The Book of Chameleons

This is one of those books that allows you to hide inside a fantasy without really noticing that what you are experiencing isn't real.

A blurb at the front of this book labels it "Raymond Chandlereseque mystery". Now what mystery are you half-way done reading and all that has happened is (a) one man buys the services of another man (b) man meets woman and (c) narrating chameleon dreams? Obviously, this is not a book for the action-thriller junkie. However, it is an excellent book in which the past becomes malleable, reincarnation is assumed, identity is called into question, an a chameleon narrates it all in short chapters comprised of observations, dreams, and memories of life as a human. Agualusa not only makes this work but makes it seem to be the natural, organic way to tell the story. He includes images, e.g. chickens/angels, in surprising and unobtrusive ways. He weaves the parts together with reoccuring elements - albino and chameleon aversion to light, photographer's love of photographing light, ... Well worth reading and motivation to try other works by the author.

How are personal histories made? What exactly are memories made of? The Book of Chameleons (original Portuguese title O vendedor de passados) by Portuguese author Jose Eduardo Agualusa explores these fundamental questions. The protagonist of this book, an Angolan albino called Felix Ventura, is a vendor of pasts. For a fee, he will concoct a history for you, as complicated and detailed as you want it to be, provide you with adequate documentation such as birth certificates, family tree, even photographs and similar. In his home resides the narrator of this tale - a gecko named Eulalio, so christened by Ventura because his words are so pleasant to the ear. Ventura's client Jose Buchmann brings things to a head when he takes his fake past a little too seriously. A photojournalist, he traces the history of his fake parents, and sets out to visit and photograph his so-called birthplace. At Ventura's home, he runs into Angela Lucia, a fellow photojournalist and professional nomad who roams the world photographing light. The connections between the characters become clear through a surprise twist in the end. The book is enlivened by gecko's perspective. He and Ventura dream individually but the stuff of their dreams is the same in content, and thus the two main characters communicate with one another. The gecko's knowledge transcends this life into his past incarnation as a mama's boy. In this book of fake and creatable pasts, Eulalio's is the memory that is deepest. The book is not without its flaws. The gecko/first person narrative leads to a few stilted sentences, since the writer has to explain how a gecko comes across this knowledge, but these are few and far between. The prose reads like poetry and the free flow of the writer's style causes the pacing to suffer at times. However the book also works on several levels - as a mystery/thriller, as a meditation on spirituality, as a satirical commentary on how money can buy anything -including a past. An interview with Agualusa at the end of the book reveals several interesting tidbits. The book is set at a point in Angolan history soon after the country gained its independence from its Portuguese rulers. A new class of nouveau riche came into power, and with this new wealth came a craving for new histories as well. The author mentions that he has based the gecko character on Jose Luis Borges. We live in times of relentless and Google-able documentation, and hence poor memory may no longer be an acceptable excuse. As I write this, China's doctoring of a gymnast's date of birth is being unearthed via Googling, and a Bigfoot hoax was revealed after several incriminating videos were found on Youtube. But this tale shows us how imprecise histories can be and why it might sometimes even be necessary to have a certain fluidity to memories, histories and life in general. http://bookbagger.blogspot.com

In the future, when the transition between 20th and 21st centuries is studied, it may show that a preoccupation with memory loss and memory building, with memoirs and with refreshing memory, through "reviews of the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s" decades was a worldwide cultural common thread. Some preoccupation with memory should probably be expected at a time when the baby boom generation becomes elderly. Elderly dementia, memory loss or diseases like Alzheimer's are around the corner for many. Hollywood films dealing with memory problems have been very successful with the public and the box office: Memento, The Bourne Identity, Fifty First Dates, and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. Different aspects of memory are reviewed with a great deal of humor in José Eduardo Agualusa's The Book of Chameleons. The original Portuguese the title [ O vendedor de passados - The seller of past histories] is a direct reference to the occupation of Felix Ventura, the book's main character, who makes a living at concocting as detailed a past for anyone of his clients as possible. The fantasy includes the name of their ancestors, the client's birthplace, professions of his parents, grand-parents, great-great-grandparents, where they had immigrated from before arriving in Angola, and so on. Felix Ventura is even able to produce -- though not always included in the traditional anecdotal and genealogical package -- documentation that could support his client's newly adopted family tree. Some may find that Agualusa's narrative falls into the realm of "magical realism." It is a bit of a fashion, nowadays, to attribute magical realism to writers whose mother language comes from the Latin family, as is the case with Portuguese. I am against such a definition, for I find it reductive. It is true that life as depicted in this novel doesn't exist as far as we know. But then, Kafka's insect in the Metamorphosis should also place that novel in the category of "magical realism." Truth is Agualusa's imagination is rooted in an animistic-ghost-believing-dream-prophesizing-dialoguing-with-spirits culture. What for the WASP mentality is "magical realism" is the quotidian life in Angola. The book is cleverly narrated by a gecko, who remembers his past life, and who converses with Felix Ventura through their dreams. Ventura also remembers these dreams. He remembers them almost as well as his clients remember the past Felix weaves for them, using fact and fiction promiscuously in a clever myth of what had never been. Throughout the book we are reminded that memory is identity. That memory is fiction. That memory is relative. That memory is imprecise. That memory can be stored in unconscious ways that we don't understand and that memory can play tricks. That memory is a singular, individualistic fable. It is to be questioned, to be embroidered. The details will be representative of the spirit of the times. This is a must read, fast-paced, funny novel

The Book of Chameleons (O vendedor o passados in Portuguese) by Angloan author José Eduardo Agualusa is one of the best things I have read so far this year. I have found the book very witty, filled with originality. A nice translation done by Daniel Hahn. It is a poetic tale narrated by a mysterious gecko that lives with Felix Ventura, an albino who sells histories for a living. If you want a distinguished past filled with heroes and luminaries, hire Felix. He will invent a family line for you with proper documentations. His business card reads 'guarantee your children a better past'. In the story, he gets involved with one of the fantasy worlds that he created when a secretive foreign photographer asked for his service. The chapters in book read like short stories, somewhat disconnected, yet at the end one can find the thread. The style is very similar to magical realism with a small dose of murder mystery and thriller. Here's one of my favorite passages, where Felix talks about his childhood "The priest talked of angels, and I saw chickens. To this day, in fact, of all the things I've seen, chicken are still the ones that most closely resembles angels. He talked of heavenly joy, and I saw chickens scrabbling away in the sun, digging up little nests in the sand, turning their little glass eyes in pure mystical bliss. I can't imagine Paradise without chickens. I can even imagine the Great God, reclining lazily on a fluffy bed of clouds, without his being surrounded by a gentle host of chickens. You know something -- I've never known a bad chicken -- have you? Chickens, like white ants, like butterflies, are altogether immune against evil." Beautiful. I highly recommend this book.