Review

What is the what:

Lost boy searches for a land of milk and honey

After two mannered books in which cleverness and literary gimmickry seemed to get the upper hand, Mr. Dave Eggers has produced "What Is the What," a startling act of literary ventriloquism that recounts the harrowing story of a Sudanese refugee named Valentino Achak Deng, while reminding us just how eloquently the author can write about loss and mortality and sorrow.

A devastating and humane account of one man's survival against terrible odds, the book is flawed by an odd decision on Mr. Eggers's part to fictionalize Mr. Deng's story - a curious choice, especially in the wake of the uproar over James Frey's fictionalized memoir earlier this year.

But while we start out wondering what is real and what is not, it is a testament to the power of Mr. Deng's experiences and Mr. Eggers's ability to convey their essence in visceral terms that we gradually forget these schematics of composition.

One of the so-called "Lost Boys" of Sudan, Valentino fled his home village, which had become caught in the crossfire between rebel soldiers and the country's Islamic government, and walked hundreds of miles east to Ethiopia and eventually to Kenya in search of safety. He is one of hundreds of children who had become separated from their families: some had seen their parents coldbloodedly slaughtered; others never learn the fates of their mothers and fathers and siblings.

During their trek, Valentino and his comrades are set upon by government soldiers, rebel soldiers, malaria-carrying mosquitoes, vultures, crocodiles and lions. They dodge bombs and mines, and face starvation, dehydration and illness. Some of Valentino's friends go mad. One trades all his clothes for a handful of food. z Probably half of the children die along the way.

"If a boy became sick he walked alone," says Valentino. "The others were afraid to catch what he had, and did not want to know him too well for he would surely die soon. We did not want his voice in our heads." When his boyhood friend William K dies, Valentino digs him a shallow grave, nearly collapsing from exhaustion in the process.

"When I was finished," he recalls, "I told William K that I was sorry. I was sorry that I had not known how sick he was. That I had not found a way to keep him alive. That I was the last person he saw on this earth. That he could not say goodbye to his mother and father, that only I would know where his body lay. It was a broken world, I knew then, that would allow a boy such as me to bury a boy such as William K."

What keeps the boys walking is the fraternity of shared suffering, the kindness of an occasional stranger and the dream of safety and peace in Ethiopia, a magical land that has grown in their imaginations into a kind of paradise.

"We would have chairs in Ethiopia," Valentino thinks. "I would sit on a chair, and I would listen to the radio, because in Ethiopia there would be radios under all the trees. Milk and eggs - there would be plenty of these foods, and plenty of meat, and nuts and stew. Ethiopia, needless to say, falls short of their expectations, and so does Kenya.

Instead of the dreamed-for new life, there is a succession of refugee camps: Valentino lives in one for nearly three years, a second for almost a year and the last, Kakuma, for an entire decade. I would meet a Sudanese girl there, and she would be a student in America, too, and we would court and marry and form a family, a simple family of three children and unconditional love."

In time, Valentino does make it to America. His arrival is delayed by the terrorist attacks of 9/11, which transpire on the very day he is to depart, but the simple dream of an ordinary life continues to elude him: he becomes a crime victim, and his girlfriend is brutally murdered. Yet as told by Mr.Eggers, Valentino Achak Deng's story remains a testament to the triumph of hope over experience, human resilience over tragedy and disaster.

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******

'Flushed Away':

Washed up in a world of urban vermin intrigue

Don't get me wrong: I'm looking forward to the next James Bond movie as much as anyone else. But it strikes me as unlikely that any British action picture released this year will surpass "Flushed Away Yes, the 007 franchise has the gadgetry, the babes and the dry martinis, but does it have google-eyed, rubber-mouthed leeches (unless they were slugs, or maybe some kind of aquatic worm) singing "Don't Worry, Be Happy" in splendid choral harmony? Does Mr. Bond have Kate Winslet as his love interest? Is his nemesis a giant toad with a fondness for royal family paraphernalia and an obsessive hatred of rodents?

I could go on, but I've made my point. "Flushed Away," directed by David Bowers and Sam Fell, is the first computer-animated feature to come from the very English whimsy factory that is Aardman Animations, progenitors of Wallace and Gromit, Rex the Runt and "Chicken Run."

The technological shift from the traditional Aardman stop-motion animation, using plasticine models, has given the filmmakers new freedom and flexibility - for instance, in confecting sequences that take place in and under water - but the eccentric, handmade "Wallace and Gromit" aesthetic remains happily intact.

And at a time when all-ages three-dimensional animation seems to be in a serious rut (how many more movie-star-voiced pleas for interspaces understanding must we be subjected to?), it is a relief to encounter such exuberant and infectious silliness.

At first, "Flushed Away" does not seem so different from its lesser competitors, even as it dares to aim a few mocking jabs at Pixar, the top dog in the computer-animation world. At one point the sentimentality of "Finding Nemo" is grazed by a satirical harpoon, and the story begins in an expansive London house whose clean spaces and tidy right angles recall "Toy Story."

So, at first, does the situation in which the hero, a pet mouse named Roddy (Hugh Jackman finds himself when his young owner and her family have gone on vacation. He cavorts with the Barbies and the Kens, but this is a lonely, empty pastime - they're just toys, after all - and it seems to promise a boring movie.

As it happens, a less boring movie would be hard to imagine. Roddy's life, as they say, is changed forever when an uncouth rat named Sid (Shane Richie) pops up through the plumbing. Roddy, trying to rid himself of the interloper, finds himself sent down the pipes, where he is accidentally introduced into a world of subterranean urban vermin delights.

In spite of the title and the necessity of using a toilet as a portal to the London sewer, the humor in "Flushed Away" is mostly clean. The narrative, on the other hand, is gratifyingly messy, as Roddy, washed up in a miniature London built out of trash and flotsam beneath the actual city, becomes embroiled in some fairly complicated intrigue. He falls in with Rita (Ms. Winslet), who pilots an old boat, and who is harassed by the grandiose toad a frog.

The filmmakers also take evident pleasure in topping themselves, and in conceiving a structure that is less like a roller coaster ride than a ski jump. The picture relentlessly picks up speed, zooming from drollery to anarchy to complete - albeit brilliantly controlled - comic chaos, and before you know it, you're airborne, carried aloft on the wings of leeches.

"Flushed Away" is rated PG (Parental guidance suggested). It has a few mildly naughty jokes.

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