Oski the Bear constellation Ursa Major (the Great Bear). Although Oski has his benign side ("patient" and "silent"), he is more often presented as growling, fighting, rumbling, grumbling, thundering, and shaking the ground. He is described as sturdy and mighty. It is said of Oski that he "wears a Paderewski hair", referring to Oski's shaggy hair. Oski is described as "Our totem", and Cal's teams (or perhaps Cal students in general) are described as sons of the Golden Bear. In one song, Oski is referred to as "He" with a capital "H", as one refers to the Deity. One song appears to attribute
What Is the What as much of Dave Eggers in the novel as Deng, unable to tell the two apart, saying "How strange for one man to think that he could write the story of another man, a real living man who is perfectly capable of telling his story himself—and then call it an autobiography." Questions of "expropriation of another man's identity" were addressed by Valentino Achak Deng and Dave Eggers in a discussion about the division between the speaker and the spoken for. After Eggers was approached with the idea, he began to prepare for the novel. He says that at this point,