Why I Love William K. And Why You Should Too

One of my favorite books is Dave Eggers' What is the What. Not only is it one of the most honest and fair portrayal of the victim of human rights caught in the process of global commodification (as bargaining chips, or even as books in a literal sense)and politicization, but it has some of the most compelling characters who make us wish we were better versions of ourselves.

There are many reasons why I love this book, but I have to start with the effervescent William K.,Valentino’s boyhood friend who journeys with him towards Ethiopia. The friendship between Valentino and William K. is perhaps one of the best portrayals I’ve read of young boys who, as Eggers writes, “expected to always be boys and friends” in their village (217). William K. is introduced to the reader as a regular boy with a penchant for wild stories, particularly those which end with someone’s eyes popping out. In the village, William K. is portrayed as the trouble maker who occasionally bullies others, like when he stomps on Moses’ carefully made clay cattle. But what I specifically enjoy about his character is his (minimally referenced) hatred for his Other, William A., and the reckless, almost delusional hope he comes to represent on their treacherous walk towards Ethiopia.

William A. is never present, but as his Other, he represents all that William K. is not. He becomes that which William K. cannot identify with, an invisible antagonism which compels William K. to constantly address him in his jokes, teasing, and lies, an Other whose (imaginary) presence reiterates to the reader how individuals in fact detest sameness. William K. hates William A. because he represents a threat to his individuality. This suggests how although people may locate a celebrated commonality in the same, the human impulse is to instead locate identity in difference. William K.’s age as a young boy re-emphasizes how even at a young age, children realize the pitfall of sameness.

In the village, William K.’s fanciful stories are described as bothersome, but his capacity to tell stories, fictitious though they may be, is shown to be a valuable survival mechanism on their treacherous walk. Valentino knows that their families will not be waiting in Ethiopia, nor will food be plentiful, but William K.’s exaggerated stories balance out the extreme despair of the trip and serve as a delusional, if not stabilizing image of hope. In one instance, William K. assures Valentino that his wounded leg will heal quickly and that nobody gets sick in Ethiopia. William K. attempts to corroborate his story by saying he overheard it from Dut, but Valentino realizes the fantasy and appreciates it nonetheless. He thinks, “William was a hopeless liar, but it pleased me” (209). In this way, William K comes to represent a fierce intensity that is unafraid to dream and re-imagine the future. In a way, he symbolizes an alternative to the “safe” choice that the Dinka made in the creation myth. They chose the cow, which was the known choice and thus the cautious choice. William K, however, creates a space for re-imagination and risk taking that remains absent in the novel. Upon his death, Valentino says, “I did not want to leave William K. I wanted to die with him. ..But then I thought of my mother and my father, my brothers and sisters, and found myself invoking William K’s own mythic visions of Ethiopia. The world was terrible but perhaps I would see them again. It was enough to bring me to my feet” (213). William K’s “visions of Ethiopia” not only enable him to persevere, but more importantly, it enables Valentino to continue living even despite the hollow promise of hope, even knowing that this vision is false. William K symbolizes a bold embrace of the unknown, of the imagined.

I also wanted to share some videos that I found of Valentino and Dave talking about What is the What:

This video is of Valentino showing his village in Marial Bai. He shows the tree where he and his friends would play under (like the tree him and William K would look out from in the novel), the direction where the murahaleen rode from, his father’s compounds, and his parents and family.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vjqD3WWbs9s

Valentino tells his story at a Google Talk. He talks about how he wanted the book to not only show the horror and intensity of the conflict, but to show how life was beforehand, how people lived.

http://www.youtube.com/user/AtGoogleTalks#p/search/0/2V7MeewG_MU

Lastly, this video was made last year and is an interview between Dave and Valentino. I like this one the best, as it provides a great update about Valentino’s life after the book, how he saw a woman reading What Is the What on an airplane (which he says was struck by lightning), and his life with a new wife and his child.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DgbfBQc_ExM