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What Is the What | 
 enlarge | Author: Dave Eggers
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Category: Book
Buy Used: $11.40
Used (2) from $11.40
Avg. Customer Rating:  164 reviews
Sales Rank: 3467566
Format: Import
Media: Paperback
Edition: Open Market Ed
Pages: 560
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.9
Dimensions (in): 7.7 x 4.9 x 1.4
ISBN: 0141034025
EAN: 9780141034027
ASIN: 0141034025
Publication Date: October 4, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Condition: Brand New! Immediate Shipment!
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| Customer Reviews: Read 159 more reviews...
 Heartbreaking and uplifting October 14, 2008
This is, of course, the story of one of the Lost Boys of Sudan - Valentino Atchak Deng. The preface makes explicit that "many of the passages are fictional" and "the result is called a novel." Given the liberties (or outright fabrications) that pass for memoirs these days, one gets the feeling that WITW is probably a lot closer to the truth than accounts without such caveats.
The book itself is divided into three sections, each composed of a cross-talk between Deng's struggle for survival in Africa and, perhaps a bit more esoterically, in America. Deng's journey in both places is compelling -- in both places the fight is both physical and spiritual. In Africa, the physical threat is more immediate, but in the last section of the book, the emphasis flip-flops in a very unexpected way.
Eggers has given a wonderful voice to Deng. The first-person is used throughout, but it never becomes annoying or whiny. There are beautiful turns of phrases, such a "It was a broken world, I knew then, that would allow a boy such as me to bury a boy such as [spoiler name omitted]." One can almost hear the distinct Sudanese accent of Deng as the narrator -a firm, breathy and measured cadence. Throughout, Deng implicates the rest of the world for its ignorance and its callousness, but he never preaches - his criticism is a valid complaint but is also tempered by recognition of the people who did help him once they became aware of his burden. Eggers achieves a delicate balancing act, one that would probably be less successful if told as straighht non-fiction and staying solely on the African side of the ledger.
Very highly recommended.
a must read September 25, 2008
Dave Eggers' writing is superb and really allows the voice of Valentino Achak Deng, one of the Sudanese Lost Boys, to really come out. It's a very touching story and gives you a view on a part of Africa most people know nothing about.
Incredibly Moving September 9, 2008
This is a book that should be part of required reading in schools, colleges and in book clubs. Moving and inspirational true story about a people (The Dinka of Sudan...think Lost Boys) and of one boy/man in particular and his experiences. I find it hard to express how deeply moving and incredible this book is - not an easy summer read. You have to invest time and emotion into these pages. The author writes this story in a way that it would be impossible to do otherwise.
 Post Modern Colonialism September 8, 2008
[...]
"In the case of What Is the What, Eggers has made the very daring decision not only to fictionalize about extreme events that he never experienced, but to base his fictions of genocide on the true story of a real, living person. This might be his way of addressing precisely his lack of experience. But then why go to all the narrative trouble? Eggers could just as well have transcribed Deng's extraordinary story without fictionalizing it. The unadorned story, the true story humbly recorded and presented, would not have been lacking in force. The eerie, slightly sickening quality about What Is the What is that Deng's personhood has been displaced by someone else's style and sensibility -- by someone else's story. Deng survived his would-be killers in the Sudan, only to have his identity erased here."
And
"And Eggers's book is also another unsettling thing. I never thought I would reach for this vocabulary, but What Is the What's innocent expropriation of another man's identity is a post-colonial arrogance -- the most socially acceptable instance of Orientalism you are likely to encounter. Perhaps this is the next stage of American memoir. Perhaps, having run out of marketable stories to tell about ourselves, we will now travel the world in search of desperate people willing to rent out their lives, the way indigent people in some desolate places give up their children. Perhaps we have picked our psyches clean, and now we need other people's stories the way we need other people's oil."
Absolutely Amazing August 25, 2008
This is one of the most compelling books I've read in years. I picked this up after having watched the documentary, God Grew Tired of Us (also highly recommended) and, while I realize that the story of the Lost Boys has been told and retold, it hasn't been portrayed in such a moving and heartfelt way as in Egger's book. It is both funny and sad, deflating yet inspirational.
If you are already familiar with the Lost Boys' stories, you will find this book enlightening. It is sufficiently detailed to help the reader understand the types of atrocities these children endured during their time in Sudan and their struggles once reaching the US - in a way that the documentaries are not able to fully convey. If you are not already familiar with them, I think you will find the book moving and inspirational nonetheless. More than just telling the amazing story of a group of boys, it highlights the role of the Western world in developing countries, the impact that US charitable organizaitons can have on the lives of the less fortunate and the issues with which many African countries have struggled for centuries.
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