Berger has not written a novel of literary tricks but a novel in human codes.
Berger has not written a novel of literary tricks but a novel in human codes.

Wait a minute Mr Postman



Amir Feshareki reads John Berger's new novel, a cryptic tale of lovers separated by prison walls.


From A to X: A Story in Letters John Berger Verso Dh98

John Berger's slender, knotty new novel, From A to X: A Story in Letters, is a story of two lovers. A is A'ida. She lives in a fictive town called Sucrat, and the book is made up almost entirely of letters she writes to X: Xavier, a man "accused of being a founder member of a terrorist network". He is the "last prisoner in cell No. 73" of an anonymous "abandoned" prison in the old quarter of the city of Suse. In his preface, Berger posits himself as the curator of A'ida's letters. He informs us that cell 73 contained "a shelf of pigeonholes ... In three of them some packets of letters were found." These were "transcribed" by Berger and a co-editor named "R". So too were notes made by Xavier on the backs of the pages. We are told that the letters are not arranged in chronological order. Thus the question is not so much what will happen, but rather whether Berger will supply us with some thread that will guide us out of an epistolary labyrinth. This amounts to a book with value well beyond metafictional novelty. Berger has not written a novel of literary tricks but a novel in human codes, most prominently the code of letters between lovers and the code of fellow conspirators - both powerful tools for furnishing shared, secret sanctums. The point of the chronological disorder is not to "be different" but to make the reader exist - just as the lovers do - outside of everyday notions of time. "As soon as they gave you two life sentences," one of A'ida's notes reads, "I stopped believing in time." We too must find meaning without help from a linear narrative - and draw hope from A and X or not at all. The plot points are few and far between and the geography of Berger's world is left largely undefined. A'ida writes to Xavier of brief encounters with people named Emil, Koto, Nininha, Valentina and Gema. These ambiguously cosmopolitan characters seem to originate from no place and everywhere. They lack nation and background, and they usually emigrate from the book almost as soon as they arrive, never to be heard from again. From his prison cell, Xavier hears and jots down similarly transient snatches of song from the outside world. "I just want to see you/when the sun goes down," Cassandra Wilson sings on the radio. Johnny Cash reminds us that "sometimes it's hard to find the time between". The melody of Mussorgsky's Les Tableaux d'une exposition floats and flows through the prison's steel bars. Berger often eschews full-bodied characterisation in favour of descriptive brilliance on A'ida's part. At one point she writes with gorgeous sibilance of a "tousled mass of silk threads in all their splendour, dyed magenta, orange, pomegranate red, scarlet, lemon, pistachio green, kohl black, ivory." Elsewhere she describes a tango, "with its blood-beat fatality," between two mourning women. Unsurprisingly for a former painter, Berger often takes the impressionist's-eye view of shades, moods and tonalities in his scenes. Most exquisite of all is a flashback in an early letter to the time A'ida took Xavier's side in the cockpit of a hijacked CAP 10B. "It was your last flight and my first," she laments. It is one of the most subtly erotic passages I have ever come across: "organs ... each one with its neat shape and its definite name - liver, heart, uterus, suprarenal gland, bladder ... unravelling, intermingling, fingering each other!" as the twin-seated aircraft loops-the-loop. This passage hangs over the remainder of the novel much as a bittersweet nostalgia lingers in the mind, refusing to release its captive. Its description of the vertiginous thrill of flight is twice as powerful for appearing in a book about restricted liberties. In Ways of Seeing, his seminal 1972 art thesis (and accompanying television series), Berger wrote of visual art's tendency to perpetuate the notion that "men act and women appear" - that the world exists for male mastery and pleasure (a few years later, Laura Mulvey conceived a term for it - the "male gaze"). In this novel, though, women act and men appear. It is only through A'ida descriptions that the world exists at all, and we must engage her to make sense of it. From A to X combines the passion of a love song with the potency of a political tract, and somehow manages to maintain emotional sincerity throughout. It is a romantic (but never naive) distillation of the quietly rebellious belief that love, even once physically lost, is not gone forever and can defy "an amnesia not of the mind but of the tangible." Just before he gives over the storytelling to A'ida's letters, Berger writes: "How the unsent and sent letters came into my possession, must remain, for the moment, a secret, for the explanation would endanger other parties. The unsent letters are written on the same blue paper as the sent ones. I have placed them in the packets where it seemed to me they fitted. But you can change them." Later, these instructions are recalled in a wonderful description of our heroine's first meeting with her lover. "You wore a leather apron and apart from that a pair of shorts," A'ida recollects, in a characteristically sassy take on the bodice-ripper idiom. "We can change it, if you like," she adds, as if it were an afterthought, as if it really were that easy. Berger's inimitable novel works because he compels us to sort and work our own way through some passionately remembered fragments of two shattered lives. We are lucky to have the chance.

afeshareki@thenational.ae

The%20specs%20
%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EEngine%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3E2.0-litre%204cyl%20turbo%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EPower%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3E261hp%20at%205%2C500rpm%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3ETorque%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3E400Nm%20at%201%2C750-4%2C000rpm%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3ETransmission%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3E7-speed%20dual-clutch%20auto%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EFuel%20consumption%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3E10.5L%2F100km%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EOn%20sale%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3ENow%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EPrice%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3EFrom%20Dh129%2C999%20(VX%20Luxury)%3B%20from%20Dh149%2C999%20(VX%20Black%20Gold)%3C%2Fp%3E%0A

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.”

NO OTHER LAND

Director: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor, Hamdan Ballal

Stars: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham

Rating: 3.5/5

DUBAI%20BLING%3A%20EPISODE%201
%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3ECreator%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3ENetflix%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EStars%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3EKris%20Fade%2C%20Ebraheem%20Al%20Samadi%2C%20Zeina%20Khoury%3C%2Fp%3E%0A%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3ERating%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%202%2F5%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
2025 Fifa Club World Cup groups

Group A: Palmeiras, Porto, Al Ahly, Inter Miami.

Group B: Paris Saint-Germain, Atletico Madrid, Botafogo, Seattle.

Group C: Bayern Munich, Auckland City, Boca Juniors, Benfica.

Group D: Flamengo, ES Tunis, Chelsea, (Leon banned).

Group E: River Plate, Urawa, Monterrey, Inter Milan.

Group F: Fluminense, Borussia Dortmund, Ulsan, Mamelodi Sundowns.

Group G: Manchester City, Wydad, Al Ain, Juventus.

Group H: Real Madrid, Al Hilal, Pachuca, Salzburg.

The smuggler

Eldarir had arrived at JFK in January 2020 with three suitcases, containing goods he valued at $300, when he was directed to a search area.
Officers found 41 gold artefacts among the bags, including amulets from a funerary set which prepared the deceased for the afterlife.
Also found was a cartouche of a Ptolemaic king on a relief that was originally part of a royal building or temple. 
The largest single group of items found in Eldarir’s cases were 400 shabtis, or figurines.

Khouli conviction

Khouli smuggled items into the US by making false declarations to customs about the country of origin and value of the items.
According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he provided “false provenances which stated that [two] Egyptian antiquities were part of a collection assembled by Khouli's father in Israel in the 1960s” when in fact “Khouli acquired the Egyptian antiquities from other dealers”.
He was sentenced to one year of probation, six months of home confinement and 200 hours of community service in 2012 after admitting buying and smuggling Egyptian antiquities, including coffins, funerary boats and limestone figures.

For sale

A number of other items said to come from the collection of Ezeldeen Taha Eldarir are currently or recently for sale.
Their provenance is described in near identical terms as the British Museum shabti: bought from Salahaddin Sirmali, "authenticated and appraised" by Hossen Rashed, then imported to the US in 1948.

- An Egyptian Mummy mask dating from 700BC-30BC, is on offer for £11,807 ($15,275) online by a seller in Mexico

- A coffin lid dating back to 664BC-332BC was offered for sale by a Colorado-based art dealer, with a starting price of $65,000

- A shabti that was on sale through a Chicago-based coin dealer, dating from 1567BC-1085BC, is up for $1,950

Test

Director: S Sashikanth

Cast: Nayanthara, Siddharth, Meera Jasmine, R Madhavan

Star rating: 2/5

Business Insights
  • As per the document, there are six filing options, including choosing to report on a realisation basis and transitional rules for pre-tax period gains or losses. 
  • SMEs with revenue below Dh3 million per annum can opt for transitional relief until 2026, treating them as having no taxable income. 
  • Larger entities have specific provisions for asset and liability movements, business restructuring, and handling foreign permanent establishments.
How to donate

Send “thenational” to the following numbers or call the hotline on: 0502955999
2289 – Dh10
2252 – Dh 50
6025 – Dh20
6027 – Dh 100
6026 – Dh 200

How tumultuous protests grew
  • A fuel tax protest by French drivers appealed to wider anti-government sentiment
  • Unlike previous French demonstrations there was no trade union or organised movement involved 
  • Demonstrators responded to online petitions and flooded squares to block traffic
  • At its height there were almost 300,000 on the streets in support
  • Named after the high visibility jackets that drivers must keep in cars 
  • Clashes soon turned violent as thousands fought with police at cordons
  • An estimated two dozen people lost eyes and many others were admitted to hospital 
The biog

Favourite book: Men are from Mars Women are from Venus

Favourite travel destination: Ooty, a hill station in South India

Hobbies: Cooking. Biryani, pepper crab are her signature dishes

Favourite place in UAE: Marjan Island

Pieces of Her

Stars: Toni Collette, Bella Heathcote, David Wenham, Omari Hardwick   

Director: Minkie Spiro

Rating:2/5

The specs

AT4 Ultimate, as tested

Engine: 6.2-litre V8

Power: 420hp

Torque: 623Nm

Transmission: 10-speed automatic

Price: From Dh330,800 (Elevation: Dh236,400; AT4: Dh286,800; Denali: Dh345,800)

On sale: Now

Washmen Profile

Date Started: May 2015

Founders: Rami Shaar and Jad Halaoui

Based: Dubai, UAE

Sector: Laundry

Employees: 170

Funding: about $8m

Funders: Addventure, B&Y Partners, Clara Ventures, Cedar Mundi Partners, Henkel Ventures

Juliot Vinolia’s checklist for adopting alternate-day fasting

-      Don’t do it more than once in three days

-      Don’t go under 700 calories on fasting days

-      Ensure there is sufficient water intake, as the body can go in dehydration mode

-      Ensure there is enough roughage (fibre) in the food on fasting days as well

-      Do not binge on processed or fatty foods on non-fasting days

-      Complement fasting with plant-based foods, fruits, vegetables, seafood. Cut out processed meats and processed carbohydrates

-      Manage your sleep

-      People with existing gastric or mental health issues should avoid fasting

-      Do not fast for prolonged periods without supervision by a qualified expert

A MINECRAFT MOVIE

Director: Jared Hess

Starring: Jack Black, Jennifer Coolidge, Jason Momoa

Rating: 3/5

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