“Félix Ventura. Guarantee your children a better past.” (Agualusa, 16) In José Eduardo Agualusa’s “The Book of Chameleons,” reality is not a fixed entity but a malleable construct, subject to manipulation and reinterpretation. At the heart of this captivating narrative lies Félix Ventura, a peculiar character who deals in an extraordinary commodity: he crafts pasts […]
José Eduardo Agualusa, The Book of Chameleons
Questions on The Book of Chameleons
The Book of Chameleons 155
I won’t lie, I wasn’t particularly excited about this book, but I surprisingly enjoyed it. It’s definitely original, fun with a dash of philosophical thoughts. The Book of Chameleons takes us on a journey of identity, memory, and truth, blurring the lines between reality and fiction. Past = Identity? “My soul hurts with too much […]
As the last reading for this course, I made sure to take notes and reflect on the text as heavily as possible. I wanted to bring something more significant from it than a blog post, and I feel I did. In this novella written by Jose Eduardo Agualusa, we meet our protagonist, Daniel Benchimol, who […]
Hey everyone! It is (sadly) the last blog on a book. This week’s read The society of Reluctant Dreamers by…
For my penultimate blog post, I found myself reading Agualusa’s text closely to find overlap on the various themes found across the course readings. Memory is something which we looked closely at in all the readings—the certainty of events, and the unreliable narration which so often leads to the label of fiction for the stories. […]
Hi Everyone! I have to say, I feel quite sad writing the (second) last blog post for this class. This…
War seems to be the common theme the last couple of weeks and it is no different as this story takes place during the Angolan Civil War. However, this book tries to find the best out of this horrible situation by creating a dreamlike landscape and beautiful imagery to make this situation a little tolerable […]
