1. In what ways can What Is the What be
understood as a hero's journey? What features does it share with
classic works like Homer's Odyssey and Virgil's
Aeneid or more modern works like Richard Wright's
Black Boy and Cormac McCarthy's The Road? What
are the most significant features of Valentino's journey? In what
ways is Valentino's story both unique and universal?
2. When he is in the United States, Valentino says that he wants
everyone to hear his stories. "Written words are rare in small
villages like mine, and it is my right and obligation to send my
stories into the world, even if silently, even if utterly
powerless" [p. 29]. Through Eggers, Valentino has found a way to
send his stories into the world. Are they powerless to alter the
suffering he and his fellow Sudanese have endured? What powers do
they possess?
3. What are Valentino's most appealing qualities - as a
character in his own story and as a narrator of that story?
4. What is the significance of Valentino addressing his stories
to people who aren't listening - to Michael, TV Boy, to Julian, the
intake person at the hospital, to members of his gym, etc.? Why
would Eggers make this narrative choice?
5. Why is a personal story - Valentino's story - of the violence
and oppression in Sudan more valuable than any purely historical
account could be? What emotions does Valentino's story arouse that
a more objective treatment could not?
6. What are Valentino's most harrowing experiences? In what ways
do they shape his character? What enables him to survive these
ordeals and even excel in the refugee camps?
7. What is the "what" of the "What Is the What" story? Does the
novel point to a solution to this riddle?
8. At the end of the novel, Valentino addresses the reader
directly: "All the while I will know that you are there. How can I
pretend that you do not exist? It would be almost as impossible as
you pretending that I do not exist" [p. 535]. Why would Eggers and
Valentino choose to end the novel in this way? In what ways have
Westerners pretended that people like Valentino don't exist? What
is Valentino saying here about the power of the imagination and the
power of storytelling?
9. In what ways does What Is the What
illuminate the genocide that is still ongoing in Sudan?
10. Explore the irony of Valentino escaping from Africa and the
terrible violence there to being beaten and robbed in Atlanta. Why
does Valentino feel, after he has been victimized - and after his
experience with the police and the hospital - that he doesn't
actually exist?
11. Why does Valentino describe America as "a miserable and
glorious place"? [p. 351]. How are his struggles in the United
States both different from and similar to his struggles in
Africa?
12. Valentino says that "the civil war became, to the world at
large, too confusing to decipher, a mess of tribal conflicts with
no clear heroes and villains" [p. 349]. To what degree is it true
that there were no clear heroes and villains, no clear victims and
oppressors, in Sudan's civil war as Valentino describes it? In what
ways do SPLA forces behave just as brutally as the murahaleen and
government forces they are fighting?
13. When the Lost Boys are chased from a village by the SPLA,
Valentino realizes that "there were castes within the displaced.
And we occupied the lowest rung on the ladder. We were utterly
dispensable to all - to the government, to the murahaleen, to the
rebels, to the better-situated refugees" [p. 225]. What essential
problem does Valentino's realization reveal? Is this desire for
hierarchy intrinsic to human nature or is it always historically
conditioned?
14. What Is the What is about war and
displacement and the struggle to survive. In what ways is it also a
novel about friendship, love, and family? What moments of
compassion stand out in the novel? What are Valentino's most
positive relationships?