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A review by jacqui_des
Granta 123: Best of Young British Novelists 4 by Rose Tremain, Julian Barnes, Pat Barker, David Mitchell, Ian McEwan, Helen Simpson, Will Self, Zadie Smith, A.L. Kennedy, Salman Rushdie, Alan Hollinghurst, Martin Amis, Kazuo Ishiguro, Jeanette Winterson
3.0
I had high hopes for this issue of Granta 123: The Best of Young British Novelists 4, especially given the beautifully written introduction by John Freeman, which so eloquently captures exactly what I have been trying to say unsuccessfully for so many years about the power of fiction, and the skill it takes to create, capture and articulate a world as real as our own.
“What is exciting about a novel is not what it tells us about reality, but how it uses the tools of literature – language and structure, time and voice – to create an alternative world that feels as real and as urgent as reality, a world against which even realistic novels scratch.”
“Literature exists, after all, not just for escape, but to speak truth to power, and it does so be asserting that the world as it is imagined is every bit as important as the world as it exists.”
“...literature creates a new reality, drip by drip, in the lives of its readers. It changes the way people imagine, which alters how they think, and expands what they believe is possible.”
Unfortunately, of the twenty works of fiction included in this issue, only three were actual short-stories, with the remaining seventeen all being excerpts from forthcoming novels. As such, they all read as "tasters" and it's difficult to get into the flow of the writing or the story, making this issue far less enjoyable as some previous issues. Despite these criticisms, I did enjoy 'After the Hedland' by Evie Wyld, 'Driver' by Taiye Selasi and 'Slow Motion' by Adam Thirlwell, the only author I have subsequently added to my 'To-Read' list.
Memorable Quotes
Vipers - Kamila Shamsie
“...he was maimed now, a partial man, and from here on he would never be admired, only pitied.”
Glow - Ned Beauman
“You know, back in the States, you can’t use the coffee pots in hotels, because people like you use them to brew meth. Even in the good hotels, I heard.”
Filsan - Nadifa Mohamed
“...a gun makes a soldier even out of a woman.”
Driver - Taiye Selasi
“If you have never been to Ghana then you might not understand the way the darkest skin can glow as with the purest of all lights.”
“Madam says her flowers are the toast of all of Ghana. I would note that all of us do not, alas, have bread. But the flowers are spectacular.”
You Don't Have to Live Like This - Benjamin Markovits
“I didn’t want to be gay, for several reasons. One of them being that I wanted to sleep with girls.”
“What is exciting about a novel is not what it tells us about reality, but how it uses the tools of literature – language and structure, time and voice – to create an alternative world that feels as real and as urgent as reality, a world against which even realistic novels scratch.”
“Literature exists, after all, not just for escape, but to speak truth to power, and it does so be asserting that the world as it is imagined is every bit as important as the world as it exists.”
“...literature creates a new reality, drip by drip, in the lives of its readers. It changes the way people imagine, which alters how they think, and expands what they believe is possible.”
Unfortunately, of the twenty works of fiction included in this issue, only three were actual short-stories, with the remaining seventeen all being excerpts from forthcoming novels. As such, they all read as "tasters" and it's difficult to get into the flow of the writing or the story, making this issue far less enjoyable as some previous issues. Despite these criticisms, I did enjoy 'After the Hedland' by Evie Wyld, 'Driver' by Taiye Selasi and 'Slow Motion' by Adam Thirlwell, the only author I have subsequently added to my 'To-Read' list.
Memorable Quotes
Vipers - Kamila Shamsie
“...he was maimed now, a partial man, and from here on he would never be admired, only pitied.”
Glow - Ned Beauman
“You know, back in the States, you can’t use the coffee pots in hotels, because people like you use them to brew meth. Even in the good hotels, I heard.”
Filsan - Nadifa Mohamed
“...a gun makes a soldier even out of a woman.”
Driver - Taiye Selasi
“If you have never been to Ghana then you might not understand the way the darkest skin can glow as with the purest of all lights.”
“Madam says her flowers are the toast of all of Ghana. I would note that all of us do not, alas, have bread. But the flowers are spectacular.”
You Don't Have to Live Like This - Benjamin Markovits
“I didn’t want to be gay, for several reasons. One of them being that I wanted to sleep with girls.”