I didn’t know José Eduardo Agualusa (a writer with a name that sounds very “poetic”). But I missed Lisbon again, as I do every summer for a few years.
I received last month The Book of Chameleons, published in Portuguese in 2004 and in Romanian translation by Leda Publishing in 2009.
That is how I’ve read two books at the same time, Fernando Pessoa's Lisbonne (Éditions 10/18), and the novel by Agualusa, the writer born in 1960 in Angola, who initially studies agronomy in Lisbon, and later followed the path of literature and journalism. He wrote several books, plays, stories and feature reports and is dividing his life between Angola, Portugal and Brazil, where he set up a publishing house with the aim to promote Portuguese language authors.
The Book of Chameleons is that kind of strange book, hypnotic, for a thorough reading, such as in a long holiday. If Pessoa in his “guide” for tourists visiting Lisbon takes you for a delightful walk to every corner that shouldn’t be missed in the town, Agualusa promises the delights inside the chilly walls. His characters lead their lives in the privacy of their homes: Félix Ventura the albino, a “confectioner” of pasts for those with a glorious present who wish a different memory and different roots, Eulalia the lizard, who laughs and who was human in a past life and Esperance, the old woman looking after the house. It is also here that lives come together as in a puzzle. Those who require the services of Félix Ventura are “people who lack a good past, illustrious ancestors, and coats of arms. In short: a name that spells nobility and culture. He sells them brand-new pasts. He gives to them photos of grandparents and great-grandparents, noble knights, and old time’s ladies.” A stranger comes to his house one day asking for help. Only he wants more than a past, he wants a new identity.
It is not the topic of the book subject that matters, as the metaphor in the title is enough, but the very special sound of the writing; the way in which the text flows and it melts into details, sensations, and strange dreams; fragments that you read and come back to them because the keep ringing into your ears, haunting you.
For an ending, the reconstruction of Felix Ventura’s moments of happiness: I was happy with my dog, Cabiri, we were both happy forever. (...) I was happy on the deck of Principe Perfeito’s ship, during an endless journey between Luanda and Lisbon, when I was throwing innocent message in bottles at sea. To whom may find this bottle, much gratitude for writing to me. Nobody ever wrote. In the catechesis classes, an old priest with a dull voice and tired eyes, tried without much conviction to explain to me what lies in Eternity. I thought it was another name for summer holidays.”
Enjoy your reading, or your lecture, as the case may be!
