The term "lost books" usually conjures up long since forgotten tomes; novels that have fallen out of print, non-fiction that has fallen out of fashion.
Rarely is it used to refer to volumes that have actually vanished in the mists of time, never to be found again; but it's eight of these such cases – "those that once existed but are no longer here" – that are the subject of Giorgio van Straten's delightful and absorbing In Search of Lost Books: the forgotten stories of eight mythical volumes.
Van Straten begins with a personal tale; he’s one of only a handful of people to have read an incomplete, unpublished, and for the most part unknown novel written by the great Italian writer Romano Bilenchi.
Discovered after the author's death in 1989, unfinished and deeply personal – it fictionalised the romantic relationship between Bilenchi and his second wife, Maria, which they embarked on while Bilenchi was still married to his first – opinion is split about what to do with it. "If Romano did not finish it, and didn't publish it, then his intentions should be respected, and his reservations maintained," said Maria.
Van Straten felt differently though. “But it is equally true to say,” he argued, “that Romano did not discard the manuscript, did not destroy it, but chose to keep it instead. This seems to me just as significant.”
The latter argument initially won out, and the manuscript was preserved as part of Bilenchi’s archive. Two decades later, however, after Maria’s demise, van Straten was shocked to learn that one of the last things she did before her death was to destroy the manuscript, and its photocopy.
He can understand the widow’s position, he respects it even – “It might be the wrong decision, but the heirs are within their rights”, he reiterates when later discussing Sylvia Plath – but he can’t quite forgive the act: “there remains a bitterness about a novel that no longer exists”, he writes at the end of this chapter, “and which is fading irrevocably from our memories of it”.
Each of van Straten's eight case studies is given a chapter in this slim volume. Half are examples of works destroyed on purpose – action, it should be pointed out, usually taken by others, the exception here being the Russian writer Nikolai Gogol who, in February 1852, a mere 10 days before his death, is believed to have burnt the second volume of Dead Souls. An eyewitness recounted how the writer slowly fed the five 100-page manuscript sheets by single sheet into the fire before collapsing on his bed and weeping.
The other four subjects are works that were lost either by accident or what we might deem the vagaries of fate.
We can mourn Gogol’s decision, regard it as foolhardy and a waste, but whether he had the right to do what he did is not up for discussion. Less clear-cut is Maria’s destruction of Bilenchi’s work, or Ted Hughes’s of his wife Plath’s.
Following her suicide he destroyed what he claimed were diary entries so upsetting he didn't ever want their children to read them; re-ordered the works in the book of poetry that posthumously made her name, Ariel; and, most significantly for van Straten's endeavour, got rid of the manuscript of her second novel, a work in progress that apparently fictionalised Hughes' infidelity, tentatively titled Double Exposure.
Given how Hughes and Plath's marriage has fascinated readers since, it's maddening for many to think that Plath's own thoughts on the matter will never see the light of day. Or will they? There are some papers that Hughes deposited at Plath's archive at the University of Georgia with orders that weren't to be looked at until 2022. Might Double Exposure be among them, van Straten hopes? So too, any Byron scholar would give their right arm to read the infamous 19th-century poet's scandalous memoirs, but when, following his death, his publisher, family and friends made the collective decision in 1824 to burn them, there were reasons aplenty and reputations at stake.
In writing about these cases, van Straten is posing questions about ownership and the public’s right to access. When it comes to the cases of those books that were mislaid, however, his role is a different one.
Hemingway's lost papers, for example – left unattended in a train carriage at the Gare de Lyon by his first wife Hadley Richardson as she scurried off to buy a bottle of water, vanished on her return – and the loss of Malcolm Lowry's manuscript of his novel In Ballast to the White Sea, which he'd been working on for nine years – destroyed when the cabin in British Columbia, Canada, in which he was living and writing burnt to the ground. Both cases are both horrible, senseless accidents: the stuff of fiction, if you will.
Two of van Straten's cases that are the most haunting however, are both casualties of the Second World War: Bruno Schulz's The Messiah – which vanished after the author was murdered in Poland in 1942 – is a loss so poignant it has inspired other writers: Cynthia Ozick's novel The Messiah of Stockholm; and Ugo Riccarelli's A Man Called Schulz, perhaps – and the mysterious manuscript Walter Benjamin was carrying in a black suitcase when he died in Portbou on the border between France and Spain in 1940. Here, van Straten turns literary detective, chasing leads, trying to discover what might have happened to these works.
Elegantly translated from the original Italian by Simon Carnell and Erica Segre, In Search of Lost Books is a little gem of a collection; recommended reading for any curious bibliophile.
THE LOST BOOKS
Romano Bilenchi The Avenue
Lord Byron Memoirs
Ernest Hemingway Juvenilia
Bruno Schulz The Messiah
Nikolai Gogol Dead Souls (part II)
Malcolm Lowry In Ballast to the White Sea
Walter Benjamin What was in the Black Suitcase
Sylvia Plath Double Exposure
________________
Read more:
Amanda Coe on how her writing challenges the notion of female characters as victims
A celebration of crime fiction at Istanbul's Black Week literary festival
Murders and political intrigue mean there’s plenty to inspire crime writing talent
________________
The%20US%20Congress%2C%20explained
%3Cp%3E-%20US%20Congress%20is%20divided%20into%20two%20chambers%3A%20the%20House%20of%20Representatives%20and%20Senate%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E-%20435%20members%20make%20up%20the%20House%2C%20and%20100%20in%20the%20Senate%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E-%20A%20party%20needs%20control%20of%20218%20seats%20to%20have%20a%20majority%20in%20the%20House%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E-%20In%20the%20Senate%2C%20a%20party%20needs%20to%20hold%2051%20seats%20for%20control%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E-%20In%20the%20event%20of%20a%2050-50%20split%2C%20the%20vice%20president's%20party%20retains%20power%20in%20the%20Senate%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
The rules on fostering in the UAE
A foster couple or family must:
- be Muslim, Emirati and be residing in the UAE
- not be younger than 25 years old
- not have been convicted of offences or crimes involving moral turpitude
- be free of infectious diseases or psychological and mental disorders
- have the ability to support its members and the foster child financially
- undertake to treat and raise the child in a proper manner and take care of his or her health and well-being
- A single, divorced or widowed Muslim Emirati female, residing in the UAE may apply to foster a child if she is at least 30 years old and able to support the child financially
Match info
UAE v Bolivia, Friday, 6.25pm, Maktoum bin Rashid Stadium, Dubai
Brolliology: A History of the Umbrella in Life and Literature
By Marion Rankine
Melville House
Mercer, the investment consulting arm of US services company Marsh & McLennan, expects its wealth division to at least double its assets under management (AUM) in the Middle East as wealth in the region continues to grow despite economic headwinds, a company official said.
Mercer Wealth, which globally has $160 billion in AUM, plans to boost its AUM in the region to $2-$3bn in the next 2-3 years from the present $1bn, said Yasir AbuShaban, a Dubai-based principal with Mercer Wealth.
“Within the next two to three years, we are looking at reaching $2 to $3 billion as a conservative estimate and we do see an opportunity to do so,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Mercer does not directly make investments, but allocates clients’ money they have discretion to, to professional asset managers. They also provide advice to clients.
“We have buying power. We can negotiate on their (client’s) behalf with asset managers to provide them lower fees than they otherwise would have to get on their own,” he added.
Mercer Wealth’s clients include sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and insurance companies among others.
From its office in Dubai, Mercer also looks after Africa, India and Turkey, where they also see opportunity for growth.
Wealth creation in Middle East and Africa (MEA) grew 8.5 per cent to $8.1 trillion last year from $7.5tn in 2015, higher than last year’s global average of 6 per cent and the second-highest growth in a region after Asia-Pacific which grew 9.9 per cent, according to consultancy Boston Consulting Group (BCG). In the region, where wealth grew just 1.9 per cent in 2015 compared with 2014, a pickup in oil prices has helped in wealth generation.
BCG is forecasting MEA wealth will rise to $12tn by 2021, growing at an annual average of 8 per cent.
Drivers of wealth generation in the region will be split evenly between new wealth creation and growth of performance of existing assets, according to BCG.
Another general trend in the region is clients’ looking for a comprehensive approach to investing, according to Mr AbuShaban.
“Institutional investors or some of the families are seeing a slowdown in the available capital they have to invest and in that sense they are looking at optimizing the way they manage their portfolios and making sure they are not investing haphazardly and different parts of their investment are working together,” said Mr AbuShaban.
Some clients also have a higher appetite for risk, given the low interest-rate environment that does not provide enough yield for some institutional investors. These clients are keen to invest in illiquid assets, such as private equity and infrastructure.
“What we have seen is a desire for higher returns in what has been a low-return environment specifically in various fixed income or bonds,” he said.
“In this environment, we have seen a de facto increase in the risk that clients are taking in things like illiquid investments, private equity investments, infrastructure and private debt, those kind of investments were higher illiquidity results in incrementally higher returns.”
The Abu Dhabi Investment Authority, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds, said in its 2016 report that has gradually increased its exposure in direct private equity and private credit transactions, mainly in Asian markets and especially in China and India. The authority’s private equity department focused on structured equities owing to “their defensive characteristics.”
A MINECRAFT MOVIE
Director: Jared Hess
Starring: Jack Black, Jennifer Coolidge, Jason Momoa
Rating: 3/5
Unresolved crisis
Russia and Ukraine have been locked in a bitter conflict since 2014, when Ukraine’s Kremlin-friendly president was ousted, Moscow annexed Crimea and then backed a separatist insurgency in the east.
Fighting between the Russia-backed rebels and Ukrainian forces has killed more than 14,000 people. In 2015, France and Germany helped broker a peace deal, known as the Minsk agreements, that ended large-scale hostilities but failed to bring a political settlement of the conflict.
The Kremlin has repeatedly accused Kiev of sabotaging the deal, and Ukrainian officials in recent weeks said that implementing it in full would hurt Ukraine.
SPECS
Toyota land Cruiser 2020 5.7L VXR
Engine: 5.7-litre V8
Transmission: eight-speed automatic
Power: 362hp
Torque: 530Nm
Price: Dh329,000 (base model 4.0L EXR Dh215,900)
Company%20Profile
%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3ECompany%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Astra%20Tech%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EStarted%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3EMarch%202022%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EBased%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3EDubai%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EFounder%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3EAbdallah%20Abu%20Sheikh%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EIndustry%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20technology%20investment%20and%20development%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EFunding%20size%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20%24500m%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
THE BIO
Family: I have three siblings, one older brother (age 25) and two younger sisters, 20 and 13
Favourite book: Asking for my favourite book has to be one of the hardest questions. However a current favourite would be Sidewalk by Mitchell Duneier
Favourite place to travel to: Any walkable city. I also love nature and wildlife
What do you love eating or cooking: I’m constantly in the kitchen. Ever since I changed the way I eat I enjoy choosing and creating what goes into my body. However, nothing can top home cooked food from my parents.
Favorite place to go in the UAE: A quiet beach.
The%20specs
%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EEngine%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%201.8-litre%204-cyl%20turbo%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EPower%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3E190hp%20at%205%2C200rpm%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3ETorque%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20320Nm%20from%201%2C800-5%2C000rpm%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3ETransmission%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3ESeven-speed%20dual-clutch%20auto%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EFuel%20consumption%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%206.7L%2F100km%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EPrice%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20From%20Dh111%2C195%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EOn%20sale%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3ENow%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
Formula Middle East Calendar (Formula Regional and Formula 4)
Round 1: January 17-19, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi
Round 2: January 22-23, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi
Round 3: February 7-9, Dubai Autodrome – Dubai
Round 4: February 14-16, Yas Marina Circuit – Abu Dhabi
Round 5: February 25-27, Jeddah Corniche Circuit – Saudi Arabia
FINAL LEADERBOARD
1. Jordan Spieth (USA) 65 69 65 69 - 12-under-par
2. Matt Kuchar (USA) 65 71 66 69 - 9-under
3. Li Haotong (CHN) 69 73 69 63 - 6-under
T4. Rory McIlroy (NIR) 71 68 69 67 - 5-under
T4. Rafael Cabrera-Bello (ESP) 67 73 67 68 - 5-under
T6. Marc Leishman (AUS) 69 76 66 65 - 4-under
T6. Matthew Southgate (ENG) 72 72 67 65 - 4-under
T6. Brooks Koepka (USA) 65 72 68 71 - 4-under
T6. Branden Grace (RSA) 70 74 62 70 - 4-under
T6. Alexander Noren (SWE) 68 72 69 67 - 4-under
