The year 1929 saw the publication of three uniquely brilliant novels by three very different German-speaking writers. All have endured. Erich Maria Remarque's All Quiet on the Western Front illuminates the carnage and futility of the First World War from the German perspective.
In contrast, Grand Hotel by Austrian-born Vicki Baum is a sparkling yet searching study of Berlin polite society in the golden twenties.
The other great novel that year was set in Weimar Berlin during the less stable end of the decade, and with unsparing detail insight examined the flipside to Baum's world. Alfred Döblin's Berlin Alexanderplatz charts the wrong moves, second chances and squandered opportunities of a recidivist criminal as he forges his way through the capital's underbelly in search of light.
Döblin (1878-1957) moved to Berlin at the age of 10 and remained there until the Nazis came to power. His knowledge of the city – his awareness of its sights and sounds, people and places, highs and lows – is evident on every page of the book he is best known for.
This new English translation by Michael Hofmann – the first in more than 75 years – replaces stodgier versions by expertly capturing the fecundity, originality and musicality of Döblin's masterpiece.
Locked away for four years for doing “some stupid stuff” – or beating up his girlfriend Ida so badly that she died – Franz Biberkopf now vows to keep on the straight and narrow. He is released from prison and finds himself back on the streets of Berlin, dislocated and alone. “His real punishment,” we are told, “was just beginning.”
Gradually, Biberkopf makes progress, and for a while it seems he is able to settle down and make an honest man of himself. He gets jobs hawking tie-pins, newspapers and shoelaces, and strolls around town with new girlfriend Lina on his arm.
But these weeks spent being “decent” turn out to be a mere period of respite. He falls in with a bad crowd and, at first unwittingly and later willingly, becomes involved in shady deals and audacious burglaries. He is double-crossed, run over and hung out to dry; he loses an arm and, for a time, his mind. When he picks himself up and dusts himself down he is stronger and ready to take on villainous rival Reinhold.
However, fate has other ideas. Biberkopf's beloved Mitzi is murdered, sending him over the edge and down to rock bottom. Soon, he is on the run for a crime he didn't commit and prepared to end it all – that is until a conversion in custody and re-immersion in the city offers the faint yet possible prospect of redemption.
Berlin Alexanderplatz is a bold and dazzling collage of a novel. Blended into or built around Biberkopf's misadventures are newspaper articles, weather reports, Biblical stories, Jewish yarns, ancient myths, street noise and thick streams of consciousness. Its urban exploration, together with its bravura range of styles and voices and narrative tricks, have led to a comparison with that other modernist-metropolitan epic, James Joyce's Ulysses, a book Döblin admired. While this is valid to a point, Döblin's book is a quite different beast: more visceral than cerebral, more plot-driven, and with more at stake for its desperate characters.
Those characters consist of thieves and fences, killers and victims, misfits and thugs. All elements of the underworld are present and correct. Flitting around them at key junctures are token policemen, political adversaries and bitter and broken war veterans ("We give our blood for the Fatherland against the Poles and Frogs and this is how the nation thanks us"). As we head into the realm of madness and hallucination, we encounter angels and dead souls.
Döblin’s main character steers the novel but also plays with our emotions. We champion Biberkopf, hoping he will stay clean and sane through hard times. But then Döblin will remind us of what he looks like (“a coarse, rough man of repulsive appearance”) or his refusal to accept responsibility for his crime (“It could happen to anyone, they lose their temper, their hand slips”) and he stops being a lovable rogue.
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When Biberkopf decides that crime pays (“Working gives you calluses, but not money”) and starts to live off “immoral earnings” he loses our sympathy. However, he remains an electrifying presence on the page, a reckless, self-destructive force of nature impossible to ignore. Döblin transfixes us with two other features. The first is his roving, scoping, catch-all narration, similar to John Dos Passos’ “Camera Eye”. He takes us down streets, around landmarks, and into apartments, bars, shops, ballrooms, a mental asylum, police headquarters, and, in a scene that could turn the staunchest meat-eater into a vegetarian, a slaughter house.
The second compelling aspect is the novel’s rich speech patterns. Hofmann transforms the vernacular of Berlin lowlife into a kind of battered Cockney slang. People are on the lam or in chokey, they say innit, dunno and nuffink, and it works wonders. When the characters don’t speak, their creator does, either admonishing Biberkopf or addressing the reader in a chatty, gossipy way.
The novel doesn’t always make for comfortable reading, but it is hard not to be charged by its raw energy, carried along by its manic rhythms, or gripped by its supremely inventive depiction of a man “going to hell with a great fanfare.”
Brief scoreline:
Toss: South Africa, elected to bowl first
England (311-8): Stokes 89, Morgan 57, Roy 54, Root 51; Ngidi 3-66
South Africa (207): De Kock 68, Van der Dussen 50; Archer 3-27, Stokes 2-12
The Greatest Royal Rumble card as it stands
The Greatest Royal Rumble card as it stands
50-man Royal Rumble - names entered so far include Braun Strowman, Daniel Bryan, Kurt Angle, Big Show, Kane, Chris Jericho, The New Day and Elias
Universal Championship Brock Lesnar (champion) v Roman Reigns in a steel cage match
WWE World Heavyweight ChampionshipAJ Styles (champion) v Shinsuke Nakamura
Intercontinental Championship Seth Rollins (champion) v The Miz v Finn Balor v Samoa Joe
United States Championship Jeff Hardy (champion) v Jinder Mahal
SmackDown Tag Team Championship The Bludgeon Brothers (champions) v The Usos
Raw Tag Team Championship (currently vacant) Cesaro and Sheamus v Matt Hardy and Bray Wyatt
Casket match The Undertaker v Chris Jericho
Singles match John Cena v Triple H
Cruiserweight Championship Cedric Alexander v tba
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What is a calorie?
A food calorie, or kilocalorie, is a measure of nutritional energy generated from what is consumed.
One calorie, is the amount of heat needed to raise the temperature of 1 kilogram of water by 1°C.
A kilocalorie represents a 1,000 true calories of energy.
Energy density figures are often quoted as calories per serving, with one gram of fat in food containing nine calories, and a gram of protein or carbohydrate providing about four.
Alcohol contains about seven calories a gram.
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Expo details
Expo 2020 Dubai will be the first World Expo to be held in the Middle East, Africa and South Asia
The world fair will run for six months from October 20, 2020 to April 10, 2021.
It is expected to attract 25 million visits
Some 70 per cent visitors are projected to come from outside the UAE, the largest proportion of international visitors in the 167-year history of World Expos.
More than 30,000 volunteers are required for Expo 2020
The site covers a total of 4.38 sqkm, including a 2 sqkm gated area
It is located adjacent to Al Maktoum International Airport in Dubai South
Day 5, Dubai Test: At a glance
Moment of the day Given the problems Sri Lanka have had in recent times, it was apt the winning catch was taken by Dinesh Chandimal. He is one of seven different captains Sri Lanka have had in just the past two years. He leads in understated fashion, but by example. His century in the first innings of this series set the shock win in motion.
Stat of the day This was the ninth Test Pakistan have lost in their past 11 matches, a run that started when they lost the final match of their three-Test series against West Indies in Sharjah last year. They have not drawn a match in almost two years and 19 matches, since they were held by England at the Zayed Cricket Stadium in Abu Dhabi in 2015.
The verdict Mickey Arthur basically acknowledged he had erred by basing Pakistan’s gameplan around three seam bowlers and asking for pitches with plenty of grass in Abu Dhabi and Sharjah. Why would Pakistan want to change the method that has treated them so well on these grounds in the past 10 years? It is unlikely Misbah-ul-Haq would have made the same mistake.
The schedule
December 5 - 23: Shooting competition, Al Dhafra Shooting Club
December 9 - 24: Handicrafts competition, from 4pm until 10pm, Heritage Souq
December 11 - 20: Dates competition, from 4pm
December 12 - 20: Sour milk competition
December 13: Falcon beauty competition
December 14 and 20: Saluki races
December 15: Arabian horse races, from 4pm
December 16 - 19: Falconry competition
December 18: Camel milk competition, from 7.30 - 9.30 am
December 20 and 21: Sheep beauty competition, from 10am
December 22: The best herd of 30 camels
Basquiat in Abu Dhabi
One of Basquiat’s paintings, the vibrant Cabra (1981–82), now hangs in Louvre Abu Dhabi temporarily, on loan from the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi.
The latter museum is not open physically, but has assembled a collection and puts together a series of events called Talking Art, such as this discussion, moderated by writer Chaedria LaBouvier.
It's something of a Basquiat season in Abu Dhabi at the moment. Last week, The Radiant Child, a documentary on Basquiat was shown at Manarat Al Saadiyat, and tonight (April 18) the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi is throwing the re-creation of a party tonight, of the legendary Canal Zone party thrown in 1979, which epitomised the collaborative scene of the time. It was at Canal Zone that Basquiat met prominent members of the art world and moved from unknown graffiti artist into someone in the spotlight.
“We’ve invited local resident arists, we’ll have spray cans at the ready,” says curator Maisa Al Qassemi of the Guggenheim Abu Dhabi.
Guggenheim Abu Dhabi's Canal Zone Remix is at Manarat Al Saadiyat, Thursday April 18, from 8pm. Free entry to all. Basquiat's Cabra is on view at Louvre Abu Dhabi until October
Company profile
Company name: Nestrom
Started: 2017
Co-founders: Yousef Wadi, Kanaan Manasrah and Shadi Shalabi
Based: Jordan
Sector: Technology
Initial investment: Close to $100,000
Investors: Propeller, 500 Startups, Wamda Capital, Agrimatico, Techstars and some angel investors
The bio:
Favourite film:
Declan: It was The Commitments but now it’s Bohemian Rhapsody.
Heidi: The Long Kiss Goodnight.
Favourite holiday destination:
Declan: Las Vegas but I also love getting home to Ireland and seeing everyone back home.
Heidi: Australia but my dream destination would be to go to Cuba.
Favourite pastime:
Declan: I love brunching and socializing. Just basically having the craic.
Heidi: Paddleboarding and swimming.
Personal motto:
Declan: Take chances.
Heidi: Live, love, laugh and have no regrets.
RESULTS
5pm: Wathba Stallions Cup Maiden (PA) Dh 70,000 (Dirt) 1,600m
Winner: Samau Xmnsor, Abdul Aziz Al Balushi (jockey), Ibrahim Al Hadhrami (trainer)
5.30pm: Maiden (PA) Dh 70,000 (D) 1,600m
Winner: Ottoman, Szczepan Mazur, Abdallah Al Hammadi
6pm: Maiden (PA) Dh 70,000 (D) 1,800m
Winner: Sharkh, Patrick Cosgrave, Helal Al Alawi
6.30pm: Handicap (PA) Dh 85,000 (D) 1,800m
Winner: Yaraa, Fernando Jara, Majed Al Jahouri
7pm: Handicap (PA) Dh 70,000 (D) 2,000m
Winner: Maaly Al Reef, Bernardo Pinheiro, Abdallah Al Hammadi
7.30pm: Maiden (PA) Dh 70,000 (D) 1,000m
Winner: Jinjal, Fabrice Veron, Ahmed Al Shemaili
8pm: Handicap (PA) Dh 70,000 (D) 1,000m
Winner: Al Sail, Tadhg O’Shea, Ernst Oertel
Analysis
Members of Syria's Alawite minority community face threat in their heartland after one of the deadliest days in country’s recent history. Read more
The specs
Engine: Direct injection 4-cylinder 1.4-litre
Power: 150hp
Torque: 250Nm
Price: From Dh139,000
On sale: Now
Du Plessis plans his retirement
South Africa captain Faf du Plessis said on Friday the Twenty20 World Cup in Australia in two years' time will be his last.
Du Plessis, 34, who has led his country in two World T20 campaigns, in 2014 and 2016, is keen to play a third but will then step aside.
"The T20 World Cup in 2020 is something I'm really looking forward to. I think right now that will probably be the last tournament for me," he said in Brisbane ahead of a one-off T20 against Australia on Saturday.
Company%20Profile
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