I'm reading What is the What by this guy, Dave Eggers. He's a hell of a writer is all I can say. Looking at him, you'd never think that he could capture the essence of a man like Valentino Achak Deng, a remarkable man who survived more life threatening situations than I could even conceive of.
Imagine seeing fellow boys devoured by lions.
Imagine just how utterly black, blindingly black the night of the African countryside must be.
Swimming across a river running with blood, hungry crocodiles lurking beneath the surface and above the surface, Ethiopian rebels driving away a settlement of 40,000 refugees with rifles and machetes, murdering unarmed women and children without a shred of remorse.
Imagine having to flee your hometown because you're parents have been murdered by the murahaleen, vicious Arab horsemen from the east.
Knowing in advance that Deng and Eggers could not be more culturally dissimilar, to know that the collaboration between two intelligent minds can result in such a satisfying piece of writing gives me hope of one day writing a work I can be proud to call my own. The problem with studying all the greats, all the classics, is that it sets a standard that seems insurmountable. Eggers is not dead, he's not even old. Charles Simic came to my university recently and blew me away but he's from a generation I can only know from history books. It's refreshing to know that somebody within my age group can be successful AND talented, that I don't have to achieve success a la Nicholas Sparks.
I haven't finished the novel yet, but the composite of imaginative fiction and reality has opened my mind to the existence of a world so removed from my own without actually having gone anywhere. I can hardly believe that our planet is large enough to encompass an infinite volume of life experiences-- and the capacity for evil within men. Or God.
I would love to travel to the continent across the Atlantic, the cradle of human civilization, of the upright man.
I'll have more on this when I finish the book and when I'm less strung out. It's two in the morning. For now, check out this link: there's a good excerpt from the book there.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=6412768
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