“Eh? Your belly full.” He repeated the sentence each time he brought down his rod on Orbits' hand, on the scabs he had been gnawing at. “Go and stand at the back of the class.” When Orbits was walking to the back, a boy pushed out his leg and he tumbled. The teacher's annoyance turned to amusement. “Fatboy fall down,” he said, and the class erupted.
Fatboy Fall Down traces the entire life of an atypical Trinidadian villager: A man nicknamed “Orbits” in childhood for his tendency to watch the clouds and dream of floating away (at least he was able to get people to stop calling him “Fatboy”); a man so incurious and without agency that he accepts every job and relationship as they come along (and go away again), somehow arriving at a station in life more privileged and stable than the others he grew up around. Forever resentful of his unhappy childhood, without ambition (or, apparently, the intellect to improve himself), incapable of meaningful interpersonal conversations, Orbits is a tough character to feel empathy for. But as he moves from village to town, from working as a tour guide to government drone to minor politician, Orbits' (rather dull) story fleshes out a (rather fascinating) picture of Trinidad – its oil boom and bust years, the government corruption and backwater superstitions that keep a people chained to poverty – that was all new to me. Overall: Orbits' story would get three stars, Trinidad's is worth four, and it's pretty much a coin toss to decide whether to round up or down – I'm happy to have read this but can't imagine it would have wide appeal (beyond a probable acknowledgement at literary award season for author Rabindranath Maharaj).
What would Cascadoo say if he knew that Orbits had failed exam after exam and had hated school for the taunting he had received? That he was less the man he appeared to be and had never truly rid himself of the fear of being discovered and humiliated? That he always felt he was one step away from being dismantled, the remaining bits of him rearranged to be the boy cowering before his bullies?
There's something very distancing about the Orbits character – he has what appears to be a tremendous amount of luck for someone who waits around for opportunities to fall in his lap, but his unhappy childhood drags after him like a ball and chain, and as a result, he is forever waiting to be uncovered as a fraud and it makes him reluctant to speak openly with other characters. So even though Orbits is constantly mentally reviewing his misfortunes, other characters find him standoffish and the reader (this reader) finds him frustratingly self-absorbed.
Throughout his life, he had done nothing, made no effort, showed no determination. His mood matched the fickle storm: he felt within minutes guilt and relief, shame and satisfaction. He fell asleep with these conflicting feelings, but when he awoke the following morning, they had merged into something less oppositional: the idea that he had survived. Somehow, he had managed.
On the other hand, I very much enjoyed the life and bustle playing out in Trinidad in the background – the vistas, foods, slang, and power struggles. I loved that everyone grows up with these unshakeable nicknames. I appreciated the frequent debates about the pros and cons of trying to emigrate and join family in Florida or Toronto. I was enlightened by tales of bribery and corruption that saw highways built to nowhere while the poor people suffered with unfinished sewers leaving unnavigable potholes on their dirt roads. (And if the point of the book's title is that the entire country is being held back by the lingering trauma of its colonial/slave-plantation roots, then I'll begrudgingly round up to four stars.)
Orbits was able to look at all of the unsatisfactory events of his life with a kind of wonder, seeing the losses, the shame and deprivations not as tragedies but as preparations. He suspected this was not an accurate rendering of his life, and that he had failed many people who depended on him, and that he was far from fulfilled, but it introduced a notion of wobbly balance – of his life tilting this way and that but still moving forward. Somehow, he had managed to hang on.
As the action, such as it is, is focussed on the (rather dull and unengaging) life story of the unappealing Orbits, this book was a bit of a slog to get through. But I'm still happy to have read it for the bigger picture.
