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Granta: The Magazine of New Writing #165
Granta 165: Deutschland
Granta is a literary magazine founded in 1889. Read the best new fiction, poetry, photography, and essays by famous authors, Nobel winners and new voices.
328 pages, Paperback
Published December 5, 2023
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
December 27, 2023
53rd book for 2023.
This is my first issue after resubscribing to Granta. I have lived in Germany for many years, and was hoping this issue could point me to new German literary voices. However, I found it overall pretty bland. There is not much that is surprising or new here. It mostly seems to be a bit of grab bag of clichés—whether these are German about themselves or English clichés about the Germans is not totally clear to me.
Going through the stories, I was more interested in the non-fiction pieces. In particular the conversation with Emily Dische-Becker and Eyal Weizman about how the German State is now defining how Jews in Germany can talk about Israel was great. The pieces by Jan Wilm and Peter Richter were also worth reading.
Amongst the fiction I liked Judith Hermann's piece and Clemens Meyer—but Meyer's is hardly an unknown voice. Still this piece makes me want to read more of his work. It would have been really nice to have seen more interesting up-and-coming German writers—i.e., writers whose first language of expression is German and not writers who write in English but just happen to be hanging out in Berlin.
In general the range in voices seems very limited. Mostly authors referencing Berlin or the East. Many of the stories reference the fall of the Wall its aftermath—and there are far too many non-German anglophone voices here for my liking.
This is somewhere between a two or a three, but given that short story collections are always a grab bag I'll be generous and round up.
3-stars.
My favorites:
FICTION (3 German writers, one American):
* We would have told each other everything—Judith Hermann (trans. Katy Derbyshire). A woman bumps into her ex-therapist in Berlin late at night and thinks about an old friendship and the process of therapy.
* Last Week in Marienbad—Lauren Oyler (self-conscious expats living in Berlin visiting a Czech spa town)
*Where the dragons live—Clemens Meyer (trans. Katy Derbyshire). Great, depressing take on life in a village in East Germany defined by far-right violence, racism, and hopelessness.
* Model Country—Shida Bazyar (trans. Ruth Martin). An Iranian child immigrant has to go back to Iran for a visit.
NON-FICTION:
* Once again, Germany defines who is a Jew—Geroge Prochnik in conversation with Emily Dische-Becker & Eyal Weizman. Particularly relevant given Gaza conflict.
* From the Planetarium—Ryan Ruby. An interesting discussion of urban architecture in Berlin and the the shortly before and after the fall of the Wall.
* A very German coup—Jan Wilm. Totally bonkers account of the attempted coup last by right-wing fanatics.
*The killing of a Berlin Power Broker—Peter Richter (trans. Shaun Whiteside). Interesting history of the unsolved murder of a politician responsible for managing the building frenzy in Berlin post-Wall.
*Have a good trip with a Trabant—Martin Roemers. Interesting text images and photographs of the. Trabant factory shortly before its closing after the fall of the Wall.
This is my first issue after resubscribing to Granta. I have lived in Germany for many years, and was hoping this issue could point me to new German literary voices. However, I found it overall pretty bland. There is not much that is surprising or new here. It mostly seems to be a bit of grab bag of clichés—whether these are German about themselves or English clichés about the Germans is not totally clear to me.
Going through the stories, I was more interested in the non-fiction pieces. In particular the conversation with Emily Dische-Becker and Eyal Weizman about how the German State is now defining how Jews in Germany can talk about Israel was great. The pieces by Jan Wilm and Peter Richter were also worth reading.
Amongst the fiction I liked Judith Hermann's piece and Clemens Meyer—but Meyer's is hardly an unknown voice. Still this piece makes me want to read more of his work. It would have been really nice to have seen more interesting up-and-coming German writers—i.e., writers whose first language of expression is German and not writers who write in English but just happen to be hanging out in Berlin.
In general the range in voices seems very limited. Mostly authors referencing Berlin or the East. Many of the stories reference the fall of the Wall its aftermath—and there are far too many non-German anglophone voices here for my liking.
This is somewhere between a two or a three, but given that short story collections are always a grab bag I'll be generous and round up.
3-stars.
My favorites:
FICTION (3 German writers, one American):
* We would have told each other everything—Judith Hermann (trans. Katy Derbyshire). A woman bumps into her ex-therapist in Berlin late at night and thinks about an old friendship and the process of therapy.
* Last Week in Marienbad—Lauren Oyler (self-conscious expats living in Berlin visiting a Czech spa town)
*Where the dragons live—Clemens Meyer (trans. Katy Derbyshire). Great, depressing take on life in a village in East Germany defined by far-right violence, racism, and hopelessness.
* Model Country—Shida Bazyar (trans. Ruth Martin). An Iranian child immigrant has to go back to Iran for a visit.
NON-FICTION:
* Once again, Germany defines who is a Jew—Geroge Prochnik in conversation with Emily Dische-Becker & Eyal Weizman. Particularly relevant given Gaza conflict.
* From the Planetarium—Ryan Ruby. An interesting discussion of urban architecture in Berlin and the the shortly before and after the fall of the Wall.
* A very German coup—Jan Wilm. Totally bonkers account of the attempted coup last by right-wing fanatics.
*The killing of a Berlin Power Broker—Peter Richter (trans. Shaun Whiteside). Interesting history of the unsolved murder of a politician responsible for managing the building frenzy in Berlin post-Wall.
*Have a good trip with a Trabant—Martin Roemers. Interesting text images and photographs of the. Trabant factory shortly before its closing after the fall of the Wall.
July 21, 2024
Granta’s new editor, Thomas Meaney, has restored the journal to the format of Bill Buford and Ian Jack, two successful previous editors – a format wantonly discarded by Sigrid Rausing. More to the point, at least in this edition, Meaney has a better ear than Rausing for the balance of fact and fiction that made those earlier editions so interesting. And he’s put back the photos.
As for Deutschland, there’s a lot in this that you probably didn’t realize it is useful to know – a few surprises never tarnish a good read.
As for Deutschland, there’s a lot in this that you probably didn’t realize it is useful to know – a few surprises never tarnish a good read.
December 1, 2023
This is the first edition of this long established literary periodical under the new editor Thomas Meaney. It's too early to say whether he'll be taking Granta in a different direction (which I would personally give a cautious welcome) but this issue I found heavy going. Lots of heavyweight discussions on the state Germany is in currently, some of which I did find informative as an outsider but several pieces had me skipping ahead looking for more stimulating fare.
September 20, 2024
I was doing a small job for a French multi-national integrated energy and petroleum company. Their operation in Germany wanted design work carried out for their petrol retailing operation. The Wall having just come down (much written about in this issue of Granta), we travelled to Leipzig to see a few of their petrol stations. Reunification had caused ramifications for their brand identity and other less important issues.
At the first site, our client bought me a Trabant. Not the real car (they’d been discontinued). Nor was it full sized. It was a 1/32nd sized model in a cardboard box with cellophane window. The window showed off what had been the apogee of East German automotive engineering, with its two stroke engine, plastic body, and continual odour of paraffin.
Since reunification and discontinuation the car had surprisingly acquired more cache. Deemed to be a classic automobile it was sought after and at a premium price due to a lack of availability (the car's durability hadn't been its best feature, if indeed it had ever possessed a best feature). And if its notorious unpredictability and unreliability was not your preference as a mode of transport, there were other uses for the Trabant other than transportation. As icons of nostalgia they were cutup to become garden planters, sofas, an integrated home office or play rooms.
What was curious about the client’s gift to me was not the lime green paintwork, or that both doors opened, but that it was made from a metal alloy. The original was only ever made from Duroplast, a plastic formed from cotton waste and phenolic resins.
Ironic that reunification had posthumously raised the standards of production, at least for my model, whose bodywork now exhibited far greater quality than the actual car had ever done.
This issue of Granta has Germany as is theme. Entitled ‘Deutschland’ it has an article ‘Have a Good Trip with Trabant’, that entertains with not just the cultural significance of the car, but also the difficulties of ownership. It accompanies an excellent series of black & white photographs from the Trabant production line.
Otherwise, this issue (which despite the new editor seems to be increasingly the case with Granta) was predominantly nonfictional essays that were dry and scholarly. Though 'Auto Mind' by Adrian Daub, resonated with my sense that the car revels in its hegemony over us. That death is acceptable for our apparent freedom behind the wheel. Yet, the driver is as much a slave to haste and impatience as the pedestrian is to death and a lack of priority. In not many years to come, our descendants will laugh at the hubris the car exerts over us. The essay, naturally, shows this in the context of German roads and autobahns, but this is a worldwide malaise.
The fiction or memoir where it appeared was poor. The exception is the intriguing, ‘We Would Have Told Each Other Everything' by Judith Hermann, and especially Yoko Tawada’s ‘The Texture of Angel Matter’, which was refreshingly surreal, and whose prose flowed like a limpid brook, a welcome relief from the weighty tone of much of this issue.
At the first site, our client bought me a Trabant. Not the real car (they’d been discontinued). Nor was it full sized. It was a 1/32nd sized model in a cardboard box with cellophane window. The window showed off what had been the apogee of East German automotive engineering, with its two stroke engine, plastic body, and continual odour of paraffin.
Since reunification and discontinuation the car had surprisingly acquired more cache. Deemed to be a classic automobile it was sought after and at a premium price due to a lack of availability (the car's durability hadn't been its best feature, if indeed it had ever possessed a best feature). And if its notorious unpredictability and unreliability was not your preference as a mode of transport, there were other uses for the Trabant other than transportation. As icons of nostalgia they were cutup to become garden planters, sofas, an integrated home office or play rooms.
What was curious about the client’s gift to me was not the lime green paintwork, or that both doors opened, but that it was made from a metal alloy. The original was only ever made from Duroplast, a plastic formed from cotton waste and phenolic resins.
Ironic that reunification had posthumously raised the standards of production, at least for my model, whose bodywork now exhibited far greater quality than the actual car had ever done.
This issue of Granta has Germany as is theme. Entitled ‘Deutschland’ it has an article ‘Have a Good Trip with Trabant’, that entertains with not just the cultural significance of the car, but also the difficulties of ownership. It accompanies an excellent series of black & white photographs from the Trabant production line.
Otherwise, this issue (which despite the new editor seems to be increasingly the case with Granta) was predominantly nonfictional essays that were dry and scholarly. Though 'Auto Mind' by Adrian Daub, resonated with my sense that the car revels in its hegemony over us. That death is acceptable for our apparent freedom behind the wheel. Yet, the driver is as much a slave to haste and impatience as the pedestrian is to death and a lack of priority. In not many years to come, our descendants will laugh at the hubris the car exerts over us. The essay, naturally, shows this in the context of German roads and autobahns, but this is a worldwide malaise.
The fiction or memoir where it appeared was poor. The exception is the intriguing, ‘We Would Have Told Each Other Everything' by Judith Hermann, and especially Yoko Tawada’s ‘The Texture of Angel Matter’, which was refreshingly surreal, and whose prose flowed like a limpid brook, a welcome relief from the weighty tone of much of this issue.
Read
December 31, 2023In one of the final pieces in this Granta issue on Germany, Frederic Jameson describes the paintings of artist Neo Rauch as capturing “the unrelated fragments of a discontinuous collective experience”. That phrase may well describe the portrait of “Deutchland” drawn in this collection of essays and stories.
Jameson’s essay on Rauch does well to explain the artist’s paintings and intentions, though the images here are too small to do the work justice. Martin Roemers photo essay on the final days of the Trabant factory fares much better. Those pictures are a delight. As are the images of FC St. Pauli and the essay on its fans.
Granta 165 presents a Germany haunted by its past: Hitler, anti-semitism, and the country’s strained devotion to Israel, Communism, reunification, and Capitalism, and, even, those who yearn for the past imperial state. The fiction here addresses on some level the love (and reserve) felt by each author for Germany. Peter Kuras has a good piece on the German sense of humor, such as it is.
A couple of years ago, I started reading a book about the City of Berlin. I couldn’t finish it, I think because the city never started. There was no “root city” there. It seemed like every new ruler was bent on founding Berlin anew, tearing down what was there before and building structures that would then suffer the the same fate with the ascendence of a new leader. This continued through the 20th century and “The Killing of a Berlin Powerbroker” by Peter Richter describes how even the latest efforts to found a city center on Friedrichstrasse has collapsed (violently, at times) with competing visions, both within the city and, because of the city’s past political connections to both East and West, from interested, sometimes shadowy, outside parties.
This Granta is a good primer for the current state of the largest country in Europe. Partly because elsewhere I read a couple other news analyses on Germany: reflections on the reunification, and current anti-semitism in Germany and how it is being used by rightist politics, and partly because I started reading this issue on-line, which I just can’t get used to, reading this issue seemed oppressively immersive. That seemed about right for an experience of Germany.
Jameson’s essay on Rauch does well to explain the artist’s paintings and intentions, though the images here are too small to do the work justice. Martin Roemers photo essay on the final days of the Trabant factory fares much better. Those pictures are a delight. As are the images of FC St. Pauli and the essay on its fans.
Granta 165 presents a Germany haunted by its past: Hitler, anti-semitism, and the country’s strained devotion to Israel, Communism, reunification, and Capitalism, and, even, those who yearn for the past imperial state. The fiction here addresses on some level the love (and reserve) felt by each author for Germany. Peter Kuras has a good piece on the German sense of humor, such as it is.
A couple of years ago, I started reading a book about the City of Berlin. I couldn’t finish it, I think because the city never started. There was no “root city” there. It seemed like every new ruler was bent on founding Berlin anew, tearing down what was there before and building structures that would then suffer the the same fate with the ascendence of a new leader. This continued through the 20th century and “The Killing of a Berlin Powerbroker” by Peter Richter describes how even the latest efforts to found a city center on Friedrichstrasse has collapsed (violently, at times) with competing visions, both within the city and, because of the city’s past political connections to both East and West, from interested, sometimes shadowy, outside parties.
This Granta is a good primer for the current state of the largest country in Europe. Partly because elsewhere I read a couple other news analyses on Germany: reflections on the reunification, and current anti-semitism in Germany and how it is being used by rightist politics, and partly because I started reading this issue on-line, which I just can’t get used to, reading this issue seemed oppressively immersive. That seemed about right for an experience of Germany.
January 3, 2024
Ich war ja ungeheuer gespannt gewesen auf die Ausgabe 165, Deutschland, schließlich lese ich seit Jahrzehnten jede Ausgabe Granta gern, auch wenn mich das Thema sonst überhaupt nicht interessiert. Deshalb dauerte es auch ein paar Texte, bis ich mein Unwohlsein überhaupt zuließ mit der Behandlung eines Themas, mit dem ich mich als Deutsche, die seit 56 Jahren in Deutschland lebt (mit einem Jahr Unterbrechung für Studium in Wales), recht gut auskenne, inklusive regelmäßiger Einblicke in Außensichten in der New York Times, im Spectator, Economist, Guardian.
Es war dann das Interview zum Thema Antisemitismus in Deutschland, dass mich aus der Kurve trug: Georg Prochnik (ein US-amerikanischer Literaturwissenschaftler) interviewt dazu Emily Dische-Becker (deutsche Autorin und Forscherin in forensischer Architektur) sowie Eyal Weizmann (israelischer forensischer Architekt): "Once Again, Germany Defines Who Is a Jew".
Nämlich war ich sehr verblüfft (im Sinne von blieb mir die Spucke weg), dass sie sich drei Jüd*innen ausgesucht hatten, eine davon Deutsche, deren Haltung der typisch linken britischen entsprach und die alle erwünschten anti-israelischen Zitate lieferten: Die politische Bekämpfung des Antisemitismus in Deutschland sei nämlich demokratiefeindlich (als Beleg wurde die Einordnung der Organisation Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions - BDS als antisemitisch angeführt), das "Apartheids-System" in Israel würde blind unterstützt. Das cherry picking der Zitate-Geber*innen setzte sich bei den wild zusammengestellten Beispielen als Belegen heraus, quer durch die Instanzen. Es hatte fast etwas Lächerliches, wenn es nicht so schlimm gewesen wäre. (Wer sich für offizielle deutsche jüdische Stimmen zur BDS interessiert, kann beim Zentralrat der Juden nachschlagen.)
Beim Weiterlesen des Magazins vertiefte sich mein Eindruck: Das war wirklich keine liebevolle Perspektive, sondern Bestätigung von offensichtlich lang Vorgefasstem. Zum Beispiel war die einzige erwähnenswerte Großstadt, und das mehrfach, Berlin - dort leben ja auch alle englischsprachigen Expats (die edelste Sorte Ausländer*innen). Nichts an den Texten war wirklich falsch, doch ich diagnostizierte eine ausgesprochen unfreundliche Themenauswahl und Betrachtungsweise, die mich verwundert zurückließ: Wenn die Redaktion Deutschland doof findet, warum dann eine ganze Ausgabe darüber?
Es war dann das Interview zum Thema Antisemitismus in Deutschland, dass mich aus der Kurve trug: Georg Prochnik (ein US-amerikanischer Literaturwissenschaftler) interviewt dazu Emily Dische-Becker (deutsche Autorin und Forscherin in forensischer Architektur) sowie Eyal Weizmann (israelischer forensischer Architekt): "Once Again, Germany Defines Who Is a Jew".
Nämlich war ich sehr verblüfft (im Sinne von blieb mir die Spucke weg), dass sie sich drei Jüd*innen ausgesucht hatten, eine davon Deutsche, deren Haltung der typisch linken britischen entsprach und die alle erwünschten anti-israelischen Zitate lieferten: Die politische Bekämpfung des Antisemitismus in Deutschland sei nämlich demokratiefeindlich (als Beleg wurde die Einordnung der Organisation Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions - BDS als antisemitisch angeführt), das "Apartheids-System" in Israel würde blind unterstützt. Das cherry picking der Zitate-Geber*innen setzte sich bei den wild zusammengestellten Beispielen als Belegen heraus, quer durch die Instanzen. Es hatte fast etwas Lächerliches, wenn es nicht so schlimm gewesen wäre. (Wer sich für offizielle deutsche jüdische Stimmen zur BDS interessiert, kann beim Zentralrat der Juden nachschlagen.)
Beim Weiterlesen des Magazins vertiefte sich mein Eindruck: Das war wirklich keine liebevolle Perspektive, sondern Bestätigung von offensichtlich lang Vorgefasstem. Zum Beispiel war die einzige erwähnenswerte Großstadt, und das mehrfach, Berlin - dort leben ja auch alle englischsprachigen Expats (die edelste Sorte Ausländer*innen). Nichts an den Texten war wirklich falsch, doch ich diagnostizierte eine ausgesprochen unfreundliche Themenauswahl und Betrachtungsweise, die mich verwundert zurückließ: Wenn die Redaktion Deutschland doof findet, warum dann eine ganze Ausgabe darüber?
December 10, 2024
“When you’re not a true believer in the possibility of a cure, your mind has space to wander to dark places.”
“But she does not guide us; there is no sense that we will make our way out.”
A fabulous issue of Granta. My basic takeaway is that Germany is deeply weird, but also that every place is deeply weird. Highlights include “We Would Have Told Each Other Everything” by Judith Herman’s, “Allegro Pastell” by Leif Randt, “Last Week at Marienbad” by Lauren Oyler, “The Killing of a Power Broker” by Peter Richter, and “Where the Dragons Live” by Clemens Meyer.
“But she does not guide us; there is no sense that we will make our way out.”
A fabulous issue of Granta. My basic takeaway is that Germany is deeply weird, but also that every place is deeply weird. Highlights include “We Would Have Told Each Other Everything” by Judith Herman’s, “Allegro Pastell” by Leif Randt, “Last Week at Marienbad” by Lauren Oyler, “The Killing of a Power Broker” by Peter Richter, and “Where the Dragons Live” by Clemens Meyer.
December 3, 2023
The articles in this edition didn't really grab me which surprised me as I find Germany a fascinating country. The one exception was 'Last Week in Marienbad'.
Never mind, next edition will be here soonish.
Never mind, next edition will be here soonish.
December 3, 2023
Interesting pieces by Kluge, Zink and Habermas. Thomas Meaney offers a concise introduction to the current state of the german literature.
December 21, 2023
I enjoyed this issue - had a good variety of different articles relating to Germany.
March 26, 2024
Enkel 'Where the Dragons Live' van Clemens Meyer kon me bekoren.
July 3, 2024
Meh. Weak issue. Little cogent correlation between the pieces. German i guess. Transcribing interviews counts As new writing . Least fave issue in ages
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews