Carnival

by Rawi Hage

The book is the story of a taxi driver, Fly, and the people he meets and has met in his life.

Fly's parents were circus performers, his mother a trapeze artist/contortionist.  His father flew on a magic carpet.  His father flew away when Fly was young and Fly's mother fell into the arms of many of the men of the circus.  She commits suicide and Fly is adopted by the "bearded women" who looks after him like a mother.    Part of his life he serves as a seer at the circus, guessing people's weights and other things.

When the book starts Fly is a taxi driver in an unspecified big city.  The carnival is a big time in the city, lots of visitors and lots of business for the taxi drivers.

Fly describes two types of taxi drivers, the spiders, who wait for bookings from the dispatcher and the flies like him who roam around the streets and pickup fares at random.

Fly lives like a fly on the wall, watching things that happen.  He describes the many weird and scarry types of customers he meets in his job and some of his fellow taxi drivers.  He also describes some of the people that he gets two know, befriend, prostitutes, the son of one of the prostitutes who is fostered by another couple when his mother isn't capable of looking after him, drunks, a university student who makes money by being an exotic dancer, a drug dealer who is murdered one night when Fly takes him on a regular drive to conduct his business. Some of the prostitutes go to a building near a factory and provide their services at a cut rate fee once per month because they feel sorry for the poor immigrant workers.   Several of the characters seem to have mental issues.  But there is affection and honour among "theives" and the down and out.

Many of the customers he has are weird, one of them is an academic (Alberto Manuel - is this a nod to Alberto Manguel the bibliophile?  early in the book reference is made to Borges) with a huge library which he bequeaths to fly.  Fly has the books piled to the ceiling in his apartment, organized according to his own unique classification systesm.  He reads voraciously and has quite a broad knowledge as a result.  He tries to engage some people in philisophical discussions or makes references to books and ideas in some of the discussions he has with people.  He feels books are precious, vital to society.   I am assuming the author of this book intends his book, this book, to be one of these beneficial treasures.

Fly keeps trying to make friends with a young woman in his building but finds out she is a lesbian.  He has occasional sex with some of the women he meets but most of the time he satisfies himself by masturbating while imagining himself taking part, possibly having an impact as part of important historical events.

The author has a wonderful way of writiing, his wording is passionate, vibrant, poetic at times.  It was interesting how he presented the weirdos on the one hand and the affection and friendships that developed between Fly and his friends.  Fly could be violent at tiimes, particulary to customers who ripped him off.  Fly is a loner, but he remembers and appreciates the people who were kind to him.  He feels like an outsider and is an observer for the most part.  He does help some  people.  I think he is touched by what he sees and would really liked to have been able to change the world for the better.

I think the backstory of the "carnival" is an interesting plot element. People get to dress up in disguise and do crazy or bad things without being "known". Carnivals are welcome by people for their novelty but the "carnies" are probably thought of as fringe people, weirdos, not to be trusted.  Fly shows us that carnivals are not the only place you find these types of people.  One thing that I found unexplained in the story is that near the end several taxi drivers are murdered.  No explanation is given for who is doing it or why -- is someone searching for fly because he witnessed the murder of the drug dealers and is killing other cab drivers instead? As time passes most of Fly's friends die or bad things happen to them.  In the end he gets on his father's magic carpet and "flies away".