What Is the What (Vintage) | 
 enlarge | Author: Dave Eggers
Publisher: Vintage
Category: Book
List Price: $15.95
Buy New: $9.01
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Avg. Customer Rating:  151 reviews
Sales Rank: 577
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 560
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.9
Dimensions (in): 7.9 x 5.2 x 1.1
ISBN: 0307385906
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.6
EAN: 9780307385901
ASIN: 0307385906
Publication Date: October 9, 2007
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Shipping: International shipping available
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Product Description
What Is the What is the epic novel based on the life of Valentino Achak Deng who, along with thousands of other children--the so-called Lost Boys--was forced to leave his village in Sudan at the age of seven and trek hundreds of miles by foot, pursued by militias, government bombers, and wild animals, crossing the deserts of three countries to find freedom. When he finally is resettled in the United States, he finds a life full of promise, but also heartache and myriad new challenges. Moving, suspenseful, and unexpectedly funny, What Is the What is an astonishing novel that illuminates the lives of millions through one extraordinary man.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 146 more reviews...
 So good it hurts July 17, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
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.
 Experience the Horrors of the Lost Boys July 13, 2008
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.
a masterpiece July 11, 2008
Eggers' most mature work to date, brilliantly written and heartfelt. Even if you did not enjoy AHWOSG you will love this book.
Has his life improved? You be the judge July 10, 2008
Beginning with a naively trusting man being robbed and beaten by criminals who were invited in after pleading to use the phone, "What Is The What" grabs you from the get-go, both by the plot and by the matter-of-fact and stark voice of a Sudanese refugee in which the story is told.
Not resembling Egger's other works at all, "What Is The What" is the memoir of Valentino Achak Deng, as told to Eggers in numerous interviews and conversations, and the fact that the story leaves practically no trace of Eggers' own self-conscious and self-aware pretense is a testament to both the incredible elements of the narrative and the author's writing ability.
The novel plots the events leading Deng from a happy childhood in southern Sudan, through a gruesome and bloody civil war, across the country on a many-mile walk to Ethiopia, then down to the refugee camp of Kakuma in Kenya. The main style of narrative is through Deng's flashbacks to his childhood when he was beaten, shot at, and generally went through all types of horror that any ten people in America would never see in their lifetimes. And all of these flashbacks happen while he is being robbed and beaten in his apartment in Atlanta, where these things should not be happening to him any longer.
For all the violence and horror that the book shows, it can get to be a little much sometimes, even to the point where the narrative dragged a bit. Thankfully, there is enough humor injected through Deng's perceptions and observations that most of the time, the story is fresh and addictive. And although it is ultimately a very good read, it did seem to lack resolution.
Simply Speaking-An engaging, enthralling novel. June 29, 2008
I prefer not to add to the elegant and thorough reviews of this book that were placed by other readers. Simply put-this is an enthralling, fascinating and thought provoking novel that places its readers squarely in the bare feet of Valentino Achak Deng, its protagonist. It does not stir up feelings of pity, but helps the reader to intimately understand and feel the struggle of the young Sudanese boy, and to realize that there is evil, pain and struggle everywhere, not just in Africa, but everywhere...even Atlanta...it shows that life is just a circle, and that it really does not matter how civilized a society thinks it is, in the end, we are all human beings capable of the worst characteristics and prepared to act unjustly against other human beings.
This is a book that explains human behaviour without teaching. A truly wonderful work of art.
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