Granta 65: London: The Lives of the City

Granta: The Magazine of New Writing #65

by Ian Jack (Editor)

London at the end of the century comes attached to a new list of marketing superlatives--the most vibrant, the hippest, the coolest of the great global cities: London-New York-Paris-Tokyo. This may amount to no more than a passing coincidence of money, youth, and politics. But for now there is an optimism about London, and the gathering sense of a new London nationalism; the city as a cosmopolitan state.

This special issue of Granta, the largest in the magazine's history, is all about London: 352 pages of fiction, reportage, memoir, and photography.

Genres: Fiction, Short Stories, Travel, Anthologies, Essays

351 pages, Paperback

First published March 31, 1999

About the author

Ian Jack is a British journalist and writer who has edited the Independent on Sunday and the literary magazine Granta and now writes regularly for The Guardian.

Reviews

[Esther · Rating 5 out of 5]

First read this when it came out back in 1999. 20 years ago! I'd been living in London at that point for about 18 months and was loving it. This edition has so many brilliant writers, Will Self, Hanif Kureishi, Helen Simpson who I knew and loved at the time. Now as I re-read it interesting to see how many more I've gone on to read John Lanchester, Philip Hensher. Wonderful profile of Dame Shirley Porter and the homes for votes scandal which is penned by Jay Rayner, the Guardian restaurant critic whose reviews are so ascerbic and funny that I frequently read them even though I no longer live in England and the chances of going to any of the places he reviews are miniscule. It's like the gift that keeps on giving, a very recent discovery for me, Iain Sinclair has a short piece. The photo essays are good, the one on Soho now, is interesting to see 20 years on. Then it was comparing the old filth/Italian small stores with the new restaurants, club and gay scene. Now 20 years on from 1999 I wonder if any of the Soho I knew remains, or whether it's all ridiculous overpriced small plates bankrolled by Russian oligarchs. For me to have kept hold of a book for so long, numerous house moves and relocating to the US, means a lot. Just to have it in my hands and recall where I was when i first read it, the splatter on a page, rush hour tube spill? Gives such a simple pleasure.

[Clara · Rating 4 out of 5]

A collection of stories and photographs from diverse individuals in London, 1960s to 90s.

Some quotes:

"Consciousness is, after all, simply another story, another string of metaphors, another gag."

"In childhood, as far as he can remember, crying had inside it the idea that this feeling would go on for ever-that the pain, whatever it was, that was causing you to cry, was infinite, and would possess you for ever. Or you would live inside it for ever. It was the first vague intimation of what death would be like to be in the same state without end."

"and, much as I would like to, can't remember how I felt when I first saw Albert and his memorial. I imagine the mixture of awe and reverence that big things elicit from small innocents."

"Can the feeling of liberation ever be transmitted to those who have always been free?"

[Frank Jacobs · Rating 4 out of 5]

A portrait of London at the end of last century, in the only way that makes sense for such a multi-faceted metropolis: in fragments and miniatures – behind the scenes of its traffic gridlock, seen through the eyes of an asylum seeker, through old photographs and new cartoons, discussing selected monuments, tribes and neighbourhoods, in short stories and long-form reportages.

This is London just before the oligarchs, high-financiers and others with questionably ample amounts of wealth took over the city, reducing it to a spectacle only to be enjoyed vicariously by the 99%. Although less than two decades old, this collection feels historical, in two senses: as something that is definitely past, but also pointing the way to the present. Excellent writing by Will Self, Hanif Kureishi, Ian Buruma, John Lanchester, Iain Sinclair, Julian Barnes, and many others.