All types of lizards (if lizards means only geckos and chameleons and chameleons means humans).

Here are some post final midterm deranged thoughts:

“The Book of Chameleons”. What an interesting and creative read, but one that was also kinda confusing to follow. I think that that’s a product of the dreamy double world created by José Eduardo Agualusa.

It took me a while to figure out why this book was titled “The Book of Chameleons”. The one lizard in this book is a gecko – a transient narrator gecko human reincarnate? But the title is really a perfect metaphor for what the book is about; the dynamic nature of identity. Much like chameleons, changing colour to mesh with their surroundings, the characters in this book are attempting to reshape their identities.  Felix Ventura starts off as the man of the hour, but is slowly crowded out by his work. One of Félix Ventura’s jobs is creating new pasts for people – people with good futures, but a past not adequate to match (or at least that is the only reason I could see for someone wanting to change their identity (outside of witness protection services)). These individuals are chameleons in their own right, blending into new environments with their fabricated backgrounds.

Ventura’s job really got me thinking. A question that I explored as I read this was – can you really change your identity? I mean can you truly leave your past behind? On one hand I think that assuming a new public and legal identity can surely help you forget hardship, but I think that that is only a temporary, and interrupted relief. I mean sure, day to day, you are free to live as you will, but you would always know that your freedom or peace has come at the cost of ownership of yourself in the public world. Everything you do from the moment you choose to assume a new identity onwards would be built on the pretext of your true self and the moments that got you to where you are. You may be able to forget, but your present is a product of the past.  At the same time, your true self becomes this sort of crystalized character of the past. I think you would fall into a limbo, out of yourself into a character. A world where you are and are not at the same time, your character. It’s like you’re an actor who has all their thoughts in tact, but cannot get out of the physical costume of their character – can’t be good mentally.