I genuinely don’t think I’ve ever read a book that made me feel this disoriented but also weirdly impressed at the same time. Like I started this thinking it would be a normal story and then suddenly I’m being narrated to by a gecko and no one is acting like that’s unusual. I had to just accept it and move on, which honestly sets the tone for the entire book. It constantly puts you in situations where you’re like wait what, and then five seconds later you’re like okay fine I guess this is my reality now. Even the way the narrator casually describes its life, saying “I was born in this house, and grew up here. I’ve never left,” (p.3) immediately makes you realize that this is not going to follow any normal expectations.
What actually stayed with me though wasn’t just the weirdness, it was how casually the book treats something that is actually kind of insane. Felix literally sells people new pasts, like full identities, family histories, childhoods, everything. At first it feels almost funny, like wow rich people are really out here customizing their lives like it’s a LinkedIn profile. But the more I read, the more uncomfortable it got. It made me realize how much of identity is just storytelling. If you can rewrite your past and people believe it, then what even makes something “real” anymore. When the narrator repeats “Nothing passes, nor expires, / The past is now,” (p.3-4) it doesn’t even feel dramatic, it just feels like a quiet fact, which honestly made it hit harder.
The writing itself also has this strange calmness to it, even when it’s describing things that should feel intense or disturbing. The house, the memories, even the history of Angola in the background, everything feels slightly distant but not in a bad way. It’s more like you’re watching everything through a glass window, which fits perfectly because the narrator literally spends most of its time observing. When it says, “This is a living house. A living, breathing house,” (p.9) I actually believed it. The space feels alive in a way that mirrors how the past itself is treated, like something that isn’t fixed but constantly shifting and reacting.
I also found the characters kind of funny without trying too hard. Felix especially. He’s doing something morally questionable at best, but he carries himself with this weird confidence like he’s providing a legitimate service. The way his business is described, that he “sells them a brand new past,” (p.16) is so simple but also so absurd that it almost sounds normal after a while. And somehow the book never fully condemns him or defends him, it just lets him exist, which I actually appreciated. It felt more real that way, like people are complicated and not everything needs to be clearly labeled as right or wrong.
Overall, I think what made this book stand out to me is that it doesn’t give you clear answers or a neat message. It just leaves you sitting there slightly confused but also kind of amazed at how creative it is. I didn’t always understand what was happening, but I was never bored, and honestly that says a lot.
Discussion Question: If identity can be constructed through stories and memories, like in Felix’s work, is there really a meaningful difference between a “real” past and an invented one?
3 replies on “Identity Crisis, But Make It Luxury: The Business of Buying a Better Past”
“Felix literally sells people new pasts, like full identities, family histories, childhoods, everything.” What I find most interesting is that Felix doesn’t provide all the details, but only a few essential points. As you may recall, he leaves plenty of room for the clients themselves to fill in the narrative gaps. I think that makes the process more effective. In this way, the characters adopt that identity more naturally. Furthermore, as Buchmann demonstrates, the clients don’t always follow Felix’s instructions.
Hi Keshia! To answer your question, I think there is still a difference between a real and an invented past, but the novel shows that socially, people treat them the same if the story is believable enough. Félix’s clients don’t change who they actually are, but because other people accept their new pasts, their identities effectively become real, which makes identity feel more like something socially constructed than something fixed.
Hey!! The sentence “If you can rewrite your past and people believe it, then what even makes something “real” anymore” will definitely not lead me to have an existential crisis, but it is such an awesome point. I also really appreciated how the book somehow makes the most surreal ideas and things seem like an average Wednesday. I think this book sometimes felt like the moment you realize you made this tiny thing that happened to you a few years back, and no one knows or cares about a huge personality trait. It forces us to step back and realize how wild the concept of perception is, and how, similar to what Agualusa said in the conversation video, we can never really experience or think about something the same way twice. It’s always changing, and so are its effects. Great post :))