20080902

Book: Non-Fictional Novel
Author: Dave Eggers
Year: 2006
Pages: 473

Apart from a sometimes painfully awkward framing device and a style of writing that is dull enough to actively distance readers from emotionally connecting to the life and pain of one Valentino Achak Deng (a.k.a. Dominic), What Is the What ended up being not half bad. I suppose it was only a third bad.

Or maybe not actually bad. Maybe just one-third Not Great. Which is okay. We can't all be great.

"What is the what?" is a question that Valentino had been asking himself for a long time. Ever since he was Achak. Back before being reintroduced to his Christian name. The story goes: God approached the ancient Dinka, a people pregnant with hope and dignity, and offered them mastery of cattle, the source of life and greatness. That or the What. God never adequately explained the What to the Dinka and the Dinka, having seen UHF and knowing that there was nothing in the box and that box-pickers are so stupid, chose the safe bet. Cattle. And therefore, life and that abundantly. The other people got the What. Which is why apparently they took out their aggressions on the Dinka.

Okay, so that was a very loose paraphrase.

In any case, Valentino is busy wondering what the What could be when some of his Dinka brethren decide to begin a civil war against the northern half of Sudan (which is largely Muslim and Arab). The North is not a fan of this idea and so does its best to extinguish the Dinka (whether they own cattle or not). This started in 1983 or so and went on a good twenty years before stopping only to maybe start up again in the near future. In the end it really only has anything to do with the What if the What happens to be a thirst for money (and preexistent religious incompatibility). But Valentino doesn't know that. He's only six.

Or he is at first. He grows up over the course of the story. While a lot of his companions die, are killed, are kidnapped, or are lost.

Speaking frankly, Sudan has been an unmitigated disaster of country-running pretty much since it gained indepedence from its colonial British overlords. Since the war began in 1983, well over 2 million Dinka were genocidally put to pasture. What little infrastructure the Southern half of the country had thirty years ago is long since evaporated. There is hope for the country, but it's a slender hope. And a tenuous one. By the way, in case you missed it: 2 million.

To be certain, the subject matter of What Is the What is important for a largely ignorant American audience. We react easily, as a nation, to massacres like Columbine or the World Trade Center destruction, but compared to Sudan, these are mere stubbed toes while Sudan features sheared limbs and exposed organs. We should react easily and emotionally to the Columbines and the World Trade Centers, but we should react as well to the other terrors humanity perpetrates upon itself. Since 1999 I've been part of an organization that has worked with and in Southern Sudan (and Uganda and Kenya). I've met Rebecca Garang (wife of John Garang, the guy who essentially started the civil war by rebelling against an oppressive government). I've seen pictures, heard stories, and met those affected immediately by the situation. The story Eggers presents has more than the ring of truth to it. So far as things go, it is true—in that it represents with unflinching veracity the reality of the Sudanese problem.

I only wish it had been better written.

Eggers does not merely tell his story. He offers a framing device. One that does not adequately capture the life of Valentino and occasionally draws one so far out of story that it becomes difficult to reign back in. (I actually put the book down twice in order to read other books, despite having a limited time to complete What Is the What.) The book opens with Valentino being robbed and assaulted and he takes the opportunity over the next day and a half to think his story at his assailants and other non-Sudanese who come into his path. He's a good man and I feel for him, but the narrative trick just didn't work.

On top of this, Eggers' style here is rather lifeless. He's trying to write in the authentic voice of the very real Valentino Achak Deng, but the work suffers for it. The story content is fascinating but its delivery robs it of much of its fire and zest. It's not incompetent writing. It's just not enjoyable. Or interesting.

And that's just a shame.

Rating:

20080110

Some time ago, I heard a question that shocked me and then riddled me with a morbid sort of glee. From a sixth-grader:

Who's King Arthur?

Now the important thing is the tone and tenor she invested in the question's delivery. But first, let's examine the context of the exclamation

We had been playing Apples to Apples, one of those party games that inevitably sunders the relationships between families, friends, and once-possible future love interests because its entire mechanism for scoring relies wholly upon that most fickle of justices, a single player's subjective taste. To be fair, Apples to Apples is probably my second favourite party game (being one of the two in which I will willingly and almost happily participate); still, that doesn't alter the reality that it is a statistical fact that the irrevocable turning point of 74% of all marriages toward divorce is the playing of such games.*

Anyway, the idea is that the judge of the round (i.e., the victim of forthcoming animosity and/or divorce) holds a card upon which is written a word. Perhaps an adjective. Perhaps dismissive or villainous or even, if you can imagine it, boring. All other competitor holds a hand of five-to-seven cards upon each of which is written a term. Perhaps these are nominatives. Perhaps Earl Grey tea or Three-Mile Island or even, again if your imagination bears such rigour, my love life. Or even, perhaps the most astonishing inclusion of all: King Arthur. Now the goal is to choose the card from your hand that best matches the card in the judge's Clenched Fist of Arbitrary Justice (+3 Sta, +2 Agi, -2 Wis, and 20% Frost Resist) is not important to the tale with which I presently regale.

No, what is important here is merely the expression that sprung from this dear lass the moment she considered the cards that lay before her. I reiterate for the fleet-minded:

Who's King Arthur?

The force and vigour with which these words were proclaimed were only remarkable when one fails to recall the arrogant distaste with which youth so often approaches the ever-broadening perspective of life, as if anything outside of current knowledge is not only clearly and obviously irrelevant to all life but that too such information is a horrible affront to acceptable social dignity. In youth, as ever, ignorance is brash and distrusts gravely that which is unencountered.

"Who's King Arthur?" As if King Arthur deserves to be known. "Who's King Arthur?" As if anyone knows who he is! "Who's King Arthur?" What kind of horrible game would expect me to bother knowing something so clearly obscure as that? "Who's King Arthur?" What kind of pariah would actually know who King Arthur is?**

So even though I probably oughtn't to have been surprised, I was. Perhaps not so much with the distaste with which she approached her ignorance, but more with the fact that we live in a world in which a sixth-grader in America has no idea who King Arthur is!

Gawain? Percival? I could see that. Bedivere? Sure. Even Galahad and Morgan le Fey. I could see a certain lack of cultural affixation there. I might even give a pass to an absent knowledge of Lancelot or Guinevere. But Arthur? Wow, that's like not knowing who Merlin is. Or that strumpet in the lake. Or Robin Hood. There's even a Disney movie Arthur - though to be fair, they make him an anthropomorphic animal or have him scat like Phil Harris.

At this point, I would continue but grow bored. And so I cease...

THE END

*note: of the remaining divorces, 16% hinge on an instance of infidelity (real or imagined), 4% on irreconcilable musical tastes, 3% on an indefinable sense of ennui, 2% on general misanthropy, and the final 1% on lace as a decorating motif.***

**note: I realize that an American who does not know who King Arthur is likely doesn't know what a pariah is either...

***note: yeah, I thought that lace would place higher too; we should be grateful for the evidently strong levels of patience in our country.

Harbouring Harbours

Hm, additionally, I just remembered that in the past (and likely into the future, however brief that will be), France has refused to extradite criminals who would be in danger of receive capital punishment for their crimes. I think this is a textbook case of harbouring, and should be dealt with swiftly and with great fire lest others think we are "soft" on those who harbour the villains of the world.

British Harbours

So wait, if the British officials hadn't caught those terrorists yesterday, would that mean we would have to begin bombing the U.K. for harbouring terrorists? Or should we begin bombing them anyway for harbouring known IRA terrorists for all these years? I keep forgetting how our foreign policy works.