"Is there a place for me in some part of your life?" a married man asks a woman in Manhattan Medley, one of the stories in the Irish writer Edna O'Brien's new book, Saints and Sinners. By asking for a place not in someone's life, but in a part of her life, the man suggests that he wants to approach something slowly, less dramatically than is usual with affairs. By speaking of a sliver and not of the whole, he perhaps indicates too that, realistically, all that he can offer is a part of his own life, and the woman understands as much.
"We did not have a garden, we had ploughed fields and meadows," says a girl about her family in another story, My Two Mothers. "Somehow I thought that a garden would be a prelude to happiness." Although she longs for the pleasures of a garden to call her own, the girl still seems to divine that her childish desires can be but a threshold to some ideal state, not happiness but a prelude to it. These are people who seem preternaturally aware, even when in the midst of heightened states of feeling, of how obdurate life is, of how something may be changed or attained only by small steps, not grand sallies. Even the children are, by observing the world of adults, already adults, and the stories they narrate in O'Brien's work are adult stories.
Saints and Sinners is the late work of a writer - late in terms of O'Brien's own age, a vivid 80, but not in terms of any diminution of her sensibility - to whom we owe some of the most beautiful, limpid and resonant English prose of the 20th century, especially that of the great The Country Girls trilogy and the stories later collected in A Fanatic Heart.
Across these stories can be found all of O'Brien's signature characters and narratorial emphasis. There are the questing, emotionally dissatisfied female protagonists of small Irish towns and villages, longing for escape from boredom or stiflement; the women who think about their love affairs and the girls who watch the love affairs or marriages of their mothers. There are, too, the hardened men who want to escape from feeling or have succeeded in deadening it through drink or desolation.
There is the landscape of fields, mountains and marshes, described in language that brings out all their strangeness (from Inner Cowboy: "The bogs were more peaceful, stretching to the horizon, brown and black, with cushions of moss and spagunam and the cut turf in little stooks, igloos, with the wind whistling to them, drying them out.") And there is the society both roused and distorted by what O'Brien has elsewhere called "the hounding nature of Irish Catholicism" ("I was full of fears, thought everything was a sin," remembers the old man Rafferty about his youth in the book's opening story, Shovel Kings. "If the Holy Communion touched my teeth I thought that was a mortal sin.")
There is O'Brien's very precise attention to the colours and textures and emotional valency of objects, as when we are shown, in Old Wounds, a woman turned out of her house by her son, who wanders down the road "carrying her few belongings and her one heirloom, a brass lamp with a china shade, woebegone, like a woman in a ballad". And there is the affection for, even adoration of, people who dream and at the same time attend conscientiously to life's duties and try to do little things well, such as the mother who, despite being poor, elevates her house with "touches of grandeur" and applies icing on a Christmas cake with "the rapture of an artist".
All these things are presented through a style that knows how to be ornate without being mannered and how to be plain without being poor. O'Brien achieves an effect of naturalness through a palette of options as simple as the omission of a comma where one is expected, and as complex as an extra clause in a sentence that seems unrelated to anything before it, as if seeking to surprise the very sentence of which it is a part.
Consider, for instance, Miss Gilhooley, the protagonist of the story Send My Roots Rain, which borrows its burnished title from a poem by Gerald Manley Hopkins that Miss Gilhooley loves. Miss Gilhooley finds herself abandoned by a man with whom she has had an affair, but remains possessed by him. Maddened by her pent-up yearning, she goes to see a psychic to see if there is a future for them. Encouragingly, the psychic foresees them "setting up a house together ... She drew a picture of their future life together, one or the other, whoever got back first of an evening, kneeling to light a fire and praying that the chimney would not smoke, though at first it would, but in time that would clear, once the flue had its generous lining of soot."
Though at first it would, but in time that would clear - the psychic seems to take her story much further out than she needs to, into a level of detail that should interest nobody, not even Miss Gilhooley. But it is only by her doing so that her story becomes real to Miss Gilhooley even as, on another plane, we comprehend how the writer's narrative ingenuity has made the story real to us. The psychic's crafty story also illuminates for us the craft of story. Miss Gilhooley is gulled by the psychic, as are we by the storyteller.
In O'Brien's stories men and women are always blazingly, defiantly, men and women before they are human beings. These are stories that everywhere ask us to think about what it is that constitutes their difference, a difference that undergirds both their mutual attraction and their ultimate incompatibility. Men and women feel differently, think differently, want differently, as a consequence of their biological differences, and this fact is not something to be evaded, but rather to be both enjoyed and mourned. This sentiment in O'Brien's stories has always seemed, from the situations laid out before us, like realism more than essentialism.
"Never give all the heart outright - who said that?" asks Mildred, the rambling, slightly disordered narrator of the marvellous story Madame Cassandra. "I have read that men have cycles just like us women ... we have cycles because of the presence of the uterus - hence we are subject from time to time to hysteria - whereas men's cycles do not answer to the womb or the moon but to their own dastardly whims ... they simply go on and off the creatures they call women."
The story is about Mildred's visit all the way from a village up to Dublin to meet Madame Cassandra, some kind of psychic or healer, about an affair her husband is having. Madame Cassandra, however, refuses to see Mildred, but even in inaction she precipitates the story's denouement. On the train back from Dublin Mildred runs, of all people, into her husband, who "looked at me almost with wonder, as if he was seeing me in some way altered, his wife of twenty-two years leading a secret life, having a day up in Dublin, a rendezvous perhaps." Mildred knows now, as they return home, that there is "a little agitation at the core of both our hearts", and it does not matter if her husband's rendezvous is real and her own is fiction, as long as her knowledge of the whole exceeds his. This is just one of many unusual closes and catharses in the work of this sensuous, rueful and sublime writer.
Chandrahas Choudhury is a novelist based in Mumbai. He is the author of the novel Arzee the Dwarf and editor of the anthology of Indian fiction, India: A Traveller's Literary Companion.
COMPANY PROFILE
Name: Kumulus Water
Started: 2021
Founders: Iheb Triki and Mohamed Ali Abid
Based: Tunisia
Sector: Water technology
Number of staff: 22
Investment raised: $4 million
More on animal trafficking
MATCH INFO
Al Jazira 3 (O Abdulrahman 43', Kenno 82', Mabkhout 90 4')
Al Ain 1 (Laba 39')
Red cards: Bandar Al Ahbabi (Al Ain)
Essentials
The flights
Emirates flies direct from Dubai to Seattle from Dh6,755 return in economy and Dh24,775 in business class.
The cruise
UnCruise Adventures offers a variety of small-ship cruises in Alaska and around the world. A 14-day Alaska’s Inside Passage and San Juans Cruise from Seattle to Juneau or reverse costs from $4,695 (Dh17,246), including accommodation, food and most activities. Trips in 2019 start in April and run until September.
The Laughing Apple
Yusuf/Cat Stevens
(Verve Decca Crossover)
The National's picks
4.35pm: Tilal Al Khalediah
5.10pm: Continous
5.45pm: Raging Torrent
6.20pm: West Acre
7pm: Flood Zone
7.40pm: Straight No Chaser
8.15pm: Romantic Warrior
8.50pm: Calandogan
9.30pm: Forever Young
The Old Slave and the Mastiff
Patrick Chamoiseau
Translated from the French and Creole by Linda Coverdale
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Specs
Engine: Duel electric motors
Power: 659hp
Torque: 1075Nm
On sale: Available for pre-order now
Price: On request
The 12 Syrian entities delisted by UK
Ministry of Interior
Ministry of Defence
General Intelligence Directorate
Air Force Intelligence Agency
Political Security Directorate
Syrian National Security Bureau
Military Intelligence Directorate
Army Supply Bureau
General Organisation of Radio and TV
Al Watan newspaper
Cham Press TV
Sama TV
South Africa squad
: Faf du Plessis (captain), Hashim Amla, Temba Bavuma, Quinton de Kock (wkt), Theunis de Bruyn, AB de Villiers, Dean Elgar, Heinrich Klaasen (wkt), Keshav Maharaj, Aiden Markram, Morne Morkel, Chris Morris, Wiaan Mulder, Lungi Ngidi, Duanne Olivier, Vernon Philander and Kagiso Rabada.
Results:
CSIL 2-star 145cm One Round with Jump-Off
1. Alice Debany Clero (USA) on Amareusa S 38.83 seconds
2. Anikka Sande (NOR) For Cash 2 39.09
3. Georgia Tame (GBR) Cash Up 39.42
4. Nadia Taryam (UAE) Askaria 3 39.63
5. Miriam Schneider (GER) Fidelius G 47.74
One-off T20 International: UAE v Australia
When: Monday, October 22, 2pm start
Where: Abu Dhabi Cricket, Oval 1
Tickets: Admission is free
Australia squad: Aaron Finch (captain), Mitch Marsh, Alex Carey, Ashton Agar, Nathan Coulter-Nile, Chris Lynn, Nathan Lyon, Glenn Maxwell, Ben McDermott, Darcy Short, Billy Stanlake, Mitchell Starc, Andrew Tye, Adam Zampa, Peter Siddle
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READ MORE ABOUT CORONAVIRUS
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
Our legal advisor
Ahmad El Sayed is Senior Associate at Charles Russell Speechlys, a law firm headquartered in London with offices in the UK, Europe, the Middle East and Hong Kong.
Experience: Commercial litigator who has assisted clients with overseas judgments before UAE courts. His specialties are cases related to banking, real estate, shareholder disputes, company liquidations and criminal matters as well as employment related litigation.
Education: Sagesse University, Beirut, Lebanon, in 2005.
At a glance
Global events: Much of the UK’s economic woes were blamed on “increased global uncertainty”, which can be interpreted as the economic impact of the Ukraine war and the uncertainty over Donald Trump’s tariffs.
Growth forecasts: Cut for 2025 from 2 per cent to 1 per cent. The OBR watchdog also estimated inflation will average 3.2 per cent this year
Welfare: Universal credit health element cut by 50 per cent and frozen for new claimants, building on cuts to the disability and incapacity bill set out earlier this month
Spending cuts: Overall day-to day-spending across government cut by £6.1bn in 2029-30
Tax evasion: Steps to crack down on tax evasion to raise “£6.5bn per year” for the public purse
Defence: New high-tech weaponry, upgrading HM Naval Base in Portsmouth
Housing: Housebuilding to reach its highest in 40 years, with planning reforms helping generate an extra £3.4bn for public finances
Biography
Her family: She has four sons, aged 29, 27, 25 and 24 and is a grandmother-of-nine
Favourite book: Flashes of Thought by Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid
Favourite drink: Water
Her hobbies: Reading and volunteer work
Favourite music: Classical music
Her motto: I don't wait, I initiate
Abaya trends
The utilitarian robe held dear by Arab women is undergoing a change that reveals it as an elegant and graceful garment available in a range of colours and fabrics, while retaining its traditional appeal.
The Bio
Favourite place in UAE: Al Rams pearling village
What one book should everyone read: Any book written before electricity was invented. When a writer willingly worked under candlelight, you know he/she had a real passion for their craft
Your favourite type of pearl: All of them. No pearl looks the same and each carries its own unique characteristics, like humans
Best time to swim in the sea: When there is enough light to see beneath the surface
