A lively swing of events rolls into place at the beginning of the novel, full of musical brilliance, unknown voices, and objects scattered across empty spaces. This is a book of wavering stars. And in this midst of it all there is a shadow of contempla…
Carmen Laforet, Nada
Reading Nada felt less like reading a novel and more like being dropped into someone else’s extremely tense family group chat, except it’s set in postwar Barcelona and everyone is emotionally unwell in a deeply artistic way. What got me wasn’t the plot (which I’ll spare you), but the feeling of the book: that constant […]
When I first finished Nada, my immediate reaction was kind of anticlimactic. After a full year of Andrea’s life in Barcelona, she leaves feeling like she’s taken nothing away from the experience. She didn’t have a crazy transformation, didn’t really take away a clear lesson, and the story ended with no dramatic resolution. Just… nada. […]
Mercè Rodoreda, The Time of the Doves
A conversation with Anna Casas
The Book of Chameleons by Jose Eduardo Agualusa is a tale that intertwines reality with fiction, and the past with the present. The title of the novel is quite deceiving, as it barely mentions chameleons, but the closest we get is a gecko narrator living in Angola. The novel is a profound exploration of memory, […]
Hi everyone! This week I read “The Book of Chameleons” by José Eduardo Agualusa. I am going to be very honest and say that I did not enjoy this book, mainly because I found it difficult to follow and mildly uninteresting. However, this book discusses important themes of identity, truth and historical impact. It also […]
José Eduardo Agualusa, The Book of Chameleons
