Immigrant Project Reflection

My literature circle book was What is the What by Dave Eggers. While I did enjoy the book it did feel tedious at some parts, as it is a very long book. I was actually in the literature circle group for the book ‘Tis initially, but due to high member count, I was switched to What is the What. When I originally switched, I wasn’t very much of a happy camper, mainly since ‘Tis was about half as long as What is the What. So at first glance I was unhappy about getting What is the What, but as I read on I got over it as I learned from and liked the book progressively through the course of the project.

The book taught me an extremely large amount on the life of refugees, especially ones in Africa. I now realize just how far refugees were pushed into their human limits. To coin a phrase, “they were given no breathing space”. I feel I’ve obtained a large amount of insight on the refugee lifestyle too. It granted me knowledge on life at the camps, and how hard it was to escape them. It dwells in my thoughts frequently now, how every meal I have is both frequent and bountiful compared to that of a runaway, struggling for survival daily.

I think that for the literature circle posts the instructions for number three should be a little more specific, as I feel the personal connection option was fairly unaddressed. Also, I think that the books should be little more consistent in length since I noticed there was some large differences in the amount of reading done for different groups.

In my opinion, the idea of blogging instead of talking and/or doing Dialectical Journals was at the very least a refreshing and new experience. I think it was good that the system was not to just post one-sidedly, but to also respond in a specific and well-thought out format. Thought, my own experiences with the blog were unfortunately, not very well. After the first blog I procrastinated until it was too late to make the deadline, and a snowball effects was pretty much immediate until my blog and response list was rather empty.

When deciding upon what my final product would be, I felt that it would be best if I either did a remake of the cover, or a recreation of a scene that spoke out to me, because they seemed the best for ascertaining my thoughts and views on the themes of the book. I decided that since my choices would be somewhat limited if I did a different cover, I would pick an important scene from the book to paint.

I felt that the scene I picked was a very easy way to correlate the main themes of the book into the painting. It depicted the main character being restrained by his traveling peers as one of their group is dragged away by a hungry lion. They watch helplessly because their only weapons are the small hands attached to their weak and malnourished bodies. When I look at the painting, I recall the main themes and the feelings that come with it. For instance, it featured the theme of death, and some of the feelings that came with death in the novel were frustration, helplessness, and sadness.

The actual end product though, did not really seem very aesthetically pleasing. There were some errors, such as the long grass. In my sketches, I drew it well, as long pencils strokes densely fit together but still somewhat discernible. For my painting, I couldn’t go in the middle. I either had to make the whole thing green, or make it more separated. I decided to make it separated. I feel that was the right decision, but only because it was, “the lesser of two evils”. The grass ended up looking like a couple dozen thick green strokes. If it were eye candy, that part of the painting would have been pretty sour. Overall, the painting was the best that could be done with my mediocre art skills and not so thin brush.

Speaking of brush, my painting may have actually turned out better it I had just gotten a smaller brush, as when it came to shaping the people, my brush felt “clod footed”, as I awkwardly attempted to navigate the canvas and maintain a good similarity to my pencil sketch. With a smaller brush, the whole thing would have been better since I could improve on the shapes and details, although it would have taken longer, and unfortunately time was not an abundance for me.

While we did do work, I feel the only area I grew in when making the painting was artistically. I did learn a lot about artist statements, and how to write them. But as a reflection to the book itself, and my thoughts on it, I believe there were better methods to put our thoughts out in the open.

The interviewing of my immigrant went very [enjoyably] smoothly. My immigrant was a family friend who had come to our house frequently, and vice-versa, so when asked for an interview they agreed and the interview was commenced fairly soon. The actual interviews they were also enjoyable and efficient. I was able to take excellent notes on my laptop during all three; being a court reporter for the Supreme Court Project was great practice. I was furthermore fond of the different methods of communication used to converse with the interviewee. It allowed for different experiences and made it all the more interesting. In fact, I figure it would have been found dull if it were just one big live interview.

The interviews taught me a lot about my person. Albeit her being a family friend, I still found out some things I never knew. I discovered that she had lived in Cleveland of Ohio originally. I also learned she was (and is) not a U.S. citizen yet, and she will become one this year. The most interesting thing however, was the story she told me about her son when he was young, how he went to a daycare and wouldn’t go to sleep during naptime. When they asked him, he said, “I’m afraid when I wake up I’ll be gone and I won’t be able to find you”. I found that to be a very interesting story and is one of the first things that comes to mind when I think of the immigration project.

All the information I learned from the interviews was turned into a documentary. I narrated and spoke about her story which I now knew and could back up with the immigration information I had learned in class. About a week after I finished, they invited my family over for dinner. Once we entered, I came up to my person and handed her the CD. She told me, “Thank you very much. It’s really not every day somebody decides to make a movie about your life.”

What Is The What Book Review

Dave Eggers shows no mercy on the expression “roughing it” in his novel What is the What, as he takes the reader down to the western African country of Sudan, where young boy Achak Deng resides. A civil war involving a very intricate and tangled web of politics boils over and effectively creates a living hell in Sudan, forcing Achak to struggle for survival against the thousands of lethal situations that converge on him and those around him daily.

The main reason I couldn’t stop reading was because I just had to find out if Achak would manage to overcome all the intense and almost always deadly obstacles. His thoughts are so innocent, just focused on survival. He is the toughest person I’ve ever read about in a novel, and there are hundreds of candidates for that position. His struggle for survival will captivate you to the point where you can’t put down the book.

Political turmoil escalates until outsiders find more new layers than an onion, and twice the tears. A civil war ensues, and six year old Achak is forced out of his hometown of Marial Bai. Actually, he’s not forced out, for that is too kind a coloring. What really happens is that bloodthirsty, armed and Arabian, horsemen called the murahaleen assault his village. It was a massacre, as all buildings were burned, people were chopped, slashed, and shot. As the tumult continues, Achak separates from his family and hides in a nearby church. Afterwards, he ends up running away, and having to travel on foot through three different countries. Through it all, Achak never sheds a single tear, or stops for a second to mourn. His every part, his entire being, is focused on keeping afloat.

What is the What is so harrowing, the massacre in Achak’s home town only the beginning of a very long and threatening tale. There’s always some sort of new situation, development or obstacle that Achak comes out alive by the skin of his teeth. For instance, when Achak was in a refugee camp in Ethiopia, nearby villagers who had been harboring the resent and anger of their new neighbors finally lashed out. Achak and thousands of other Sudanese refugees are required to run back into Sudan, across an angry and torrential river, to escape the equally angry and lethal Ethiopians. The Ethiopians charge after them, locked and loaded, gunning at their backs. People were dying every half a second. The entire time crocodiles lied in wait the river, for the upcoming all-you-can-eat buffet. So this young boy, barely an adolescent, had to cross a furious river infested with crocodiles while hundreds of people shot at him. It that not enough? I forgot to mention, Achak didn’t know how to swim. Yet he still managed to survive. He described the river as, “-running in many colors that day, green and white, black and brown and red.”

Situations like that will keep you glued to the book. You will wait for the next twist, the next peril, and witness all the things Achak witnessed during his hellish childhood. Overall, the book is one of my favorites, but I am a very heavy reader, both in quantity of books and pages. I do not recommend this book to anybody younger than 13, as it contains many mature themes that other younger people wouldn’t be able to grasp. It also contains some spread out but steady mentioning of politics, along with a slightly above average vocabulary. It is also a reasonably long and heavy read, and I recommend it for heavy readers, as those with short attention spans will most likely not get the full experience.

What is the What is an action/adventure novel, but not in the average connotations of Live Free, Die Hard action with constant explosions and martial arts. It is one of the dozens of stories by Dave Eggars and declared the “Best Book of the Year” by Time Magazine. It is a very intellectual novel backed up by unique storyline. It will give you an extensive and eye-opening insight into being a refugee, and what it really means to “struggle to survive”, as in America the common implication for that phrase is not being able to pay mortgage, which will become a very pitiful example after you read the first few chapters of this book. I give it a nine out of ten, and recommend it to all teenagers who have an extensive vocabulary and are frequent readers.