“The Society of Reluctant Dreamers” by José Eduardo Agualusa is a novel that follows the characters’ lives and dreams with a background of war and protesting. I found it to be a little confusing as it jumped from different perspectives, but I enjoyed the concept and style of the storytelling.
To respond to the lecture’s question, I think dreams are mostly used as inspiration, escape, and creativity. Dreams are defined in numerous ways. There are dreams one experiences from sleep, dreams one may wish to become a reality, and dreams that are one’s goals for the future. Overall, I think dreams are scenarios and situations that are created when people want to change their current reality, whether temporarily or permanently.
In the novel, we learn of Daniel, Hossi, and Moira’s reoccurring patterns in dreams. For example, Daniel’s dreams of real people and Hossi’s purple coat. There doesn’t seem to be any direct explanation or reason for them. At the end of the novel, using the neuroscientist’s technology, it is revealed that everyone had the same dream. Armando says, “it’s ours! It’s our dream!” (252). Here, it seems dreams are a way of uniting people. Hossi appears in the dreams of those around him, including this large dream everyone had. As mentioned earlier, Daniel dreams of real people, regardless of whether he knows them or not. It was also Moira’s dreams and her records of them on her camera that had drawn Daniel towards her. Another dream in the novel is the people’s strive for freedom. The protestors, including Daniel’s daughter Karinguiri, hope to make a change. They fight for and dream of freedom. Eventually, they succeed, and make it a reality. It seems, in this novel, dreams connect people. The dreams unite them through hope and imagination.
Another part of the novel I found interesting was the lion cub/hyena. It was a smaller part of the novel, but it showed some insight into Daniel’s childhood and nature. Through Hossi’s journal, the reader is first introduced to Moshe Dayan as a lion cub who Daniel didn’t want to kill (26). He instead takes care of him until its disappearance. Later in the novel, however, Daniel corrects Hossi by saying Moshe Dayan was actually a hyena (133). This stood out to me because it didn’t seem to have too much connection with the rest of the story, and after its short tale, it was brought up again later and corrected.
Overall, I found Agualusa’s “The Society of Reluctant Dreamers” to be a creatively written novel and concept. Dreams are quite fascinating, and through this story we delve deeper into its different meanings and interpretations. A question I have is, what do you think is the purpose of Daniel and Moshe Dayan’s story?
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“It was a smaller part of the novel, but it showed some insight into Daniel’s childhood and nature.”
I think you may have answered your own question there… 🙂 But I think there’s also something here about memory and story-telling (Benchimol remembers it being a hyena; in the story Hossi is told it’s a lion) and about which differences count and which one don’t.
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