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“Chameleon”
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“Madness wields many a disguise.”
This is a “massive story” that was written while under the influence of David Lynch and Stephen King. Well, at least that’s what the blurb from the product page implies. I suppose that explains the fever dream that is “Chameleon” – an “acid trip” of epic proportion featuring a nameless protagonist. He has no name, which I guess makes the guy “mysterious”, but it could also mean he’s just an undocumented immigrant. He is in search of answers, but does he possess the will to gaze into his navel long enough to uncover the root of his existential crisis?!
This is a “massive story” that was written while under the influence of David Lynch and Stephen King. Well, at least that’s what the blurb from the product page implies. I suppose that explains the fever dream that is “Chameleon” – an “acid trip” of epic proportion featuring a nameless protagonist. He has no name, which I guess makes the guy “mysterious”, but it could also mean he’s just an undocumented immigrant. He is in search of answers, but does he possess the will to gaze into his navel long enough to uncover the root of his existential crisis?!
Readability
So it doesn’t take long to realize that the vague premise described in the blurb was a telltale sign meant to justify the lack of plot in “Chameleon”. I’ve mentioned before that I’m not a fan of authors using the names of famous individuals or works to sell their own product, and this short story (using that term loosely) is no exception. Mentioning David Lynch does not automatically absolve an author of carte blanche ambiguity or wonky abstraction in place of putting in actual effort to write a coherent narrative.
Even when an author is writing something “whimsical”, there’s still going to be a method to the mayhem. “Chameleon” is narrated in first person from the point of view of a nameless main character. The work itself is broken up into subsections (I wouldn’t even call them chapters), that vary in form from one to the next. One may read like a vignette, where another might read more like a journal entry, and the next like an essay of sorts.
Creativity
There is some vivid imagery throughout this work, and there are some key moments that I think the author really wanted to focus on writing. Most notably I would point to the following scenarios:
- The storm followed by the encounter with the creature in the barn
- Emerging from the battle in the Marsh and the child embraced by the “Mystic Woman”
- The “Hero” slaying the “Blue People” and freeing the warehouse slaves
- Confronting “The Colorful Man”
I found the prose to be laden with pretentious riddles and unnecessary metaphor. For instance, when the main character meets a child named Charles, they arrive at a Marsh together under the subtitled section called “Them”:
“So deep was the color green that surrounded us, under our arching feet, surrounding us, trying to seduce us into their shade, deeper and deeper, as we could hear the insects whispering within their secret language, amphibians chanting their sexual chants and the unknown lurking and exhaling their desires into the open.”
Not only is that a run-on sentence that makes no contextual sense, but there was no reason at all for the hypersexual subtext. Quite frankly, I don’t appreciate “THEM” putting chemicals in the water that turn the friggin’ frogs gay (let alone the Chameleons or any other amphibian/reptilian lifeform for that matter)!
Delivery
“Chameleon” is something I would expect to read if I had asked a ten year old to write down what happened in his dreams. Don’t tell Charles Booker I said that, but that is effectively what the reader is getting here. The surreal series of events that take place are not really linked together in any meaningful way that would constitute an actual plot, but there are some clues embedded throughout the work that seem to point towards an overall meaning.
“A young boy armed to the teeth, seeks vengeance upon his bastardizing father.”
Yeah, I hate to disappoint but all the glitz and glam surrounding the imagery pretty much boils down to familial trauma and daddy issues. The fact that the main character is never given a name reinforces the ongoing crisis of identity he displays. The character emerges from a shack at the beginning and at first I thought he was an animal, but as events unfold the character becomes more cerebral.
Each subtitle serves to indicate what each subsection is about, whether it’s a theme that’s being illustrated, a subject portrayed, or a topic of exposition. One subtitle is called “Taken In” and it’s a scenario in which the protagonist is sheltered by a happy family. The main character states that the father figure of the family is not his own, but embraces him as a “true” father should. Later when the main character is invited to the family’s lavish dinner table to eat with them, his response is to question his own worthiness.
The following subsection is titled “With a Storm, Comes Turbulence”, in which all the realism of the previous sections go to wayside in order to make room for the surrealism that proceeds throughout the rest of the work. Almost as if the author felt as though they were hitting a little too close to home and suddenly had a change of heart as to what direction they wanted to go with this.
I think first person point of view can be quite suspicious when it comes to storytelling, but really boils down to context. There is a lot of ambiguity in this work. The author uses words written in caps lock to conceptualize what I describe as archetypical representations and thematic tropes. The protagonist (or the author, because I think the real mystery of this work lies in figuring out who is the one that’s actually doing the talking) makes general statements about “INNOCENCE”, “THEY”, “THEM”, “HERO”, “FEAR”, "ALL BUSINESS".
The overall vibe I get when reading a piece of work as ambiguous as “Chameleon” is a strong feeling of emotional projection. I feel like this was a piece of work that really served as a psychological dumping ground for the author, but of course that is just presumption on my part. However the lack of story structure and narrative framework (not to mention the fact that the protagonist has no identity or any character development to speak of) does not help. The subsection entitled “Dad” opens with the following line:
“Life is a surreal journey, like walking through the Salvador Dali museum; you don’t know what you are going to experience or what to expect.”
There’s such a clear resentment for the “main character’s” father throughout the entire work that it’s something that just can’t be denied - to the point that it feels like you’re reading something very intimate, but yet it’s camouflaged as a colorful “story”.
So it doesn’t take long to realize that the vague premise described in the blurb was a telltale sign meant to justify the lack of plot in “Chameleon”. I’ve mentioned before that I’m not a fan of authors using the names of famous individuals or works to sell their own product, and this short story (using that term loosely) is no exception. Mentioning David Lynch does not automatically absolve an author of carte blanche ambiguity or wonky abstraction in place of putting in actual effort to write a coherent narrative.
Even when an author is writing something “whimsical”, there’s still going to be a method to the mayhem. “Chameleon” is narrated in first person from the point of view of a nameless main character. The work itself is broken up into subsections (I wouldn’t even call them chapters), that vary in form from one to the next. One may read like a vignette, where another might read more like a journal entry, and the next like an essay of sorts.
Creativity
There is some vivid imagery throughout this work, and there are some key moments that I think the author really wanted to focus on writing. Most notably I would point to the following scenarios:
- The storm followed by the encounter with the creature in the barn
- Emerging from the battle in the Marsh and the child embraced by the “Mystic Woman”
- The “Hero” slaying the “Blue People” and freeing the warehouse slaves
- Confronting “The Colorful Man”
I found the prose to be laden with pretentious riddles and unnecessary metaphor. For instance, when the main character meets a child named Charles, they arrive at a Marsh together under the subtitled section called “Them”:
“So deep was the color green that surrounded us, under our arching feet, surrounding us, trying to seduce us into their shade, deeper and deeper, as we could hear the insects whispering within their secret language, amphibians chanting their sexual chants and the unknown lurking and exhaling their desires into the open.”
Not only is that a run-on sentence that makes no contextual sense, but there was no reason at all for the hypersexual subtext. Quite frankly, I don’t appreciate “THEM” putting chemicals in the water that turn the friggin’ frogs gay (let alone the Chameleons or any other amphibian/reptilian lifeform for that matter)!
Delivery
“Chameleon” is something I would expect to read if I had asked a ten year old to write down what happened in his dreams. Don’t tell Charles Booker I said that, but that is effectively what the reader is getting here. The surreal series of events that take place are not really linked together in any meaningful way that would constitute an actual plot, but there are some clues embedded throughout the work that seem to point towards an overall meaning.
“A young boy armed to the teeth, seeks vengeance upon his bastardizing father.”
Yeah, I hate to disappoint but all the glitz and glam surrounding the imagery pretty much boils down to familial trauma and daddy issues. The fact that the main character is never given a name reinforces the ongoing crisis of identity he displays. The character emerges from a shack at the beginning and at first I thought he was an animal, but as events unfold the character becomes more cerebral.
Each subtitle serves to indicate what each subsection is about, whether it’s a theme that’s being illustrated, a subject portrayed, or a topic of exposition. One subtitle is called “Taken In” and it’s a scenario in which the protagonist is sheltered by a happy family. The main character states that the father figure of the family is not his own, but embraces him as a “true” father should. Later when the main character is invited to the family’s lavish dinner table to eat with them, his response is to question his own worthiness.
The following subsection is titled “With a Storm, Comes Turbulence”, in which all the realism of the previous sections go to wayside in order to make room for the surrealism that proceeds throughout the rest of the work. Almost as if the author felt as though they were hitting a little too close to home and suddenly had a change of heart as to what direction they wanted to go with this.
I think first person point of view can be quite suspicious when it comes to storytelling, but really boils down to context. There is a lot of ambiguity in this work. The author uses words written in caps lock to conceptualize what I describe as archetypical representations and thematic tropes. The protagonist (or the author, because I think the real mystery of this work lies in figuring out who is the one that’s actually doing the talking) makes general statements about “INNOCENCE”, “THEY”, “THEM”, “HERO”, “FEAR”, "ALL BUSINESS".
The overall vibe I get when reading a piece of work as ambiguous as “Chameleon” is a strong feeling of emotional projection. I feel like this was a piece of work that really served as a psychological dumping ground for the author, but of course that is just presumption on my part. However the lack of story structure and narrative framework (not to mention the fact that the protagonist has no identity or any character development to speak of) does not help. The subsection entitled “Dad” opens with the following line:
“Life is a surreal journey, like walking through the Salvador Dali museum; you don’t know what you are going to experience or what to expect.”
There’s such a clear resentment for the “main character’s” father throughout the entire work that it’s something that just can’t be denied - to the point that it feels like you’re reading something very intimate, but yet it’s camouflaged as a colorful “story”.
#LFLR Indie Rating: 3.5/10
I’m not a psychologist, but I can see how entertaining the idea that you may be peering directly into the author’s psyche could be uncomfortable for some readers. “Chameleon” suffers from too much ambiguity, to the point where the abstract concepts fail to offer any substance for the reader. Calling this work a “story” is more than a stretch. It’s basically a lie. However, I did learn a lesson from this experience, and that’s - if an author claims that they write “experimental fiction” (instead of saying “avant-garde”), then I only have myself to blame for yet another novice discovery from the independent market. Layden Robinson is a self-proclaimed Indie Madman, who has released a handful of short fiction including his most popular work, “The Havoc Tree”, which is described as “Words, thoughts and manic rantings under the influence of strong drink and fine smoky treats.”
I’m not a psychologist, but I can see how entertaining the idea that you may be peering directly into the author’s psyche could be uncomfortable for some readers. “Chameleon” suffers from too much ambiguity, to the point where the abstract concepts fail to offer any substance for the reader. Calling this work a “story” is more than a stretch. It’s basically a lie. However, I did learn a lesson from this experience, and that’s - if an author claims that they write “experimental fiction” (instead of saying “avant-garde”), then I only have myself to blame for yet another novice discovery from the independent market. Layden Robinson is a self-proclaimed Indie Madman, who has released a handful of short fiction including his most popular work, “The Havoc Tree”, which is described as “Words, thoughts and manic rantings under the influence of strong drink and fine smoky treats.”
THIS BREAKDOWN IS BROUGHT TO YOU BY THE #LFLR NETWORK.
