First off, I’d like to say that I both liked and disliked this book. Deng’s story is compelling, but Eggers ruined my reading experience. At the beginning, I was really into it and, like I mentioned in a previous post, parts of it made me cry. Then, as with A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius the enjoyment evaporated.

In your post, Ana, you bring up the celebrities as one thing that bothered you. The name-dropping really, really got on my nerves. It's fine that Mary Williams, who ran the Lost Boys Foundation, is Jane Fonda's adopted daughter because a tidbit like this explains a bit about the history of the foundation. As for Angelina Jolie and the rest of them? Deng, the real Deng, might actually be humbled by and appreciative of all the help he's received from big names. But, Eggers, whose author's voice comes out too often in this novel, name-dropped to impress. Instead, I found it annoying.

The other thing I really didn't like was the anti-everything sentiment. One of the major themes in the book is disenchantment. William K went on and on about how great it would be in Ethiopia, but it sucked there. Some of the boys thought being in the SPLA would be better than being a refugee, but being a soldier sucked. At the end, Deng was excited about finally going to America, but the entire book is about how it sucks here. Using the robbery as the frame for Deng's story was Eggers's doing, and it he did it in such a way that it made me turn against the book. As an American, am I supposed to feel guilty that this country didn't provide Deng with the better life he's been searching for? Is it our fault that some of the Lost Boys turned to gambling, crime, murder, and kicking each other over $10?

Eggers's editorializing ruined the book. For example, when Bobby Newmyer finds out about Tabitha, "'Maybe it's this stupid country' he said. 'Maybe we just make people crazy (p. 321).'" This statement, in my opinion, is both an apology and an accusation. A bit later, as Deng attempts to make sense of the murder, he muses about the fate of some Sudanese in America. He tells the story of the man in Michigan who kills his wife, child, and himself. But in Sudan, "a man does not kill his child, does not kill himself (p. 330)." We hear about Lost Boys from North Carolina who die in a car accident followed by the hanging suicide of another distraught boy upon learning the news. In Sudan, there is no premarital sex but here there is. Tabitha's suspected abortion of Duluma's baby is noted as a possible motive behind her murder. In the midst of all these bad post-arrival in America events, we get one sentence about pre-America, "Duluma had been in the SPLA, he had fired a machine gun, he had walked over corpses and through fire (p. 331)." Call me crazy, but I have a feeling that this experience might have a lot to do with him becoming a murderer.

Don't get me wrong, there were plenty of parts I enjoyed. In the end, I really like Deng. Although I'm sure Eggers is a lovely person, I hate his writing. I'm not the only one. Via yesterday's Books, Inq., here is a recently posted thumbs down review of Heartbreaking Work.

marydell | February 19, 2007 11:16 AM

wow, I like where this is going already! I with you in the liking and disliking the book.

I was stopping in to peek, but hopefully I'll be back later tonight!

ana | February 19, 2007 1:20 PM

ps--the Random Thinking blog's review of heartbreaking work was funny--those darn long and dragged sentences!

i still haven't read it and i won't be reading it. not into the memoirs thing. running with scissors was the first (by default) and last, and i hated that one!

ana | February 19, 2007 1:25 PM

I'm about 2/3 done with the novel, and am enjoying it much more than I thought I would. I generally steer clear of anything historical-fiction, current-events related; it tends to detract from the "escape" from everyday life that books provide, and lord knows we need plenty of escape from today's political events.

I'm just finding it to be a very well-written book. I also liked AHWOSG - I can see how it isn't for everyone, but I think it works well. "You Shall Know" was decent, and I didn't care for the short story collection; I do think Eggers' voice is here, but it definitely feels like he's put his voice behind Deng's voice.

The celebrity mentions, I think, is fitting for someone acclimating themselves to American culture. It's certainly easy to be taken in by the cult of personality provided by Angelina Jolie and other big-name famous people, and it makes sense that if Deng had met anyone like that, they would be here. It's someone becoming American - for better and for worse.

I'll likely have more to say on this after I finish it.

I'd like to mention that I am going to be attending an Eggers/Deng reading next weekend, and will be interviewing them for my site; hopefully they'll provide some insight into some of the issues raised here.

Matthew Tiffany | February 19, 2007 4:22 PM

Ana, I'm looking forward to whenever you have a chance to stop back because I'd like to find out more about what you liked and didn't like. Although Eddie has expressed interest in reading the book, I didn't finish it in time to give it to him for this discussion. Sorry my slowness cost us another point of view.

Matthew, thanks for stopping by and contributing. When you say, "I can see how it isn't for everyone," I'd have to completely agree. I've read two Eggers books and neither of them were for me, but he's certainly gotten a lot of acclaim. aHWoSG got great reviews and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. The reviews of WItW have been good overall with many of the best ones posted at McSweeney's. However, I think identify most with a brief review at The Stranger which brings up the "Us vs. Them" aspect of Eggers' writing. After reading both books, I feel shoved onto the "Them" team because I don't fall hook/line/sinker for the whole story.

Maybe I shouldn't have, but I couldn't help equating the "What" with the "One Thing" from City Slickers:

Curly: Do you know what the secret of life is? This.
Mitch: Your finger?
Curly: One thing. Just one thing. You stick to that and the rest don't mean shit.
Mitch: But, what is the one thing?
Curly: That's what you have to find out.

Deng's father's story about the What was supposed to show that, by choosing cattle, the Dinka were superior to the Arabs. Having City Slickers in the back of my mind made me immediately think that the Dinka made the wrong choice. At the end, the book confirms this as Deng's father tells him to go to America because going after the What is the thing you're supposed to do. So, if seeking the What is the right path, then why not frame more of his post-Sudan experiences in a more positive light? Of course, the What is unattainable, but I would have personally preferred closing the book with a feeling of hope rather than guilt over being on the "Them" team.

marydell | February 20, 2007 10:20 AM

There is a very funny, and scathing, review of "genius" by Tom over at downsyn. I haven't read Eggars, it is not a genre that holds any attraction to me, though I did like "Sybil". (forget the author, but it was in the "my mother was a torturer" mode).

Maxine | February 20, 2007 4:19 PM

Hi! Finally made it to a computer!

Well, so far, it's two against one, heheh, just kidding.

I enjoyed reading WitW for the most part I think because I wanted to know what happened to Achak through out his odyssey. I was interested in the suffering to be honest, but not because I prefer that genre, which I don't because I don't have a preferred genre. But mostly because I felt like that was the point of the book...although, I do agree with Mary on the overall feeling of Achak's life in the US.

I have very mixed feelings about Achak's experience with living in the US (or does it make a difference that he he chose the word "America" and not the "US?"--I'm sure there is--the connotaion of the word, eh?) I feel like he was too naive, not only that, but the duration of his naivetee was to blame. How long had he been living in America? I think he said 6 years? I think three years would've been enough for Achak to realize that things don't work the way people outside of the US think they work. I say that from the perspective of an immigrant whose family never received any kind of aid from the government or any ngo. I guess he's not to blame, given his differenet outlook on life. I don't mean to generalize, but most african communities succeed on the concept of the group. Everything is done for the group by the group. So for all of the Lost Boys in the US to complain when one of them got more attention or more help than the other is comprehensible.

I don't know what I'm trying to say here. I guess I don't sympathize with Achak as much when he lived in the US as when he was back in Sudan and Kenya.

Something that really bothered me was the way the end was written. As you get to the end, the story is told almost drastically faster, almost as if the writer thought, "oh, crap, I've gotta finish this book now!" What I mean is, the different levels of narration changed in such short time. Also, the way the telephone call with the father was fit into the story was so crappily done. I felt like he either should not have spoken to his parents at all, or had a proper reunion with them, since he did find out that they were alive after all.

Okay, I've gotta run to my next class, but I will address everyone's comments when I get back.

By the way, was it just my book or did anyone else have TYPOS in their edition???? There were some sentences that just didn't make sense and all you needed to do was to take one word out or the same word was repeated twice. I remember that the word "that" was used twice, right after each other, but it just didn't make sense!

Needless to say, bad job, Mr. Editor!

ana | February 20, 2007 6:11 PM

Maxine, thanks for stopping by and mentioning the review. I saw it on Frank's site the other day and put a link to it in one of my long-winded comments above. As Matthew said, Eggers is one of those authors you either like or don't like. I fall into the don't like category.

Ana, the reviewer from The Stranger also wrote:

Plus, in the book's moments of levity, Deng has very Eggers-and-Toph-like fun with his male buddies, giving people funny nicknames ("Commander Beltbuckle," "TV Boy," "Hawaii 5-0"), wrestling in the dirt, and forming all-star basketball, drama, and traveling teams, and later we see Deng have a very American teenager–style romance with his girlfriend, Tabitha.

This is undoubtedly a way to make Deng's harrowing story accessible to people who would otherwise treat it with indifference, and judging by the line of well-to-do white folks gathered around the Sudanese refugee information table at Deng's reading at Elliott Bay Book Company last week, it's working incredibly well.

But by telling Deng's story in the identifiable manner of Team America, Eggers strips him of some of his Otherness in a way that leaves us asking: Can we feel charitable only toward people whose stories seem like our own? And if so, are we more interested in helping other people, or in flattering ourselves?

I think this is similar to what you're saying about Deng's life here. Eggers wrote the character like he was a naive teen even though he should have figured out a lot of things about the US in his six years here. My mother is also an immigrant who arrived here in her very early 20s and she's the shrewdest person I know. Being foreign to this country doesn't make a person stupid. Considering how clever Deng had to be to survive the war and live in the refugee camps, I think the overwhelming naivete of his character was Eggers's doing.

My edition was full of typos and awkward sentences, too! I also found a few consistency problems with the story. In one part, Deng trades his shirt for some maize but about 30 pages later he suddenly has a shirt again. Where the heck did the shirt come from? I wrote a whole bunch down in my commonplace book but didn't want to point them out because I didn't want to keep bashing the book. It's not like I hate it. Deng's story was truly moving and tragic, but, again, Eggers (and the bad editing) kept me from enjoying it as much as I wanted to.

marydell | February 20, 2007 9:35 PM

Mary, I've been wondering since your post where you mention that you were moved by a part in the story and it made you cry, which part was it? I can only pinpoint two parts for sure that my eyes got watery and I almost cried: William K's peaceful death and Noriyaki's tragic death. Those were the most moving parts for me, probably because they were the characters I liked most, although Noriyaki basically disapeared from the plot almost completely and then reappeared again only to die...does not make sense to me!

Matthew mentions that he thinks the book is generally well written. I think it's funny (and feel very cheated out of my money!) that there are so many typos and quite a few things don't make sense, like the example that Mary gave us. I know there are more but I didn't bother to make a notice of it because I was concentrating on finishing the book! I do, however, like his explanation on the big name dropping as a part of the experience in becoming American. I think I can understand that...but it was still annoying.

Now that I think about it, perhaps the big name dropping is not what bothered me, but it was the specific people that he mentions. I'm sure that Angelina Jolie is not the only person who truly cares about saving entire peoples from being massacred. I think that detail could've been left out.

Let's see...I still don't understand the "what" of the story. I can't put it together even after you explained it, Mary. I probably expected something more concrete or meaningful. I'm really glad that you included that quote of the review in your last post. It feels very close to what I was trying to say.

I just finished reading an article for class titled "Election Night in Nicaragua" (1990). The writer, Sergio Ramirez is a nationally recognized writer, and his article was about current events and the history of the dictatorship and civil war there, and lastly the moments leading up to election night when his gov't was not re-elected. I mention this because it made me realize that, besides being a good writer, he was able to turn the terribly reality of the civil war and the fight agains the dictatorship into something more meaningful than the story we have with Achak through language. Achak's story was moving and tragic, at times humorous, but in the end I don't feel like I took anything with me. And it's not the story--it's definitely the writing. Dave Eggers did not manage to create beautiful language, at least consistent, to tell the story. I don't mean anything poetic and romantic, but just damn good writing.

Oh, Mary, it's interesting that you keep referring to Valentino as Deng and I as Achak. Wonder why that is...

ana | February 21, 2007 5:38 PM

Ana, I cried twice while reading this book. The first time was when William K died and Deng tried to bury his body deep enough to keep the vultures away. It's heartbreaking to read about a little boy having to do such a thing.

The second time was after finishing it and doing research on Sudan. What has been going on over there is very sad. That being said, beyond putting up some links to activist sites and paying the full $26 for the book, I'm not very moved to further action. The whole point of the book is to bring attention to Sudan, and my attention has been on it, but I'm not so moved toward donating money or writing to Congress. For me, this is where Eggers's telling of Deng's story failed. Perhaps I'm cold and heartless, but my own problems worry me more than what's going on in Sudan.

By the time Noriyaki died, I had already lost my connection to the book. As soon as Deng mentioned his phone call to Duluma, I knew Tabitha was going to be killed off. Maybe there was a real Tabitha and maybe she really died, but my tragedy meter overloaded at that point. All the sad parts that followed felt contrived to me, and I became resistant to empathizing with the rest of the book. I mean, yes, Deng's story is very sad and he saw many horrible things. But he survived and is now living, I'm sure, a much better life.

The other feeling I couldn't shake was suspecting that Deng's life, even when he was in Africa, wasn't so bad. In that article about Nicaragua, I'm sure the writer didn't deliberately try to use your emotions against you, unlike Eggers. By fictionalizing Deng's story and making up whole scenes, Eggers manipulates the reader. For example, Deng survives the journey, he's one of the few Sudanese in Kakuma with a paying job, he becomes a youth leader, his parents aren't dead, he is chosen to go to the US, he knows hundreds of Lost Boys, he meets celebrities, he has a well-known author write his life story, and he is now a celebrity in his own right. How could I let Eggers continue to force my emotions when Deng is now doing so well?

Despite the typos and inconsistencies, I can say that I did like one thing about the way the book was written. I enjoyed how the African story was written using em dashes instead of quotation marks while the American parts were formatted in the way we write here. That was kind of clever.

The name thing is an interesting observation. Maybe we use different names because we each see the book's character in a different way?

marydell | February 23, 2007 1:28 PM

I'm curious about why people are seeing the perceived "inconsistencies" (and I'm not even sure that's accurate - why make hay over the appearance of a shirt, just because it wasn't explained in excrutiating detail?) of the book detracting from it. Another way to look at it is a highlighting of the fact that Deng can't possibly remember every single thing down to the last detail; no man could, much less a man who has been through what he has been through.

Matthew Tiffany | February 25, 2007 12:59 PM

you make a good point, matthew, although i suspect that "people are seeing the perceived 'inconsistencies'" because it tends to happen when a person doesn't like a book or an author. i can relate to that.

ana | February 25, 2007 4:36 PM

Matthew, I can certainly agree with Ana. When you don't like something, you tend to look for its flaws. With this book, although I liked parts of it, I found it difficult to talk about the good bits because I didn't love the good bits. On my rating scale, this book is just "eh."

Although it's true that Deng couldn't possibly remember every detail, the inconsistencies shouldn't have been there simply because What is the What is a work of fiction written by another author. It's not really an autobiography and it's not really a memoir, but I wanted to believe it as I started the book. But when I came across inconsistencies in the continuity (and there were more besides the shirt), my "buy in" to the story faltered. In my opinion, Eggers and the editor simply did a bad job.

Again, I have to say that I did find Deng's story compelling. The point of the book is to bring attention to the Lost Boys and Sudan, and it certainly worked on that level. For that, Eggers does deserve some praise.

marydell | February 27, 2007 9:34 AM

Now that I think about it, Egger's technique for telling the story was very predictable. It only took the first change in narration to realize how the rest of the book was going to be told, through the robbery. I enjoyed both stories (except for the parts where he talked about the Lost Boys Foundation--very boring), but his technique was not at all innovative nor did it feel fresh. I can't even give that to him.

I also have a very huge problem with this story, being "fiction". It gets on my nerves to think that it's based on someone's life yet it's fiction, but not a memoir.

It just seems like it was an easy way for Eggers to write a memoir, not about himself, but someone else's life so that he can feed the reader his strong point of view. It's too confusing for me. I don't know what to make of it.

ana | March 1, 2007 9:16 PM

The Eggers memoir/not memoir thing is a good point. As I read more and more good reviews about this book, I'm starting to think that they're reviewing Deng's life and not Eggers' writing. Taken as a memoir, Deng has a moving life story.

But Deng and Eggers haven't made it a secret that the book's story is a composite of experiences that happened to Deng and others. Plus, Eggers has said that he made up entire scenes in the book. To sort of gloss the fictionalization over, Deng has mentioned that the most amazing parts are the ones that are true. Because of Eggers' convoluted writing, the lazy editing, and not knowing what actually happened, my mind can only think of this book as a work of fiction. As such, What Is the What is crap.

marydell | March 6, 2007 11:16 AM