Book Review: Carnival by Rawi Hage
Carnival, by Rawi Hage. W. W. Norton & Company, New York, 2013. 289 pages. Reviewed Courier Westford.
Introduction
Rawi Hage is a Lebanese-Canadian journalist and novelist who lives in Montreal, Canada (Q&Q, 2014). He grew up in Lebanon and Cyprus, then he moved to New York in 1984 (Q&Q, 2014). Hage relocated to Montreal in 1991 where he studied Fine Arts at Concordia University and Photography at Dawson College (Q&Q, 2014). Hage also holds an MFA from Université du Québec à Montréal (Q&Q, 2014). Aside from his work as a visual artist and a writer, Hage worked as a cab driver in Montreal for a while (Q&Q, 2014).
Hage published articles and fictions in various American and Canadian magazines (Q&Q, 2014). The first book he published is De Niro’s Game 2006, the second book is Cockroach 2008, and the last book he published is Carnival 2013 (Q&Q, 2014). The three books were nominated to several prizes (Q&Q, 2014).
After Hage’s De Niro’s Game and Cockroach drew the attention of many people, especially those in exile, Carnival was as successful. Carnival was chosen for a review because it is about an alienated person who is trying to integrate in the society he lives in. The thesis of the book is about the journey of people in exile, and Hage was able to entirely indulge the reader in this journey. Moreover, the book fits the subject of Migration, Exile and Literature class because the narrator and the characters are in a state of exile, and each of them has a different story.
The overall evaluation of the book is positive. The details and the terminologies Hage used have the ability to make the readers put themselves in the shoes of each of the characters because he elaborated on each of their journeys. Given that there are at least nine characters in the book chapters, readers do not lose track of who did or felt what.
Summary
Carnival is about a taxi driver named Fly who is also the narrator. Fly was born and raised in a circus, his country of origin was not mentioned, but he remembers Kadisha Valley, a village in Mount Lebanon; therefore, the first assumption is he is Lebanese. The role of Fly’s father’s in the circus was flying on a carpet, and his mother’s role was not mentioned. Fly moved to the city of Carnival, which is not named, after his father left his mother because he suddenly decided to become religious, after his mother committed suicide by hanging herself, and after the bearded woman who raised him passed away when he was 16 years old. Nevertheless, the city of Carnival can be either in the United States or Canada, for the currency traded is the dollar.
Zainab is a girl who lives next to Fly, she is his neighbor. It was not explicitly mentioned, but Fly was apparently in love with her. She is an Islamic Studies student, and Fly helps her with book recommendations. After the several trials of Fly to win the attention of Zainab, she tells him that she met someone new. At the end of the novel she turns out to be a lesbian who is in love with a girl named Ghina. Zainab leaves to her homeland, and Fly never saw her again.
Fly usually spends his free time at Bolero Café where he meets other taxi drivers. There are two kinds of taxi drivers the “spiders” and the “flies”. Spiders are those who wait at taxi stands for the dispatcher’s call or for customers to walk off the streets into their hungry cars. While, flies are wanders, operators who drive alone and around to pick up the wavers and the whistlers on edges of side-walks and streets.
Otto and Aisha are a leftist couple who happen to be Fly’s friends. They accommodated Fly for a while, and they together raised Tammer who is the son of their prostitute friend Linda. Linda works for a pimp named Fredao Mwalila, and she is a drug addict. She left her son with Fly, Otto and Aisha because she had to go to a rehab. After Linda finished rehabilitation and retrieved her son Tammer, Otto and Aisha moved to another city, but still visited Fly every now and then. A while post-Aisha’s death, Otto lived with Fly for a short period of time, then he suddenly vanished, and Fly knew nothing about him.
Months after hearing nothing about him, Otto showed up at Fly’s door. Otto has aged and gained weight, and he lived with Fly again.
Otto started seeking a professional psychological help owing to his severe depression after Aisha’s death. A small conversation happened between the psychiatrist Dr. Wu and his intern Genevieve where Otto was leading the conversation.
Later in the book, and aside from the currency, another phrase was mentioned to pinpoint the setting of the novel which is “The big existential question in her case was whether she would die from diabetes or liver failure. Otto thought it would be obesity. Just like the rest of this nation, he said. Communists and Muslims are not the enemies to fear in this land, Fly. It is the food consumption that will eventually blow up in everyone’s face.” This is a semi-evidence for the setting to be in the United States owing to the high obesity rate in the country.
Years later, and after Otto vanished again, Tammer showed up at Fly’s door one morning. He has had grown up. He rushed Fly to go meet Otto urgently. Otto killed the French journalist Mr. Bouchard who thought Camus was a great thinker.
Before Zainab left to her homeland, Zainab visited Fly in his apartment for the first time. She was astonished by all the books he has, so, she asked for an explanation. He told her that he has inherited all his books from a professor called Alberto Manuel. After that, Zainab told Fly that she thinks he needs professional psychological help. He went to a psychiatrist as Zainab suggested because he was having theatrical thoughts that involve ropes, clowns and even animals. They more like memories. However, Fly wanted to see the psychiatrist only once. The psychiatrist prescribed medication for Fly’s case, and he assured him that he should take them on daily basis. Fly completely ignored what the psychiatrist said and left.
As Fly was leaving the psychiatrist’s clinic, he stumbled against Tammer and a boy in a bug costume named Skippy the Bug. Tammer and his friend Skippy the Bug were starving, so Fly bought them burgers and fries. Fly asked Tammer about his mother Linda and her pimp Fredao, Tammer and Skippy the Bug giggled and said that they have gotten rid of him. Fly did not understand what they meant, so he moved on.
Multiple crimes happened in the city of Carnival. The head of the Episcopalian Church demanded the abolishment of the Carnival, stating that its pagan origins were an incitement to debauchery and violence.
Investigations took place to know who is killing the taxi drivers. Eventually, the newspapers reported that two 16-year-old boys by the name of Tammer Gonzalez and Billy Bloom, also known as Skippy the Bug, were identified as murder suspects in the corporate cases. They were caught and dragged to police headquarters for questioning. After the police interrogated Tammer and Billy, they confessed that they are the ones who killed the rich men, and that they found the list of these people from Otto’s house while they were getting him his “special” suitcase. Even though the police figured out who was killing the rich men, they still had no idea about the serial taxi driver killers.
Otto disappeared after he killed the French journalist Mr. Bouchard, he suddenly showed up under Fly’s building, and they went on a cruise. Otto has gained more weight, his hair has gotten whiter, and his wrinkles multiplied. Fly offered him food, but he asked for whiskey instead. They drank and smoked on their way to Otto’s house. After a long conversation with Otto, Fly fell asleep. Otto covered him and went outside and shot himself. The sound of the fire woke Fly up. He buried Otto under the tree like Aisha and drove back home.
At the end of the novel, Fly got home, he rode his father’s flying carpet and fled to a city in which “he belongs”.
Critique
Carnival by Rawi Hage has its strengths and weaknesses. Nonetheless, the strengths of the book overcame its weaknesses.
Starting with the strengths, Hage’s thesis completely coincided with the book chapters. To recap, the thesis is about the emotional, mental, physiological and physical states of people in exile. Each of the book’s characters had a different story, and each one of them was trying to integrate in the society in a different manner.
Starting with Fly, since he is the narrator and main character of the novel, he is the most complex character. To begin with the name Fly, Hage uses insects’ names to entitle the characters in his novels. The main character in Cockroach is named Cockroach, and the main character in Carnival is named Fly. This tells a lot because it pinpoints that people in exile feel like insects. They feel like they are nobody. People try to avoid them, they wander helplessly, and they have no purpose in life but trying to integrate. Moving to the character and personality of Fly, the first psychological problem Fly suffers from is daddy issues. His father left his mother when he was at a very young age, and his mother committed suicide because of this incident. He relates everything in his life to his father, for he left a huge impact on him as a child. The second matter is that he was raised by a bearded woman. This bearded woman was stigmatized by the society because she is a female who has a beard and a penis. People even referred to her as an “it”. When she died, nobody accepted to bury her, the 16-year-old Fly is the one who laid his caregiver’s corpse under the ground, and this in particular left a huge effect on Fly’s mental health because he mentions it a lot in the book whenever he’s having a deep conversation with someone. The third and most important issue is that Fly is an Arab migrant who is in an exile in a western country. Fly tried his utmost to integrate. He befriended a drug dealer, a prostitute, two leftists, a Muslim lesbian and the taxi drivers at Bolero Café. He found himself in the shattered pieces of each of the characters who were trying to integrate as well. Fly is on good terms with these people in the city of Carnival because the state of exile they suffer from is very close to the agony he is enduring.
On the other hand, the taxi drivers for instance, both spiders and flies, make a small ethnic minority in Bolero Café. They found out that there is one or multiple aspects that allow them to make a minority to be able to easily integrate in the society they live in.
Zainab, Fly’s neighbor, is trying to escape from integrating. She is focusing on her studies instead of fitting in the society. However, in my opinion, she is keeping everyone outside of her bubble because she just started to discover her sexuality. It is very well-known, particularly in interpersonal communication and psychology, that people who newly discover their sexual identity get into a tough denial and depressive phases. I think this is what particularly happened in Zainab’s case because after she started dating Ghina, she decided to leave everything and everyone including her studies and go back to her homeland.
Otto and Aisha are a leftist couple who live in a capitalist country. This, in particular, is another form of exile. The state of exile Otto and Aisha undergo is a political one because they do not accept the capitalist system they live in, and they cannot change it. Yet, they are forced to linger because they are asylum seekers, and the political situation in their mother country does not allow them to go back. Also, Otto killed the French journalist Mr. Bouchard because he was against his leftist ideology.
Linda, the Mexican prostitute with a son named Tammer, has no other getaway but being trafficked. Mexicans are not allowed to have a decent job. They are looked down upon, discriminated against and stigmatized. Therefore, she chose prostitution as her profession, but because prostitution is already despised, Linda became a drug addict to be able to undergo and overcome all the social and peer pressure.
Another issue to be raised here is that Otto sought professional psychological help after the death of the only leftist he knows, his partner Aisha. This shows that Aisha was his only hope in integrating.
Otto befriended Tammer and Billy, also known as Skippy the Bug, because he was able to spread his leftist ideology among these two 16-year-old boys. This assumption was concluded owing to the fact Tammer and Billy were behind the murder of the rich men but not the taxi drivers.
The setting of the city of Carnival was not explicitly mentioned in the novel. However, there are several evidences that the setting takes place in North America, either Canada or the United States. First, the currency is the dollar. Second, when Otto was telling Fly about his new flat-mate, he said, “The big existential question in her case was whether she would die from diabetes or liver failure. Otto thought it would be obesity. Just like the rest of this nation, he said. Communists and Muslims are not the enemies to fear in this land, Fly. It is the food consumption that will eventually blow up in everyone’s face.” This is another semi-evidence for the setting of this novel to be the United States owing to the high obesity rates in the mentioned country.
Otto shot himself after Tammer and Billy got arrested. This shows that after the three people Otto was able to relate to disappeared from his life, he decided to escape because he realized there is no way for him to integrate anymore. Fly also decided to flee after all the people he was integrating with disappeared, Otto, Aisha, Zainab, Tammer, Linda and the taxi drivers. He found out that there is not any reason for him to stay. The flying carpet was also an emphasis that Fly has daddy issue. He fled in the same way as his father. Moreover, the name fly comes from the flying carpet which also emphasizes the daddy issues.
Aside from book’s content critique, the term wanderer was mentioned numerous times. The narrator described himself as wanderer because he was roaming the city of Carnival aimlessly. He was just trying to find a place to fit in order to integrate, but he could not. Thus, he chose to flee like his father did to find himself.
The language Hage used in his book is easy, no complex words were used. The novel is very smooth for the reader to understand.
What I liked the most about the book that it is completely relatable to Cockroach. This shows that Rawi Hage has a style in writing. For instance, the psychiatrist in Cockroach was named Genevieve, and the intern who helped the psychiatrist in Carnival was named Genevieve. The narrator in Cockroach was leading the conversation with the psychiatrist, so did Fly and Otto in Carnival. They were legitimately telling the psychiatrists what they wanted to hear. Furthermore, Hage insists to name the main characters in his novel after insects to emphasize their state of exile and alienation.
Carnival has many strengths, but it does have its weaknesses as well. Various points triggered my resentment while reading.
First of all, Otto was portrayed as the stereotypical leftist who would do anything to “eat the rich”, which means kill the rich. Coming from a Marxist background, this is not how leftists are. The author should have mentioned that Otto and Aisha were radical leftists, not just leftists. In my opinion, the portrayal of leftists in this novel distorts the image of Marxists and leftists.
The second weakness is that the setting was not clearly stated. Readers deserve to know the time and place of the novel. However, readers should squeeze their brains, and they should focus on details shattered all over the book to get a slight idea about the setting.
The third weakness I would like to raise here is that the serial killer of the cab drivers was completely absent. Was it Fly? Was it Otto? Nobody knows. Readers cannot be hung on such a detail, especially that it was at the end of the book.
The fourth weakness is the fate of Tammer and Billy. After the 16-year-old boys were caught by the police for killing the rich men, nothing was mentioned later about them. Were they punished? Did they get imprisoned? Nobody knows either.
The final weakness is the ending. Personally, closures are important. It is understandable that fleeing on his father’s flying carpet serves the case of the novel metaphorically. However, the reader deserves to know what happens to the main character.
Conclusion
The overall opinion of the novel is positive. The writer was able to identify the state of exile and alienation in each of the characters. Readers do not lose track of who is doing what, given the fact that there are many characters for a 280-page book. But, each of the characters has a unique personality and background which makes it easier for the reader to distinguish between them. One thing unites the characters is their state of exile. All these characters know one another because of this aspect, particularly Fly since he is the main character, and he is the one trying to integrate the most. Although the book’s strengths overcome its weaknesses, it has its weaknesses as well. The weaknesses are primarily the absence of the closure, the absence the setting and the absence of the fates of Fly, Tammer and Billy.
The style of Rawi Hage in writing is highly appreciated, but for present recommendations, it is better to shift from avoiding closures because Hage’s fans, including myself, are now expecting the end throughout the book. Change in writing style is always good.
My judgement of the book might seem a little biased, for I am the one who likes closures and to know what is going on next; however, this opinion is not exclusively mine. Both Cockroach and Carnival are highly recommended owing to the state of euphoria they give the reader at the end of the book chapters. Readers feel that the time they spent reading Hage’s novels is not time wasted.
Bibliography
Q&Q. (2014). Disrupt Your Publishing Game. Retrieved from Quill and Quire: https://quillandquire.com/authors/the-journey-of-rawi-hage/
