when I reflect on it, the story is simply amazing. Valentino Achak Deng's life in America is a world away from the life he lived in war-torn Sudan, yet at the same, the challenges are synonymous. Dave Eggers gently interweaves past, present, and, very precisely, future, into a 535 page novel that does not have a dull moment.

This novel deals with very serious topics all deriving from a youth's point of view. Valentino comes across as a humorous, enlightening, and forgiving individual, and by the novel's culmination, you grow to understand that even the greatest offenses must be forgiven, for there is something out there much more difficult that what we know.

This novel is not meant to make readers sympathize or pity with Valentino; rather, it is meant to give an understanding of global issues and the people who are affected by them.

What is the What? Perhaps we must all answer that ourselves one day.

5/5

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So good it hurts

This book is magnificent. I don't think I've ever enjoyed or appreciated a book more. Through the narrative of Valentino Achek Deng, Eggers manages to tell an important contemporary story about Sudan and Africa while also providing moving insight about America and about the nature of being human. The book is also extraordinarily clever in its use of a disjointed narrative, multiple settings, and a distinct voice. But the beauty for me is that it is not too clever. I sometimes feel that the hip, contemporary American writers - of whom Eggers is a prototype - try too hard to be clever, ending up as snarky and self-righteous. For me, there was some of that in Egger's A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius (as there was in They Shall Know our Velocity--though I have to admit to liking that one; not as many people do, but I found it a quirky take on young Americans as they relate to somewhat obscure parts of the globalizing world). But in What is the What there is a moving earnestness that underlies the cleverness, and a reader realizes that ironic distance is not really the signature of cool. Instead, cool is about fully engaging with events and people, those in Sudan and in the US, that suggest something about the reality and meaning of modern life.

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Experience the Horrors of the Lost Boys

The story is about Valentino Achak Deng who was a refugee from the Sudanese Civil War, which happened in the 1980s and 90s before the problems in Darfur. This is almost a memoir, retold by the author after hours of conversations with the Valentino Achak. The book, however, is a novel, with added dialogue, and some characters created from composites of people Achak knew. Also, since some of this tale was written when Achak was quite young, some of the events are recreations that may not be exactly as they happened. As one of the "Lost Boys", who separated from their families, traveled miles to find safety, you will learn of the horrors that beset these people through Achak's narration. I had some understanding of this situation before reading the book, but this book really brings what happened home in a way that the news never did, and that I will never forget. Many of these young boys did not make it to safety, often simply unable to continue on due to disease, starvation and lack of water, they simply sat down and died. The rebels killed some, and lions or crocodiles ate others. The book then follows Achak and his fellow "Lost Boys" to the refugee camps where they find life is not what they had imagined, but instead is full of hardships, and years of waiting and hoping for a way out. We then travel with Achak to the United States, where he finds life continues to be a challenge, and his dream of going to college, would not come as soon as he had expected. This was an excellent book that will bring home to you the horrors of what has happened and continues to happen in Sudan and Darfur today. I had a little trouble with the narrative style of the book, where Achak, who is tied and lying on the floor of his own apartment as it is being robbed, narrates the story in his head to a young boy who is left to guard him as the other's leave the apartment for a time. I would be deeply into the events of the story, then it would revert back to the apartment and this young boy who he wanted to give his story to, and at times it interrupted the flow. I did, however, adjust to this theme as the story continued.

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a masterpiece

Eggers' most mature work to date, brilliantly written and heartfelt. Even if you did not enjoy AHWOSG you will love this book.

reviews: 1, 2, page 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12

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