The contrast between the beautiful language and ugly events was startling, but in part this contrast made the book what it is. without the eloquence it would be easy to ignore, block out, or give in to the feeling of helplessness or even call the whole situation unbelievable, exaggerated, made-up, and impossible to solve. Without the brutality and conflict witnessed by Achak Deng, there is no story - the plot would be: man moves from Africa to USA and his home is burgled. I'm horribly paraphrasing when I write that conflict is essential to story telling and prismatically reflects characters, cultures, and chronology so readers can more clearly see the nature of the subject. By that standard, every story of Africa should be as riveting as this one. Novelizing this memoir, and presumably smoothing out, embellishing, and aggregating experience, Eggers allows us as readers to more clearly see Deng, Sudan, and Sudanese refuges in North America. The depth provided by this prism is much greater even than what I have been able to gather from news streams and 'special reports', and even more clear than what I can decipher from Save Darfur slogans and other advocates. ( )

http://pergelator.blogspot.com/2008/1... ( )

Based on true facts, this novel is about a young boy from Sudan forced to flee for his life during a civil war. Intense with some violence. ( )

I'm glad I read this. I hardly knew anything about Sudan before I did, and I learned a lot from this book. However, it was sooooo difficult. Not the language—this was the first thing I read by Dave Eggers, and I found his style graceful and uncomplicated—but the subject. It was depressing. And I'm sure that's very realistic of the life of Valentino. But I had to keep putting this down and picking up lighter things to read, so it took me almost twice as long as normal to finish a book of this length. Like I said, I'm glad I read it, it felt important to do, but I don't know that I'd want to do it again. ( )

A semi-autobiographical tale of one amongst the thousands of ‘Lost Boys’ caught in a civil war, fleeing his home in Marial Bai and marching across the Sudan to find safety elsewhere. It is partially the story of the tragedy of the Sudan, but also the story of the sometimes overwhelming immigrant experience. While Achak often tries to express his gratitude to the many who came to his rescue I often felt otherwise. For example, his jobs in the US which paid $6.00 or $8.00 an hour (years ago) are not good enough for him. It seems it never occurred to him that many people much more qualified than he is are living on that wage today, and that much of the money that helped him arrive in this country came from charitable organizations that received donations from many people making only $6.00 or $8.00 an hour here, yet sending a portion to others to help. Here is a quote from the book “It was the habit of so many I knew, in Kakuma and later, to take the generosity of a person and stretch it to the breaking.” It is the underlying sense that I took away from the book. Achak come from a very proud nation and heritage, as is especially evident in the telling of the tale of the beginning of time in ‘What is the What,’ but in today’s sea of humanity such hubris can often lead to war.

Interesting link to the Valentino Achak Deng Foundation:

VAD Foundation ( )