What is the What
I picked up What Is The What at a book swap and was pretty confused about it being labeled a novel. It reads more like a biography or memoir, especially detailing the more mundane aspects of refugee life as young Valentino Achek Deng is caught in a bloody Sudanese civil war and forced to relocate time and time again as one of the Lost Boys of Sudan.
I feel like if the book had been 100% fiction the story would have been tighter and more interesting. But at the same time I feel like if it was 90% non-fiction then I am a big jerk to think Valentino's life of war and survival was boring.
I really loved the way the story jumped between the present and the past, how the main character spent his present periods of suffering and waiting to recount the past periods of suffering, fleeing and waiting. This technique drew very clear parallels between Valentino's suffering in Sudan and his suffering in Atlanta - though there may be more dust and blood in Sudan, it doesn't invalidate his suffering in Atlanta.
Even at the end of the book we encounter Valentino fleeing once again, nothing in his life has really settled or worked out for him: his jobs, his schooling, his love life, his home life. Then the little blurb at the very back about Valentino (the real man, not the character) indicates he had become very successful in his college career and his returns to Sudan.
Why were those successes not included in the book? It would have give the book a little glimmer of hope, instead of the feeling that refugees will always be caught in the cycle of fleeing and waiting.
