The book The Book of Chamelions by Jose Eduardo Agualusa opens to a map of Angola, thus leaving its readers no doubt as to where the story occurs. Its first few pages are told from the point of view of Eulalio, the gecko who has been living in the house and is the witness to everything that goes on and everyone that goes in and out of the house. He intimidated that the master of the house, Felix Ventura, is an albino, of which the gecko thinks has developed “a thread of friendship” between them from watching the sun set since the week before. The story starts with the gecko as a narrator, a perfect character for the role as he was the only one who is always in the house, always high above as if a god who observes and sees everything. According to the gecko, the house “is a living house. A living, breathing house” which he hears “sighing all night long” (Agualusa 9).
The book is divided into chapters with titles which somehow indicates and summarises what the readers are to expect, a kind of foreshadowing that brings the readers to where the author wants them to be. They are also not divided into the same number of pages, some only a page long, the others four or five, appearing as if they are a mini-narrative. This enables the story to flow as if in bends, like a meandering river that does not flow strongly but with a gentle stream that touches every piece of land on the bend, fleeting yet with impact. For instance, the gecko would describe Such is indicated in the dream sequence that is told by the gecko, with six chapters of the book telling about his life where he is human, indicating that he has lived as a man for almost a century. According to his dreams, his name was Jorge Luis Borges. This is even more reinforced when each of his dreams are all followed by Felix’s report about them. However, as Felix’s life starts to unfold, this brings out the question of whether what he thought was his previous life is real, that he was really human with a complete past, or if it was just a dream that was sold to him by Felix.
Despite the gecko’s dreams, which would leap from the present to the time almost a century ago when the gecko was presumably human, he is detached from story, with his narration all based on what he sees in the house. His position in the ceiling where he is able to see everything gives the idea that he is omniscient, an outsider looking in. He says what he sees, such as when he introduces Esperanca Job Sapalo, who has “a fine web of wrinkles on her face and completely white hair, but her flesh is still firm, her gestures solid and precise” (Agualusa 12). The gecko expresses what he thinks, without fear of getting punished. According to him, despite Felix owning the house, it is Esperanca who is the pillar of the house. This detachment he exhibits in the story is also the same thing he exhibits when he talks about Felix’s job, which he describes as selling memories to people and helping them construct their past. The story indicates that during their time, when people are just recovering from the war, many people want to just simply wipe out their past and take on a new identity. However, there are others who only want to take on an identity of honor and title, and Felix is able to provide them with it.
It would appear that for Felix, the thing that he does is just to provide people with new identities that he could provide them, but things are about to change after he meets who would be Jose Buchmann. The gecko describes this meeting with Jose Buchmann as another “voice to add to all others” to his past (Agualusa 44). Jose Buchmann is a war photographer who only wants to wipe his past away and replace it with the one that Felix will provide him. From the dreamlike tone of this conversation, the story moves out to the true identity of the war photographer who, in reality, is only seeking for revenge.
The novel indicates in almost its pages that life is a cycle, that those who have lived before can come back and live again, perhaps in a different form, in the future. This is true in the story of the gecko, if it is indeed true that he used to be a man instead of it simply being another identity that Felix made him believe. However, this is stongly indicated in the way Felix does his job. The way he provies people with new identities that don’t necessarily come from a real past is similar to how a person, or an animal, in the case of the gecko, can have a life in the present that is completely different from the past. The idea of duplicity is also inscribed in the novel, such as in the case of Felix and the gecko, wherein the animal will prov to be a double to Felix. The gecko, or to be specific the tiger gecko, is a rare specie, just like the albino whose skin color is out of place in a country whose people’s skin color is generally black. As the gecko describes, how the paid women that the albino brings to the house “sit on the edge of their chair, trying not to look directly at him, unable to hide their disgust” (Augalusa 5).
The story shows alternately scenes at present which are light and funny, thanks to the humor that the gecko provides, but would then move on to the dark past of the country which was had a savage history to forget and hide. This is also the same idea that is brought by Jose Buchmann, a war photographer who has seen the ugly picture of the war, and is only now seeking for all of it to be wiped out and forgotten. However, despite his desire to forget, the pain of the past does not simply go away, such is also the pain and the desire for revenge that Jose Buchmann eventually wanted.
Work Cited
Agualusa, Jose Eduardo. The Book of Chameleons. Hahn, Daniel, Translator. New York: Simon
& Schuster Paperbacks. Print.
