The Book of Chameleons by José Eduardo Agualusa
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The Past Isn’t What It Was

“Given a choice between life and books, my son, you must choose books!” The gecko-protagonist (he was, he believes, previously human) remembers his father’s advice. Fiction is the only refuge from a reality which is always painful. It is the means of escape from a world in which we can never really be at home (the gecko, on the other hand, is very much at home; in fact he is a so-called house gecko, prized for keeping the home free of nasty bugs like mosquitoes; and, despite the intimation of the book’s title-in-translation, a gecko is not a chameleon).

To fictionalize one’s life therefore - not just in private but as one’s public persona - is essential therapy. Childhood trauma can be eliminated. Unfortunate parentage corrected. Gaps in education filled. Crimes erased. The gecko’s housemate, Felix, has found his calling as “a man who dealt in memories, a man who sold the past, clandestinely, the way other people deal in cocaine.”

Felix is an artist. As he confides to the gecko: “‘I think what I do is really an advanced kind of literature,’ he told me conspiratorially. ‘I create plots, I invent characters, but rather than keeping them trapped in a book I give them life, launching them out into reality.’” His philosophy conforms nicely with the advice of the gecko’s father: “Literature is the only chance for a true liar to attain any sort of social acceptance.”

And who could argue? If national history is a matter of variable interpretation, why not individual life-histories? Truth, Felix believes, is a superstition. We are happy only for those brief moments we close our eyes to reality.

Besides, do we not grow into our fictions? Is it better we merely accept those given us by our parents or boldly create our own? Isn’t this what setting goals in life is about, telling ourselves stories about ourselves and then living up to the stories? And where can truly original, authentic stories come from but an imaginary past?

And of course if one can successfully invent oneself, it is possible to invent one’s family, one’s ancestors, one’s friends and acquaintances with equivalent ease. With only a little practice we can be discussing them with others, visiting their graves, posting newspaper adverts to find those with whom we have list touch. If reality is a convention, our living it makes it real.

The difficulty. naturally. with fictional reality is that it gets out of control rather easily. For example the President, the government, even in principle the entire country can be replaced, replicated, and there would be no way to know. A fantasy police force, a fantasy justice system, with stand-ins created by the Mafia, or the Russians, or Mossad. And this long before the person of Donald Trump emerged as an international figure!

But there’s an even more fundamental problem: “All stories are connected. In the end everything is connected.” Eventually the lies collide with each other. The 17th century philosopher Gottfried Leibniz speculated that God told everyone’s story and ensured that all stories were consistent. It’s not a bad theory if one is a theist. But if there is no one coordinating the self-generated fictions, the results can be disastrous, especially when things like revenge for atrocities are at stake. The network of lies then threatens to unravel violently.

The gecko is Agualusa’s god-like presence. He doesn’t know the real stories of Felix’s clients; but he does know the fictions that Felix creates for them, and he knows these to be fictitious (geckos can’t blink, and their adhesive feet make them quite literally part of the walls; so they see and hear everything). Apparently geckos are long lived creatures, but they are not immortal. And they are vulnerable to the demonic scorpion. What happens when the gecko dies?

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