dispatches from quilt city

What is the What

I just finished Dave Eggers's brilliant novel What is the What, based on the story of one of the Lost Boys of Sudan, Valentino Achak Deng. While the book came highly recommended from Nicholas and my good friend Dylan, I was afraid I wouldn't be able to connect to the story and might not finish it. I looked only at the surface and thought I could not relate to the story of an African male escaping genocide. This was not the only preconceived notion this book blew right open.

Now, after finishing the book, I've realized I was more afraid of connecting with the book then anything else. It is not an easy story to hear - the murder, the deprivation, the invisibility - and I think on some level I was really scared to hear it, scared of feeling helpless in the face of it. However, Eggers did a really brilliant thing by beginning the book with Valentino already in America. While his problems don't disappear once he's on American soil, as becomes abundantly clear in the first couple of pages, on some level you know he survived - you know he made it out of Sudan.

Of course, another perception the book destroyed is that escaping Sudan was the only goal for most refugees. Whatever the circumstance, home is home and it holds a powerful pull for all the characters in the book. The book not only shifted my perception of Sudan but also my perception of the refugee camps so many Sundanese live in to this day. The book makes clear that these are not temporary camps but permanent settlements where people live out their lives. It's not surprising I suppose but distressing all the same.

The book not only shifted my perceptions of the places in a refugees life but the refugees themselves. Either because of my own prejudices or what I believe would be my own reaction to the situation - I expected the Sundanese refugees, including Valentino, to be more than willing to ask for and accept help and aid where ever they could. But, of course, this was not the case. Just like any other group of people - some were embarrassed to ask for help, while others were willing to exploit it.

I suppose this was the ultimate lesson of the book. By telling Valentino's story with such honesty Eggers does an excellent job of illustrating that, despite everything, the Lost Boys are just human beings. Human beings put through an extraordinary situation - some survived, some didn't, some thrived, some didn't. But at the end of the day, they are just like us and we have a larger connection then I expected.