Finnish writer Pasi Ilmari Jaaskelainen's novel Secret Passages in a Hillside Town is a fanciful mystery that takes more twists and turns than the secret passages – holes in the ground that exude equal parts "indefinable menace" and intoxicating attraction – that are burrowed deep into the ground beneath Jyvaskyla, the city in central Finland where the story is set.
Olli Suominen is a publisher. He lives a comfortable if unexceptional life with his wife Aino and their small son Lauri. He has a habit of losing umbrellas, and recently joined a film club. Joining the club was something of an accident – via the confusion of an invite on Facebook shortly after he signed up to the latter believing it would be useful for his business – but he is soon hooked, enchanted by classics such as La Dolce Vita and Jules et Jim. Little does he know that his life is about to take on its own filmic sheen.
Facebook plays an important part in the story that unfolds. Olli quickly amasses a few hundred friends, accepting requests from people whose names ring a bell, even if he can’t quite remember the circumstances of their real-world interactions.
One of whom is Greta Kara, his old girlfriend, not that he recognises her as his "first great love" straight away; it is only later that he puts two and two together, and by this point he has also realised that she is the author of a recent bestselling book, A Guide to the Cinematic Life: "A cinematic life can't take away pain, but it can make it more aesthetic, make of it a kind of wine of emotion, a music of feeling."
Knowing what it would do for his publishing house if they could sign Greta's next book, Olli put outs feelers, and rather amazingly, she seems keen. To continue to describe the plot from this point would be a waste, because if there is one thing this shape-shifting novel does magnificently, it is completely subverting the reader's expectations.
Although it won the Kuvastaja Prize for best Finnish fantasy novel, to define it as such doesn’t really do justice to the full weirdness of what is going on. It deals in fantasy in as much as there are strange, unreal encounters or moments – the unexplained amnesia that afflicts Olli and his friends when they explored the secret passages as children, for example: “None of them remembered anything that they could talk about in the light of day. Whenever they thought of something, they couldn’t find words to express it” – but it isn’t a fantasy novel in the sense of strict alternative realities.
Flashbacks to Olli’s childhood and his adventures with a group of children he befriended during the holidays increasingly take centre stage. The group, known as “the Famous Five of Tourula” (a reference to the Enid Blyton books), foil local crooks and solve mysteries. Thus, with its emphasis on the lure of the past, and with this the power of cinema, it is more a story about the forgiving nature of memory – “[Greta] knows how to choose her words skillfully.
Her talk brings the past closer, close enough to touch the present, like the hand of a beloved. The years that have grown between them gradually fade until they lose their meaning completely” – and the possibility of reinvention. “I started to see my life as an adventure and myself as its tragic but glorious heroine,” Greta explains to Olli at one point, “who would eventually triumph over her hard fate if she only learnt to live fearlessly.”
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Long ago, Olli (and Greta) were grossly wronged – and worse – by the other members of his childhood gang. Only now are these bullies attempting to make amends: by conducting a "cinematic project" of "atonement" with Greta and Olli as the romantic leads in a "beautiful love story". But as one of the self-appointed directors of this endeavour points out, although on first glance it looks like a romantic comedy, the project is shot through with "hints of black". So too Jaaskelainen's novel shifts between light and dark, comedy and horror, all with shocking and unexpected ease.
I continually found myself thinking I was reading one type of book, only for the narrative to veer off in a different direction entirely. Yet all the while it somehow makes sense. As when Olli explains the "disorder" his life spirals into: "The whole thing was bizarre and confusing but at the same time somehow simple." The only elements I think could have been cut were the descriptions of the "confused, surreal dreams" that plague Olli – all of which begin to fade into one after a while – especially since, at more than 400 pages, the novel isn't short to begin with.
All the same, having created a narrative with such always-shifting perimeters allows Jaaskelainen to get away with much in this delightful, magical, inventive – if meandering – story about lost love and second chances.
ENGLAND SQUAD
Eoin Morgan (captain), Moeen Ali, Jonny Bairstow, Sam Billings, Jos Buttler, Tom Curran, Alex Hales, Liam Plunkett, Adil Rashid, Joe Root, Jason Roy, Ben Stokes, David Willey, Chris Woakes, Mark Wood
Dubai Bling season three
Cast: Loujain Adada, Zeina Khoury, Farhana Bodi, Ebraheem Al Samadi, Mona Kattan, and couples Safa & Fahad Siddiqui and DJ Bliss & Danya Mohammed
Rating: 1/5
Real estate tokenisation project
Dubai launched the pilot phase of its real estate tokenisation project last month.
The initiative focuses on converting real estate assets into digital tokens recorded on blockchain technology and helps in streamlining the process of buying, selling and investing, the Dubai Land Department said.
Dubai’s real estate tokenisation market is projected to reach Dh60 billion ($16.33 billion) by 2033, representing 7 per cent of the emirate’s total property transactions, according to the DLD.
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
The Case For Trump
By Victor Davis Hanson
Building boom turning to bust as Turkey's economy slows
Deep in a provincial region of northwestern Turkey, it looks like a mirage - hundreds of luxury houses built in neat rows, their pointed towers somewhere between French chateau and Disney castle.
Meant to provide luxurious accommodations for foreign buyers, the houses are however standing empty in what is anything but a fairytale for their investors.
The ambitious development has been hit by regional turmoil as well as the slump in the Turkish construction industry - a key sector - as the country's economy heads towards what could be a hard landing in an intensifying downturn.
After a long period of solid growth, Turkey's economy contracted 1.1 per cent in the third quarter, and many economists expect it will enter into recession this year.
The country has been hit by high inflation and a currency crisis in August. The lira lost 28 per cent of its value against the dollar in 2018 and markets are still unconvinced by the readiness of the government under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to tackle underlying economic issues.
The villas close to the town centre of Mudurnu in the Bolu region are intended to resemble European architecture and are part of the Sarot Group's Burj Al Babas project.
But the development of 732 villas and a shopping centre - which began in 2014 - is now in limbo as Sarot Group has sought bankruptcy protection.
It is one of hundreds of Turkish companies that have done so as they seek cover from creditors and to restructure their debts.
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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
Emergency
Director: Kangana Ranaut
Stars: Kangana Ranaut, Anupam Kher, Shreyas Talpade, Milind Soman, Mahima Chaudhry
Rating: 2/5
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