I genuinely don\u2019t think I\u2019ve 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\u2019m being narrated to by a gecko and no one is acting like that\u2019s 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\u2019re like wait what, and then five seconds later you\u2019re like okay fine I guess this is my reality now. Even the way the narrator casually describes its life, saying \u201cI was born in this house, and grew up here. I\u2019ve never left,\u201d (p.3) immediately makes you realize that this is not going to follow any normal expectations.<\/p>\n
What actually stayed with me though wasn\u2019t 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\u2019s 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 \u201creal\u201d anymore. When the narrator repeats \u201cNothing passes, nor expires, \/ The past is now,\u201d (p.3-4) it doesn\u2019t even feel dramatic, it just feels like a quiet fact, which honestly made it hit harder.<\/p>\n
The writing itself also has this strange calmness to it, even when it\u2019s 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\u2019s more like you\u2019re watching everything through a glass window, which fits perfectly because the narrator literally spends most of its time observing. When it says, \u201cThis is a living house. A living, breathing house,\u201d (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\u2019t fixed but constantly shifting and reacting.<\/p>\n
I also found the characters kind of funny without trying too hard. Felix especially. He\u2019s doing something morally questionable at best, but he carries himself with this weird confidence like he\u2019s providing a legitimate service. The way his business is described, that he \u201csells them a brand new past,\u201d (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.<\/p>\n
Overall, I think what made this book stand out to me is that it doesn\u2019t 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\u2019t always understand what was happening, but I was never bored, and honestly that says a lot.<\/p>\n
Discussion Question: If identity can be constructed through stories and memories, like in Felix\u2019s work, is there really a meaningful difference between a \u201creal\u201d past and an invented one?<\/p>\n
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I genuinely don\u2019t think I\u2019ve 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\u2019m being narrated to by a gecko and no one is acting like that\u2019s unusual. I had to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107537,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[19],"class_list":["post-30","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-agualusa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/keshiablogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/keshiablogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/keshiablogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/keshiablogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107537"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/keshiablogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/keshiablogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/keshiablogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30\/revisions\/31"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/keshiablogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/keshiablogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubc.ca\/keshiablogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}