Keywords: Circus life, taxi driver life, reading, friendship, life Summary: Fly was born in a circus. His mother was a trapeze artist and his father who came from the east, owned a camel and a flying carpet. Fly’s father became a believer, pinned his carpet to the ground then left him and his mother alone and never came back. To cope with it, Fly’s mother started having lovers whom Fly was aware of, then she passed away. He was next raised by the bearded lady and wandered with the circus through Europe before settling in the Carnival city where everyone is disguised; those who wear animal masks and those who don’t. Fly becomes a taxi driver and the reader gets invited into his world which consists of his apartment, his cab and the restaurant where he often takes his meals. According to Fly, there are two types of taxi drivers that can be distinguished by the way they operate to pick up customers. He calls these two types: the Spiders and the Flies. Fly does not wait for customers at taxi stands like the Spiders; he is a wanderer, he prefers to search for the wavers and the whistlers.
His apartment is more like a library, full of books that contain the world. He subjectively classifies his books in a very peculiar way that defies every methodology of documentation ever conceived. “I sit on books, sleep on them, breathe them. I arrange them by character, the colour of their skies, and the circumference of their authors’ heads”. We also learn that Fly has a crush on his neighbor, the religious Zainab. Fly is a non believer, hence they both constantly argue about religion and he is always turned down by her. He finally discovers she is lesbian. Other than reading and picking up on Zainab, Fly regularly masturbates in his flat, it all started when he saw his mother and her collection of “bare assed lovers” making out. Every time doing so, Fly specifically imagines a historical scenario.
In his cab, Fly meets all sorts of people: Drug dealers, thugs, lovers, sex addicts, prostitutes, priests, broken couples, abused women etc. Every day is a new adventure in the cab, or his boat as he prefers to refer to it. In the restaurant, we get to meet Fly’s diverse comrades and learn their personal as well as work related stories.
An important person in Fly’s life is Otto, his revolutionary friend with whom in the past, he shared an apartment and a now passed away girlfriend. Otto lives on the streets, and he is not very sane in the head either. Nevertheless, he gets Fly to help him in his mission, which is targeted against a list of important people in the city that he has identified and judged as worthy of punishment. The awkward sentence is forcing these people to read after driving them in Fly’s taxi to an isolated place where Otto, disguised as clown threatens them with a gun. No harm is done, the people just read and are released “Never underestimate a clown with a book”. Unexpectedly, Tamer, a kid practically raised by Fly and Otto and who is living on the streets, ends up killing some of the people from Otto’s list without him knowing. Therefore, Otto puts an end to his life with Fly, lying in bed a few meters away. At the end, Fly flies away from the Carnival city.
You can also check my video on youtube for a passage reading and also so that you know how much I liked "Carnival" and what I thought about the writing, the theme and everything else.
Keywords: Circus life, taxi driver life, reading, friendship, life
Summary: Fly was born in a circus. His mother was a trapeze artist and his father who came from the east, owned a camel and a flying carpet. Fly’s father became a believer, pinned his carpet to the ground then left him and his mother alone and never came back. To cope with it, Fly’s mother started having lovers whom Fly was aware of, then she passed away. He was next raised by the bearded lady and wandered with the circus through Europe before settling in the Carnival city where everyone is disguised; those who wear animal masks and those who don’t. Fly becomes a taxi driver and the reader gets invited into his world which consists of his apartment, his cab and the restaurant where he often takes his meals. According to Fly, there are two types of taxi drivers that can be distinguished by the way they operate to pick up customers. He calls these two types: the Spiders and the Flies. Fly does not wait for customers at taxi stands like the Spiders; he is a wanderer, he prefers to search for the wavers and the whistlers.
His apartment is more like a library, full of books that contain the world. He subjectively classifies his books in a very peculiar way that defies every methodology of documentation ever conceived. “I sit on books, sleep on them, breathe them. I arrange them by character, the colour of their skies, and the circumference of their authors’ heads”. We also learn that Fly has a crush on his neighbor, the religious Zainab. Fly is a non believer, hence they both constantly argue about religion and he is always turned down by her. He finally discovers she is lesbian. Other than reading and picking up on Zainab, Fly regularly masturbates in his flat, it all started when he saw his mother and her collection of “bare assed lovers” making out. Every time doing so, Fly specifically imagines a historical scenario.
In his cab, Fly meets all sorts of people: Drug dealers, thugs, lovers, sex addicts, prostitutes, priests, broken couples, abused women etc. Every day is a new adventure in the cab, or his boat as he prefers to refer to it. In the restaurant, we get to meet Fly’s diverse comrades and learn their personal as well as work related stories.
An important person in Fly’s life is Otto, his revolutionary friend with whom in the past, he shared an apartment and a now passed away girlfriend. Otto lives on the streets, and he is not very sane in the head either. Nevertheless, he gets Fly to help him in his mission, which is targeted against a list of important people in the city that he has identified and judged as worthy of punishment. The awkward sentence is forcing these people to read after driving them in Fly’s taxi to an isolated place where Otto, disguised as clown threatens them with a gun. No harm is done, the people just read and are released “Never underestimate a clown with a book”. Unexpectedly, Tamer, a kid practically raised by Fly and Otto and who is living on the streets, ends up killing some of the people from Otto’s list without him knowing. Therefore, Otto puts an end to his life with Fly, lying in bed a few meters away. At the end, Fly flies away from the Carnival city.
You can also check my video on youtube for a passage reading and also so that you know how much I liked "Carnival" and what I thought about the writing, the theme and everything else.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dtxq3...