Search the Products Store
Search the Book Store
clog dancing Book Store Index
Privacy Policy
Copyright Notice
Home
|
|
What Is the What (Vintage) |
Author: Dave Eggers
Published: 2007-10-09 |
List price: $15.95
Our price: $10.85
|
Usually ships in 24 hours
As of: January 06th, 2009 12:28:30 AM
|
|
|
Customer comments on this selection.
 The Cattle or the What?
A Sudanese version of the Boat People. Instead of pirates, you have the gruesome attacks of militias, lions, malaria. Instead of a sea of sea and malnourished Asian/Mexican heads, a sea of starving children (amongst them, the Lost Boys), civilians, and boys/men with fancy guns on the dessicated landscape of Sudan, Ethiopia.
The book is powerful because it carries a violent voice of honesty. It shatters one's concept of stability and security. I find the various names of Valentino engaging. Also, Zone Eight is riveting and haunting. It also attacks the issue of being in limbo, being stagnant as refugees, which I believe represents all aspect of human existence, regardless of where you reside, on the wealthiest corner of the earth, or the most impoverished.
I highly recommend the book because it opens the eyes of those who are blind to the suffering of others. Awareness is a wonderful medicine for those who are in limbo.
 What is the What
The end of the year is an appropriate time to review the books that we have read and to evaluate whether or not a particular book has made a significant impact on us. What is the What is truly one of the genuinely important books that came into my hands this year. I have read many books on many different topics that have pleased and entertained. What is the What is the book that stands out as a must read for every person. We can no longer close our eyes and our ears to the tragedies that confront large numbers of people in our world. What is the What will challenge, inspire and awaken us to what it means to be human.
One of the best books I've read.
Actually, I got this book on audio CD from the library. Most of the discs had scratches on them, so I had to check out the book, too, to read the parts I'd missed. Anyway, this compelling story involved me in this ongoing crisis much more deeply than what I had read in the news. While I was already somewhat aware of the conflict in Sudan, Valentino's story made it real for me. All of the characters were completely believable. This novel educated me about facts of the situation without seeming preachy. Although it was painful to endure all of Valentino's suffering along with him, it remained an enjoyable story even with all that horror.
About the audio recording: it is the best performance I've heard yet. Most of the time, when men do women's voices, it makes me wince. This reader, Dion Graham, did al the voices so well that it really seemed like a woman speaking. I do not know if Valentino's accent was correct, but it sounded good. It was almost startling when the reader shifted from the voice of a Sudanese refugee to that of a thug in Atlanta so easily and authentically. His voice was enjoyable throughout the whole story. Other audio CDs have terrible readings. Skinny Dip, which I'm currently listening to, has a reader with an annoying voice in the first place, and it gets worse when he does the voices of the characters. I am suffering through the book because I like the story. Dion Graham did an excellent job on this reading, and I would recommend the audio CD over the book because his performace adds so much to the story.
What was the What?
Valentino Achak Deng's story alone would have been enough to win my approval of this fine piece of literature. Although What is the What by Dave Eggers was officially published as a novel, it is the true survival story of a Sudanese boy and his eventual transition to American culture. This is the type of book that can make you laugh and cry. Although it is a tragic story, Eggers includes scenes that show life in such a dark time, which can leave a smile on the reader's face.
Perhaps the most amazing thing about this first person novel is that it is not an autobiography. Although Eggers writes Valentino's story, Eggers masterfully takes on Valentino's voice. As I read the novel, I completely forgot that 8 year old Valentino himself had not authored the book.
Through the doorway I saw some kind of airplane, coming low over the village. It was a fascinating kind of plane, black everywhere and dull, unreflective. The planes I had seen before resembled birds in a rudimentary way, with noses and wings and chests, but this machine looked nothing so much as a cricket (75).
Eggers is one of the few talented writes that can maintain the simplicity of a child point of view, and simultaneously use the skill of a great writer to create a sophisticated passage. The helicopters that attacked Valentino's village look like "crickets," but only in a "rudimentary way." Eggers's contrast in diction in this scene shows his talent to merge simplicity and complexity.
The book is essentially two different stories that are beautifully woven together. The first is about Valentino's childhood hardships as a refugee, and the second is about some of the hardships he experiences once living in America. Eggers transitions between the two flawlessly which implicitly compares and contrasts the two worlds Valentino struggled through. He even completely combines present and past when he tells Valentino's past to various characters in present America including Julian, a hospital attendant: "The walk to Ethiopia, Julian, was only the beginning. Yes we had walked for months across deserts and wetlands, our ranks thinned daily. There was war all over southern Sudan... (256)." The story is not being told to the reader, but rather to Julian. Julian is an insignificant character to the story, but using him as a listener creates informality in the writing. Because Eggers writes to a certain person, he can really expand on the emotions that Valentino felt as he fled his country. It was a brilliant way for Eggers to narrate the story.
What is the What is a literary masterpiece with an epic story. It is written in such a beautiful way and describes such a moving story that this book cannot be left unread once started. It teaches the reader much about Sudanese history, human rights, and assimilation to American culture. Dave Eggers and Valentino Achak Deng share with us a magnificent story that should have a place on every bookshelf.
What is What is the What
David Eggers beautifully tells the tale of the struggles and triumphs of Valentino Achak Deng, a Lost Boy of Sudan. Raised in peaceful, pre-Civil War Sudan, growing up walking for months to Ethiopia, maturing in various refugee camps, and reaching adulthood struggling to learn a new culture, Valentino has had a life of constant movement and hardship. Yet, the book does not leave the reader feeling depressed; Valentino's personality and strength reminds the reader of the resiliency of the human soul. At times it even manages to find humor despite the heavy subject matter.
Eggers' beautiful description and agility with language paints a portrait of the life Valentino led, the places he saw, the people he knew, and the events he witnessed. Labeled as a work of fiction, Valentino's preface ensures that this tale is an honest account of the life he knew. Relatable, imaginative, and descriptive in the most creative way, Eggers made this 535 paged book an addictive and enjoyable read. The novel has a high level of intensity, only stopping briefly just long enough for the audience to catch their breath. Showing rather than telling, his words hold much more weight and provoke vivid images: "She fell, and the white parts of her dress became red."
Rather than just only telling a "sob story" about Valentino's life, the book provides insightful social and political commentary. In the Sudanese Civil War, there were obvious enemies and oppressors, but Valentino tells about the unexpected enemies and rivals that Civil War creates: "I came to resent the sight of my own people, to loathe how many of them there were, how needful, gangrenous, bug-eyed and wailing." In the refugee camp, these issues became deeper with the mixing of many nationalities and ethnicities. He does an excellent job of making the reader understand the paranoia, suspicion and distrust that festers underneath the surface of refugee life. When Valentino is interviewing applicants for a job in Kakuma refugee camp he faces a conflict of race. "I found myself trusting the Kenyan, whom I did not know, more than my own countrymen. This happened occasionally and always it was a conundrum."
The book shows the identity crisis caused from moving quickly from country to country, always having an uncertain future. "What was life in Kakuma? Was it life? There was a debate about this. On the one hand, we were alive which meant that we were living a life, and that we were eating and could enjoy friendships and learning and could love. But we were no where." As he traveled from place to place during war times, his attitude became bleaker and bleaker, yet reveals an unsettling truth, "I knew that the world was the same everywhere, that there were only inconsequential variations between the suffering in one place and another."
Probably the most surprising struggle Valentino faced was adjusting to life in America. He looked to America as a haven, a holy land with no problems or worries. The reality of America was much different and caused conflict in the hearts of Valentino and the other Lost Boys. The duality of African refugee life in America is troubling. Facing poverty, theft, racism, and intolerance in America, the refugees have to be careful as to not seem ungrateful. "[America] is a miserable place, of course, a miserable and glorious place that I love dearly and of which I have seen far more than I could have expected."
Provocative and informative, this book is a must read for anyone interested in the story of the Lost Boys or East African Affairs. This clear tale of one man's journey is emotional and thought-provoking all at once. Eggers and Deng make great storytellers as documented in What is the What.
-JULIA Z
|
|
Our clog dancing book picks:
|
|
Search the clog dancing Products Store
LCS Amazon Store 2.5 © 2009
|