First off, a confession. I'm one of the "moms looking for exercise and some trace of girlhood dreams … ungainly in their leotards, wearing slippers, not pointe shoes, and not turned out" that Maggie Shipstead skewers so casually in her latest novel Astonish Me [Amazon.com] The title is taken from a Serge Diaghilev anecdote – the founder of Ballet Russes reportedly told Jean Cocteau "Etonnez-moi" when the French poet expressed an interest in collaborating – but while the narrative references technical dance terms and uses the life of a New York ballet company as a backdrop, this is not just a novel for dance enthusiasts – or even wannabes. The author proves herself far more interested in the tensions that exist in life far from the public stage in the dark extremes of obsession and self-abnegation.
Everyone in Shipstead’s impressive novel seems to be hung up on something or someone. For the narrator Joan, it is her first love, the Soviet Ballet star Arslan Rusakov whom she has helped to defect. They meet in Paris where she is bewitched by the beauty of his dancing – “the beauty she has been chasing all along”; she navigates the allegory of the Palais Garnier’s unlit “convoluted innards” to find his dressing room and throws herself at the physical manifestation of her longing for perfection. Joan keeps a scrapbook to record their headline-making affair even as it inevitably disintegrates, paralysing her with misery.
Dumped by her Russian lover and insufficiently talented to leave the corps, Joan becomes pregnant as an exit strategy, and for most of the novel lives with her husband Jacob in California. They get a bigger house with a bigger pool, Jacob becomes a head teacher and Joan finally falls in love with him. “Like arranged marriages that turn out to be love marriages. Except it was always a love marriage for him,” as her best friend Elaine observes rather acidly.
Later Joan’s son Harry, a social misfit turned dance protégé, will join his mother poring over videos of his dance idol Rusakov, and the likeable Jacob will sneak into the garage of their home to flick through the fading record of his wife’s former love. Jacob has loved Joan since he was 13 but without much fanfare or applause. “Sometimes it seems like I am the only dad in town who has to feel inadequate because he is not a famous ballet dancer,” he tells his wife.
Even Sandy Wheelock, their overweight next-door neighbour whose daughter is a budding ballet star under Joan’s rigorous instruction, envies her not-quite-friend’s slimness: “Joan’s controlled exterior makes her seem like she’s hiding something.” It’s her husband Gary who provides the novel’s darkest note when he loses his job and drifts into solitary despair.
Elaine, Joan’s constant friend and a career success story, is both the reader’s window onto the world of ballet as her talents raise her ever higher, and also the character in the most twisted relationship. Hers is an almost chaste lifelong affair with the company’s homosexual choreographer Mr K. “When he made the first dance on her, he rearranged the cells of her body according to his own specifications, rewired her nerves, possessed her. Her civilian boyfriends could not understand her that way.”
The narrative jumps unobtrusively back and forth in time and place from the world of dance in the form of Joan’s past and Elaine’s present, following Harry as he grows into a dancer and develops an unrequited teen crush of his own, but perhaps finds its best expression in the story of Joan and Jacob’s relationship in far more humdrum surrounds.
Shipstead’s depiction of a marriage as it moves from first flush to middle age and into crisis, is both compelling and utterly convincing in a way that the plot lines featuring the almost comically petulant Rusakov fail to be. Joan the misfit in that civilian world, Jacob’s inability to quell his own paranoid imaginings about his wife’s loyalties, their joint fears for Harry and the gradual slide into familiarity are all brilliantly, almost casually realised in Shipstead’s well-toned prose.
Clare Dight is the editor of The Review.
cdight@thenational.ae
Match info
Uefa Champions League Group F
Manchester City v Hoffenheim, midnight (Wednesday, UAE)
Monster
Directed by: Anthony Mandler
Starring: Kelvin Harrison Jr., John David Washington
3/5
RACE RESULTS
1. Valtteri Bottas (FIN/Mercedes) 1hr 21min 48.527sec
2. Sebastian Vettel (GER/Ferrari) at 0.658sec
3. Daniel Ricciardo (AUS/Red Bull) 6.012
4. Lewis Hamilton (GBR/Mercedes) 7.430
5. Kimi Räikkönen (FIN/Ferrari) 20.370
6. Romain Grosjean (FRA/Haas) 1:13.160
7. Sergio Pérez (MEX/Force India) 1 lap
8. Esteban Ocon (FRA/Force India) 1 lap
9. Felipe Massa (BRA/Williams) 1 lap
10. Lance Stroll (CAN/Williams) 1 lap
11. Jolyon Palmer (GBR/Renault) 1 lap
12. Stoffel Vandoorne (BEL/McLaren) 1 lap
13. Nico Hülkenberg (GER/Renault) 1 lap
14. Pascal Wehrlein (GER/Sauber) 1 lap
15. Marcus Ericsson (SWE/Sauber) 2 laps
16. Daniil Kvyat (RUS/Toro Rosso) 3 laps
Company%20Profile
%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3ECompany%20name%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3ENamara%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EStarted%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3EJune%202022%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EFounder%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3EMohammed%20Alnamara%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EBased%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3EDubai%20%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3ESector%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3EMicrofinance%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3ECurrent%20number%20of%20staff%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3E16%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EInvestment%20stage%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3ESeries%20A%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EInvestors%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3EFamily%20offices%0D%3Cbr%3E%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
UK-EU trade at a glance
EU fishing vessels guaranteed access to UK waters for 12 years
Co-operation on security initiatives and procurement of defence products
Youth experience scheme to work, study or volunteer in UK and EU countries
Smoother border management with use of e-gates
Cutting red tape on import and export of food
COMPANY%20PROFILE%20
%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EName%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Haltia.ai%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EStarted%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%202023%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3ECo-founders%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Arto%20Bendiken%20and%20Talal%20Thabet%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EBased%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Dubai%2C%20UAE%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EIndustry%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20AI%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3ENumber%20of%20employees%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%2041%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EFunding%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20About%20%241.7%20million%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EInvestors%3A%3C%2Fstrong%3E%20Self%2C%20family%20and%20friends%26nbsp%3B%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
Best Academy: Ajax and Benfica
Best Agent: Jorge Mendes
Best Club : Liverpool
Best Coach: Jurgen Klopp (Liverpool)
Best Goalkeeper: Alisson Becker
Best Men’s Player: Cristiano Ronaldo
Best Partnership of the Year Award by SportBusiness: Manchester City and SAP
Best Referee: Stephanie Frappart
Best Revelation Player: Joao Felix (Atletico Madrid and Portugal)
Best Sporting Director: Andrea Berta (Atletico Madrid)
Best Women's Player: Lucy Bronze
Best Young Arab Player: Achraf Hakimi
Kooora – Best Arab Club: Al Hilal (Saudi Arabia)
Kooora – Best Arab Player: Abderrazak Hamdallah (Al-Nassr FC, Saudi Arabia)
Player Career Award: Miralem Pjanic and Ryan Giggs
F1 The Movie
Starring: Brad Pitt, Damson Idris, Kerry Condon, Javier Bardem
Director: Joseph Kosinski
Rating: 4/5
The Way It Was: My Life with Frank Sinatra by Eliot Weisman and Jennifer Valoppi
Hachette Books
What can victims do?
Always use only regulated platforms
Stop all transactions and communication on suspicion
Save all evidence (screenshots, chat logs, transaction IDs)
Report to local authorities
Warn others to prevent further harm
Courtesy: Crystal Intelligence
New process leads to panic among jobseekers
As a UAE-based travel agent who processes tourist visas from the Philippines, Jennifer Pacia Gado is fielding a lot of calls from concerned travellers just now. And they are all asking the same question.
“My clients are mostly Filipinos, and they [all want to know] about good conduct certificates,” says the 34-year-old Filipina, who has lived in the UAE for five years.
Ms Gado contacted the Philippines Embassy to get more information on the certificate so she can share it with her clients. She says many are worried about the process and associated costs – which could be as high as Dh500 to obtain and attest a good conduct certificate from the Philippines for jobseekers already living in the UAE.
“They are worried about this because when they arrive here without the NBI [National Bureau of Investigation] clearance, it is a hassle because it takes time,” she says.
“They need to go first to the embassy to apply for the application of the NBI clearance. After that they have go to the police station [in the UAE] for the fingerprints. And then they will apply for the special power of attorney so that someone can finish the process in the Philippines. So it is a long process and more expensive if you are doing it from here.”
Living in...
This article is part of a guide on where to live in the UAE. Our reporters will profile some of the country’s most desirable districts, provide an estimate of rental prices and introduce you to some of the residents who call each area home.
ESSENTIALS
The flights
Etihad (etihad.com) flies from Abu Dhabi to Mykonos, with a flight change to its partner airline Olympic Air in Athens. Return flights cost from Dh4,105 per person, including taxes.
Where to stay
The modern-art-filled Ambassador hotel (myconianambassador.gr) is 15 minutes outside Mykonos Town on a hillside 500 metres from the Platis Gialos Beach, with a bus into town every 30 minutes (a taxi costs €15 [Dh66]). The Nammos and Scorpios beach clubs are a 10- to 20-minute walk (or water-taxi ride) away. All 70 rooms have a large balcony, many with a Jacuzzi, and of the 15 suites, five have a plunge pool. There’s also a private eight-bedroom villa. Double rooms cost from €240 (Dh1,063) including breakfast, out of season, and from €595 (Dh2,636) in July/August.
Singham Again
Director: Rohit Shetty
Stars: Ajay Devgn, Kareena Kapoor Khan, Ranveer Singh, Akshay Kumar, Tiger Shroff, Deepika Padukone
Rating: 3/5
Titanium Escrow profile
Started: December 2016
Founder: Ibrahim Kamalmaz
Based: UAE
Sector: Finance / legal
Size: 3 employees, pre-revenue
Stage: Early stage
Investors: Founder's friends and Family
Moon Music
Artist: Coldplay
Label: Parlophone/Atlantic
Number of tracks: 10
Rating: 3/5