Oi blog!! Hope this past week was good :))
This week, I had the pleasure of reading The Book of Chameleons. When I first picked this book from the syllabus, a small part of my mind started the debate of “should I read this book in English or in Portuguese??” While you may think my answer would be “Easy!! I’ll read it in Portuguese because that’s my native language!!”, you unfortunately thought wrong, and here’s why.
Contrary to how the changes between British, North American, and Canadian English are pretty minor and usually manifest when talking about the little things, the difference between Portugal Portuguese and Brasilian Portuguese is much bigger. We have the difference in the little things, but (in the simplest, crudest terms possible), basically, Portugal Portuguese is the older, fancier, more formal brother to the slower, chiller, and more “changed” Brasilian Portuguese. This is due to how the other languages that surrounded Brasil and Portugal changed the Portuguese. So while we have posh Portuguese in Portugal, we have a Portuguese with gingado (groovy, with swing) because of the many Indigenous and African languages we incorporated into our Portuguese. So when I first picked Agualusa’s novel, I started to wonder what Angolan Portuguese is like.
I debated for a while and ultimately decided to read the book in Portuguese, which was the best decision ever. So I am sorry to say this, but I lied to you. I did not read The Book of Chameleons; I read O Vendedor de Passados, which translates to “the seller of pasts”. I am so grateful I went for the Portuguese version because I had so much fun reading. Turns out Angolan Portuguese is very similar to Portugal Portuguese, meaning if you were an osga on my wall, you would’ve caught me giggling at my Kindle while reading some of the fanciest Portuguese I’ve seen since I finished high school in 2023 (I was also giggling because apparently there are slight spelling differences for words, so I had a great time finding all of those). But there are also some Brasil-ities to Angolan Portuguese, which I saw through the incorporation of originally indigenous words into their everyday vocabulary.
An example of these differences that made my reading experience so fun was the word “osga”, which you have seen twice in this blog. So…. What is an osga you ask?? An osga is a “house gecko”, or what I’m supposed to know as a “lagartixa”, but I know as a “Mariana”. The book in Portuguese kept using the word osga, and I loved it because it sounds fun. Your next question should be, “Julya…. what?? Mariana?”, which is very fair. So let’s talk memories.
(a Mariana :33 image link)
From the Julya POV– Ever since I was a kid, we’ve had little lagartixas/osgas/house geckos around my house. I do not remember how this started, but I’m pretty sure what happened was that my dad didn’t want me to be scared of the lagartixas, so he named one Mariana. And the name stuck. So every time I see a lagartixa/osga/house gecko to this day, I call every single one of them Mariana.
From the Eulálio (may he rest in peace and shade) POV– the book discusses memories in such an interesting way. As a Psych student, I know that you can’t really trust memories, since every time you remember something, you are actually remembering something slightly different than what happened (memories are unfortunately not reliable). And the book does mention this when talking about how Félix Ventura has “false memories sometimes – we all do, don’t we?”(116). Which I think is one of the reasons the premise of this novel appealed to me so much. Humans aren’t really capable of remembering their pasts properly (not talking to the eidetic memory folks), so a man who can sell you a past is quite an interesting story.
The novel poses an important point about how, no matter how much you change, despite trying to forget and distance yourself from your past, it’s still yours. And it will never leave you. Very a la Undertale (or the other way around, since this launched first),
Furthermore, the novel tells us that even if we forget our past and our actions, they still ripple out and have consequences. José Buchmann/Pedro Gouveia wanted to forget his past, and yet he ends up face to face with it when he has dinner with Ângela Lúcia. Which, side note, WHAT WAS THAT REVEAL?!?!? I loved it, the moment I put the pieces together, my internal monologue went “waitWAIT OH MY GOD what I would do to be a fly on that wall….. WAIT I AM ON THE WALL. I AM AN OSGA ON THE WALL. HOLY SHIT THIS IS AWESOME”. So thank you, Agualusa, for letting me cross off “being a fly on the wall” off my “this can literally never happen but ???maybe????” bucket list.
Another interesting concept the book touches on is the “truth”. I would love to dive into the philosophical talks of what really is the “truth”, and also what really is “history”, if not the point of view of the most privileged. But I will not talk about it because otherwise this blog will be too long lol. I do want to mention that the way they talked about lies reminded me a lot of the ending section of If on a Winter’s Night a Traveller, how thin the balance between a truth and a lie really is.
Overall, this book is definitely one of my top 3 reads for this class. I adored the point of view so much, being an osca was so much fun. It kind of reminded me of the point of view we take in The Shrouded Woman, since in both novels, we are observing a life from a small distance after finishing our own. The narration was awesome, the characters were super interesting, and I had a genuinely amazing time reading this novel in my native language. I’ll end the book talk by asking for a silent moment for Félix’s dead dogs and for our GOAT Eulálio.
Now that the book talk is done, I have to do my obligatory
✨✨BRASIL MENTION CARALHO!! NÚMERO UM DO MUNDO PORRAAAA!!! WOOOOO!!✨✨
Brasil was mentioned so much in this book, it was so cool. I loved that very much. My country is so awesome, I love being Brasilian.
My question this week is– on page 101, José Buchmann tells Félix to “receive an affectionate greeting from your true friend”. In Portuguese, the sentence is “aceite um abraço do amigo sincero”, which literally translates to “accept a hug from a sincere/honest friend”. Is it fair for us to say José Buchmann is a sincere/honest friend since he is lying about his identity and past?? Could it even be called lying if someone genuinely believed that something was a fact from their past, kind of like the minister deciding what Félix told him was literally what happened??
Last but certainly not least, now onto what everyone is definitely waiting for, the
Freud Tally!!!!!!!!!
This week, we had another normal relationship?!?! The balance of this class is healing. And my “the only titles that can make Freud proud are the single word ones” theory survives another week.
Freud Tally!!!!!!!!!
Makes Freud proud- 2 (Combray, Agostino)
Knows Freud had no credentials to do psychology- 6 (Mad Toy, The Shrouded Woman, The Time of The Doves, If on a Winter’s Night a Traveller, Money to Burn, The Book of Chameleons)
Obrigada por ler, até semana que vem!!! Tchau :))