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Identity
and memory are ripe fodder for contemporary authors. In The
Book of Chameleons, Angolan author José Eduardo
Agualusa's deceptively deep and sweetly affectionate entry
into the genre, African albino protagonist Félix Ventura
literally revises people's pasts—he sells family pedigrees
to the nouveau riche, giving them stories of how their
family came to Angola, supplying names of famous relatives,
fancy diplomas, and even photos. Felix does not tell the reader
his own story, but we learn it through the book's narrator,
Eulálio, a tiger gecko who lives with Félix.
The mystery
of the book begins when a European stranger shows up asking
that Félix not just fashion a new past for him but
a whole new identity: a new name, documentation, and maybe
some relatives in exile. Félix protests but is offered
an extraordinary amount of money, and he christens the man
José Buchmann. Soon, Buchmann begins to engage in some
genealogy, and much to everyone's surprise, Buchmann's made-up
past and fake relatives turn out to be real. While Buchmann's
fictitious past rear-ends reality, Felix unexpectedly begins
a love affair with a beautiful young photographer. The gecko
Eulálio views all this with amusement, always adding
insight like the most erudite commentator. As intriguing as
the plot is, The Book of Chameleons is more driven
by the characters and the underlying philosophy of life's
mutable nature, with Eulálio and Felix and their musings
and ruminations taking center stage.
The
Book of Chameleons takes place in a country newly prosperous
after 27 years of bloody civil war. No doubt Angola, like
Félix's customers, would also like to re-write its
past. Upon finding out that Buchmann would like Félix
to ghost-write his memoirs, Eulálio speculates that
this act could change the history of Angola, just as Felix's
made-up past for Buchmann seems to have had an effect on other
past events.
Everyone
is a chameleon in The Book of Chameleons. Even Félix
has recreated his own past. Abandoned as an infant, Félix
keeps an oil painting of Fredrick Douglas in his house, and
claims Douglas is his grandfather. Eulálio claims to
be a reincarnated human. Only Felix's love-interest, Angela
Lúcia, seems content to live the life into which she
was born, which is what attracts Felix to her. "When a few
days ago I heard Angela Lúcia confess the pointlessness
of her life, I suddenly wanted to get to know her better.
If a woman had one night taken me by the arm to tell me such
a thing—you know, there's nothing remarkable about
my life, nothing at all, I'm barely here at all—perhaps
I would have fallen in love with her."
Though
life, history, and identity are changeable in The Book
of Chameleons, two of the main characters, Buchmann and
Angela Lúcia, are photographer. In a way, they are
the keepers of objective truth, as is Eulálio, the
omniscient narrator. But even photographs can be made to lie—something
Félix knows all too well. And who can trust a gecko
to tell the truth?
Félix
is the heart of the book, and Eulálio is the brain.
Their sweet relationship is the book's soul. Félix
confides in the gecko constantly, never aware that the gecko
can actually understand him but enjoying his company all the
same. Eulálio appreciates Félix's company just
as much, although Eulálio, who readers learn was very
well-read in his former life, sometimes has something to say
about Felix's turns of phrases.
"I'd
gladly exchange the company of all the geckos and lizards
for Félix Ventura and his long soliloquies. Yesterday
he confided in me that he'd met an amazing woman. Though,
he added, the word 'woman' doesn't quite do her justice.
'Angela Lúcia is to women what humankind is to
the apes.'
What an unpleasant phrase. […] He talked about her like
someone trying to give substance to a miracle."
Eulálio
does speak to Félix, and to Buchmann, in dreams that
they all share. Félix believes these are only dreams,
of course, but Eulálio takes them to be something other—an
alternate reality where he can converse with his friends.
This view is shared by Angela Lúcia who tells Félix,
upon learning he dreamed of talking to the gecko, "'God gave
us dreams so that we can get a glimpse of the other side.
To talk to our ancestors. To talk to God. And to geckos too,
as it turns out.'"
In an
interview, author Agualusa said he based the gecko on author
Jorge Luis Borges, and the memories Eulálio has of
his human life are based on events from Borges's life. Chameleons
is based upon Borges's recurring themes of the unstable border
between dreams and real life, the mutability of reality and
identity.
Agualusa's
prose has the languid beauty of a warm summer night. The narrative
unfolds slowly over the book's 192 pages, allowing Eulálio
plenty of time to ponder life's mysteries and mutability,
and to recount the dreams where he speaks to Félix
and Buchmann. Like most philosophers, Eulálio never
insists on a universal truth, but instead considers a variety
of options. This especially comes into play when analyzing
Buchmann's situation—did Félix literally rewrite
the past? Is Buchmann duplicitous? Or does the answer lay
somewhere between?
As lovely
as The Book of Chameleons is, fans of fast-paced, heavily
plotted narratives will not enjoy this book. It's not necessary
to be a fan of Borges to enjoy Chameleons, or even
to know anything about him, but readers not amenable to a
story where a gecko rhapsodizes on the nature of truth will
probably feel exasperated by the adorably wise Eulálio.
Most literary fiction fans, however, will be enchanted by
the changeable characters in Chameleons.
(August,
2008)
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