SPL Reads!

The Avid Readers group convened on a cold Thursday night to enjoy some cheesecake and discuss Dave Eggers’ heartwrenching novel What is the What.  The novel, which is based on the actual life story of Valentino Achak Deng, one of the Lost Boys of Sudan, takes the reader on a journey from a remote village in southern Sudan to refugee camps in Ehtiopia and Kenya, and finally to Atlanta, Georgia.  Along the way, Valentino faces innummerable hardships.  Not only does he face starvation, predation by wild beasts, and the horrors of a violent civil war, but he is also faced with the emotional trauma of separation from his family.

As a group, we found the novel to be so good that we were nearly at a loss for words when discussing it.  Although the novel is filled with heartbreak, it is also a powerful portrait of strength and courage.  Valentino’s survival through hardships that none of us could even fathom gives the novel a hopeful dimension.  Of course, the reader feels accutely the frustration that Valentino experiences during his many years in a refugee camp and during his difficult time in Atlanta, but Valentino’s ability to face and surmount these obstacles with dignity is nothing short of amazing.

We also felt that the novel was important in a sociopolitical context as well as a literary one.  As a work of fiction (albeit one that is firmly rooted in true events), What is the What has the unique ability to inform an audience about the plight of Sudanese refugees in a way that a nonfiction book could not. 

If you missed this discussion, we’d love to see you at our next meeting on Thursday January 3.  We’ll be discussing A. B. Yehoshua’s A Woman in Jerusalem.