What is the What: Quests.

How to Read Literature Like a Professor says that quests are used for attaining self-knowledge and/or self-improvement, usually by novices/naïve people. In What is the What, Valentino’s quest is about surviving and finding out what “the What” is. As a result of the horrendous events he has experienced, in many ways he was enriched with an outlook that many of us in our very privileged worlds will never get to experience. He has a vast tolerance that contrasts with the impatient attitude of our society. He has gone through suffering unlike any that we have experienced, causing him to become stronger and more enduring. He has seen many things we have not, and this has made him all the more wiser than any of us.

What is the What: Running = Flying.

A notable scene in the novel is when Valentino imagines his perfect day. Valentino’s perfect day, in summary, comprises of simple moments in which he spends time affectionately with the various people in his village. One of these is running towards the river to get water for the girl of his dreams. I think Valentino’s act of running—even to the act of stumbling in front of his “crush,” falling, and getting up again—is symbolic of flying and freedom. Valentino tells the reader that he imagines this day whenever he feels dismal, which is in itself a desire for freedom and escape from the confines of poverty in the current reality with which he is subject to.

What is the What: Valentino - A Christ Figure.

Let me enumerate some of the symbols that signify why Valentino is a Christ figure:

1. He talks to those who have wronged him with self-sacrificing forgiveness and even a trace of sagacity.
2. "We refugees can be celebrated one day, helped and lifted up, and then utterly ignored by all when we prove to be a nuisance." - People treated the refugees the way they treated Christ--abusing, betraying, and trampling him as if they didn't need him.
3. Valentino was baptized not when he was a baby, but when he was older, just like Christ.

What is the What: African.

“Nigeria.”

“Go back to Africa.”

Those are some of the derogatory remarks that Americans have called Valentino when he came to live in the United States. In fact, these two words came from the two African-American burglars, Tonya and Powder, who mercilessly assaulted Valentino when they came to rob his apartment. Later in the book, Michael, the accomplice of the two burglars, dropped a book on poor Valentino’s head and regarded him as something malignant. Julian, an African-American who works in the hospital, is reluctant to treat Valentino despite his head injury. Why is it that these Americans treat Valentino as a subhuman, another entity entirely, when they are of the same flesh and blood? In a way, I think their treatment mirrors that of the Arabs in Africa and the Sudanese, who continually engage themselves in warfare even though they are united by their physical characteristics.

What is the What: Violence

Violence seems to be a very central—perhaps even necessary—part of What is the What. The novel begins with Valentino, the protagonist, being robbed by African-Americans. The events get even more shockingly violent as Valentino recounts the chaos that besets his once-peaceful village: the arrival of the SPLA rebels, and the massacre committed by the Arabs. Even the way the story was told seems hectic, jumping from one timeframe to another. I suppose the violence serves as the author’s political statement about the plight of the Dinkas in Sudan. Yet interestingly, the author tells it with a self-sacrificing, painstaking patience, a tone devoid of anger.