The Book of Chameleons by Jose Eduardo Agualusa

I read The Book of Chameleons by Jose Eduardo Agualusa because it happened to be on a staff pics shelf and my fiancé (Doug) suggested it. It sounded like the kind of book I would normally enjoy. It was a quick read, but at the end of it, I felt that having no knowledge in Angolan culture prevented me from understanding a lot of the components of the story.

The book circles around revolutions that I have no knowledge of, as well as a history and culture that I know nothing about. Also, the talking lizard is supposed to be the reincarnated Argentinean writer Jorge Luis Borges, who I had never heard of until reading this book. Since my blog isn’t a scholarly article by any stretch, I looked Borges up on Wikipedia, trying to figure out if I could get any more from the story by learning more about him. It added a bit of understanding to the lizard’s personality; his fears, his pleasures, and the strange bits he shares about his past. But it didn’t offer much more understanding for the story as a whole.

The book’s main character is Felix Ventura, an albino black man (you have to read it to understand how that works) who makes a living selling fabricated pasts. He falls in love with a kind and beautiful woman (according to the lizard) and gets a shady new client; complications ensue. Because the book’s plot has a few twists and not much in between (it’s very short), it’s difficult to talk about without giving it all away, so I won’t go into any further details. From what I did understand, it was an okay story. But it felt kind of empty because most of it (I think) went over my head.

I don’t know how I would feel about recommending this book to anyone with no knowledge of Angolan culture or of Jorge Luis Borges. I didn’t hate reading this book, but I also feel like my time could have been better spent reading something else. If you do have knowledge in the subject matter, then I say try it out and let me know what I missed. Otherwise, I say skip it. Even though it has a talking lizard…

Book Information
Title: The Book of Chameleons
Author: Jose Eduardo Agualusa
Translated by: Daniel Hahn
Year of publication: English Translation, June 2008
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Pages: 192
Awards: The Independent Foreign Fiction Prize 2007
Purchased at: Indigo Bay & Bloor
Rating: 3/5