Chameleon: A memoir of art, travel, ideas and love
Robert Dessaix
Robert Dessaix’s Chameleon is about everything that matters, a book of memories that flow so freely they seem to happen as we read. Cartwheeling from story to story, Dessaix describes an identity in flux: his beginnings as an adopted child named Thomas Robert Jones, his youthful interest in religious thinking, his obsession with all things Russian, his marriage to Lisa and divorce, his discovery of travel. In North Africa he finds different ways of feeling and being, and in Australia he begins his abiding relationship with his partner Peter Timms. At every point he muses on pleasure, art, sex, literature, infatuation, happiness, music, life, death and all the rest. Chameleon is a virtuoso performance of self-revelation, as Dessaix explores how the restless mind takes constant detours to search for what makes life good, a place of wisdom and love.
andChameleon
‘Sophisticated and funny, Chameleon is a rich and entertaining education on a man’s life; a detailed map of the literature, ideas and places that shaped him.’
‘Wise, witty, and sumptuously idiosyncratic, Robert Dessaix is a writer for all seasons.’
‘In this flinty yet fond conversation with his long-ago self, Robert Dessaix explores the myriad contradictions that make us fully human. His words, and his singular wisdom, shimmer.’
’Sweet Jesus, this is beautiful.’
‘A dazzlingly beautiful reading experience.’
‘Carefully crafted and moving.’
‘Reading this offering is a crash course on his style, his wit and his being…A delightful, meandering cavort from childhood till now…I gobbled this unique read all up. I basked in his humour, intellect, and sensitivity.’
‘Dessaix writes with beauty, wit and infectious energy…Chameleon is an education on the role travel and literature can have in shaping our identities and imaginations.’
‘Inspiring…I cannot recommend it too highly. It is, without doubt “a must read.”’
‘Rather than trying to make sense of a life as a coherent series of events, Chameleon conveys the complex formation of a human voice, a literary voice. As readers, we have the pleasure of engaging with that voice, while learning to consider the nature of our own…Dessaix’s is a life resolved in language.’
