Eduardo Agualuso, THE BOOK OF CHAMELEONS

4:1 in terms of appreciation. For Caroline a bad, stilted translation spoiled the joy of reading and it could be resumed as hard work for her to get through it. Others admitted, that it was difficult to get into the book, because it was not very logical or easy to understand at the beginning and irritating to a point that some read the beginning several times in order to get into the book.

According to Myriam Agualuso's other books are also tending to a more dreamy, non-realistic style. This book is very rich in allusions in many directions and hence destined for literature studies? There came up the word "pretentious" on which several people agreed, but one could also find thoughtful phrases and interesting quotations.

Robin asked the question of Why so many dreams? Do they lead to a higher level of explanation that the reader couldn't have understood otherwise?

Maybe not, although they do provide a communication channel for the gecko to share with other humans and express himself as a human being again.

Maren provided an insightful Alternative explanation: Dreams (trances) are a founding part of the African animist religions Candomblé and Umbanda. In these faiths, dreaming can be compared to travelling and conversations/exchanges with all types of creatures during such travels constitute an important element of expression of these religions.

Candomblé and Umbanda were brought to Brazil by the (soon to become) slaves from the African west coast and have evolved in South America ever since. Interestingly, they are now supposedly much more active in Brazil than in their original countries.  

(Researched after the meeting: "Umbanda" means "traditional medecine" in the Angolan languages Kimbundu and Umbundu.)

There was the question of Félix' profession and people asking for his services, wishing to leave their own past behind and start a new life, the possibility to chose their own history and references. Of course we mentioned all the opportunities such a change presents, but we did not think of the losses and especially the loss of identity also related to such a change.

This seems to be today even one of the country's major topics in a larger scale, when taking into account some effects and impacts of their colonial past (thanks to Myriam for sharing her insights):

- People dress themselves in rather western style, you won't see women in traditional clothing as in other African countries.

- Portuguese has become the native tongue for many people and trying to learn the local ("tribal") languages is not uncommon.

Many thanks to Myriam for her slide show with images from Angola! We did realize that we do not know very much about history and the current situation of this country. So Myriam's shared first hand experiences about life in Angola were very helpful!

Funny also how much one's reception of the historical background of a book depends on the personal education and background. Whereas Robin rather could relate to the colonial references in the book, Maren got reminded of the proganda text books in East Germany and the supporting slogans for "socialist" Angola after independence in 1975 which was a context entirely out of sight for the "westerner" members of the group.

Maren & Myriam