I may be stealing Aaron's fire with this post, but I figured it was best to get this down while it was still fresh and bubbling:
I understand where Aaron's coming from with his objection to describing What Is the What as a "gift." In such context the word carries an uncomfortable, almost religious weight. Aaron's example of an Evangelical declaring "Jesus was a gift to humanity!" well conveys this feeling; I immediately pictured Old World Catholic missionaries bellowing it as they whip heathen natives to salvation. The gravity of the word implies something about the recipient, prejudges their reactions and compartmentalizes them into rigid little cells. Wholehearted acceptance is assumed, and the minority that does reject it is considered foolish, insolent, even self-destructive. There is a smugness attached to the use of "gift" in such a way that we see in the preachers, zealots, and all the other "all-knowers" that we disagree with.
I think WItW is best characterized as a gesture because, after all, what else are Deng and Eggers doing but shouting into the void in the hopes that you'll hear them, tossing a bottle with a note into the turbulent tides of today's media hoping a reader will find it. Of course, the same could be said of anyone setting a pen to paper, paint to canvas, pick to string, but Deng and Eggers case is unique as they intentionally seek to communicate the dire, desperate stories of millions whose lives sit precariously on hands that are often callous, if not about to be curled into a fist.
Yet Deng and Eggers are not your typical charitable hucksters. Some may argue that because the novel's proceeds are directed to a nonprofit foundation, WItW amounts to the same old charity, but I doubt that most casual readers are aware of that arrangement. The book doesn't come with a "I am a conscionable person" premium.
WItW is not a gift because gifts are tangible in their benefit (after all, even Jesus comes with the promise of Paradise -- a pleasure deferred). WItW is a gesture. It is someone shouting and if you listen, you aren't bestowed with a sticker that says you care or commandment to do something in response. If you hear it, all you get is the intimate knowledge that, while we live in the paycheck-to-paycheck, hand-to-mouth comfort that is our grueling, luxurious existence, millions are naked and starving, besieged by violence and anonymity, dying and being buried in shallow graves if at all.
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I agree with Arvin that the word 'gift' is not the right word, I understand what the professor was saying, but I think 'gesture' is a much more appropriate term. After reading What is the What some people will take away more than others. Some will really think about the dire situation in Africa and lend a hand, some will think about the story but not act on it, and some will never think about the book or story again. I think the point that Deng and Eggers were trying to convey by telling Deng's story is for people to just be aware of what happens in other places in the world. Awareness goes a long way, and there are many people in this world that are not aware of anything going in the world apart from their direct circle. What is the What may open many people's eyes, and if that's all it does, then Deng and Eggers will be happy for those people they did touch.
ReplyDeleteI also want to mention that fact that in the present day story, Deng mentions numerous times (in the first 100 pages) that he wishes the the robbers knew what he had gone through, and then he says the same thing to the boy in his head. I think this is an interesting point and plays into why he wrote the book, not only out of social interest, but self interest as well.
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ReplyDeleteWell said, Arvin.
ReplyDeleteNow, is this book a gift? Well, I think gifts are personal, from the heart...so in that regard, totally. But when I think of a gift to humanity, I think of something more ethereal. While I am not religious, I am familiar with the Christian's idea that Jesus is a gift to humanity, contrasted with the notion that scientists everywhere behold Darwin's theory a gift to humanity.
This book is not a gift (I'm picturing the little blue box from Tiffany with white satin ribbon) and it's not a gesture (giving a homeless man an bag of groceries). It's a profound work of literature that has the ability to change the hearts and minds of readers. If it's more than that, aren't we elevating it to an subjective status rather than developing an empirical opinion of the piece?
I mean, if you want to call it a gift, go for it. Philosophically, I've adopted the method of instruction that says to analyze everything dispassionately as to avoid clouding your own conclusion with a bias.
-Aaron Kinchen
Whether we want to accept this book as a gift or not, it is up to each individual person. Personally I think this book has open my eyes and expand my knownledge to how one can suffer tremendously in life and we not know of it. Therefore, we take people for granted around us, by ignoring or just simply vague but not intentionly. Now reading a book such as this, one start to wonder when one looks around in a train, "I wonder how was that person's life before they start their life in American?" Not just from Sudan, but from other countries. Those who are forigners and now Americans, many of us are here for a reason, whether it was a tough life, such as being poor, looking for better life or civil war among your own neighbors, etc. Many of us are here today because of those reasons.
ReplyDeleteVery well written and very good points Arvin. I think that each person has to make an assessment as to the meaning of the reading. As with any experience, intepretations of what an experience means has a plethora of definitions.
ReplyDeleteThe author wants to reach as many people as he can, although the public's litarary tolerance and subjective evaluations may be murky, I think that everyone can receive something out of it. Even if it is just to say that you will not accept the book as a gift. It is the process of reasoning that is better than the actual conclusion. In that way, I feel that What is the What is a gift. Afterall a gift can be rejected and ill received.
I believe it’s a gift to know what goes on inside a person’s mind that has witnessed and suffered like Achak. It’s a gift that shows you how to appreciate life and to get to know what really goes on inside in a country that has an ongoing genocide. I feel that Achak by telling his story makes us think about the tragedies that are going on now in Sudan, especially in Darfur. So many people die, about 100 a day and 5,000 in a month, while we here in America live our lives and worry about petty situations. This gift was brought to us by someone who witnessed what we believe is the impossible, and has over-achieved and accomplished leaving his country and making it to America. What other motivation do we need in order to succeed when you have this man showing you that everything and anything is possible.
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