Granta 124: Travel

Granta: The Magazine of New Writing #124

by Granta: The Magazine of New Writing, John Freeman

Hari Kunzru travels to Chernobyl, Detroit and Japan to investigate the phenomenon of disaster tourism. Policeman-turned-detective-turned-writer A Yi describes life as a provincial gumshoe in China. Physician Siddhartha Mukherjee visits a government hospital in New Delhi, where he meets Madha Sengupta, at the end of his life and on the frontiers of medicine. Robert Macfarlane explores the limestone underworld beneath the Peak District. And Haruki Murakami revisits his walk to Kobe in the aftermath of the 1995 earthquake.

In this issue - which includes poems by Charles Simic and Ellen Bryant Voigt, a story by Miroslav Penkov and non-fiction by David Searcy, Teju Cole and Hector Abad - Granta presents a panoramic view of our shared landscape and investigates our motivations for exploring it. '

Genres: Travel, Fiction, Short Stories, Essays, Poetry, Literature

277 pages, Kindle Edition

First published July 1, 2013

About the author

Granta magazine was founded in 1889 by students at Cambridge University as The Granta, a periodical of student politics, student badinage and student literary enterprise, named after the river that runs through the town. In this original incarnation it had a long and distinguished history, publishing the early work of many writers who later became well known, including A. A. Milne, Michael Frayn, Stevie Smith, Ted Hughes and Sylvia Plath. During the 1970s, it ran into trouble – dwindling money, mounting apathy – from which it was rescued by a small group of postgraduates who successfully and surprisingly relaunched it as a magazine of new writing, with both writers and their audience drawn from the world beyond Cambridge.

Reviews

[Ammar · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of my favourite Granta issues

Travel is important, it expands ones horizon and one learns a lot about him/herself and about the world around us.

This collection goes out in the world, the world that we hear of and see in documentaries, but never venture to.

Murakami's walk to Kobe is an excellent piece about the joy of walking back into your childhood and what happened to a city that you once lived in, after being away for decades.

I loved Steffi Klenz art .. the portraits of those lost in sea and how she exposed those pictures to algae and sea bacteria and how they affected the final product.

Each and every piece in this collection is worthy and takes you someone from the slums of India to the Gypsy camps in Romania.

[Mark · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am developing a repulsion for the term "travel writing" because to me it connotes articles written for travel magazines about where to spend your next vacation. It's not literary nonfiction. Stories about elsewhere is much more apt for the kind of literary nonfiction that takes place somewhere else. This excellent collection contains everything from a story about being abducted in Thailand to stories about drowning in Lagos, and a lot of other well told stories in between. Nothing about vacations however.

[Efemia · Rating 4 out of 5]

I actually missed my stop on the train while reading the story by Hector Abad. I devoured this, perhaps because I haven't travelled in a while and am heavily wanderlusting.

A spectacular issue: the highlights being a surreal nightmare/dream trip somewhere in South Asia by Rattawut Lapcharoensap, Haruki Murakami's reflective piece on post-earthquake Kobe, the danger and bombastic appeal of Teju Cole's Nigeria trip, and "the green desert" - paradoxes of the Colombian jungle as explained by Hector Abad. A lovely mix of fiction, fiction and narrative non-fiction.

Read it, it will take your soul places.

"Money was a solution that always became a problem. It was constantly bringing us into contact with such wonderful people only to immediately get in the way" - The Captain, Rattawut Lapcharoensap

[Shelley Diamond · Rating 2 out of 5]

Out of the 14 tales in this issue of Granta, four were profound and worth reading....

Those four are:
The Captain by Rattawut Lapcharoensap
The Perfect Last Day of Mr. Sengupta by Siddhartha Mukherjee
A Walk to Kobe by Haruki Murakami
Blood Money by Miroslav Penkov

[Anubhav · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a travelogue with a difference. It describes journeys, landscapes, vistas .... and people.

Two of the best short stories read in a long time are in this book (some spoilers ahead)
- Blood Money by Miroslav Penkov (a heart-rending account from the intersection of personal memories, media hunger for a good story that may lead to personal upliftment, unshakeable weight of immense poverty, early surrogate motherhood as revenue generative, 'honour' of Gypsy blood feud across generations -- not live and let live - not live and let die - but live and raise sons to kill)
- The Perfect Last Day of Mr. Sengupta by Siddhartha Mukherjee (grace and courage in death of old age...) are two of the best short stories i have read in the recent past.

[Owen · Rating 3 out of 5]

A Walk to Kobe is Murakami's reflection on age, his past, and violence. He writes of a trip he took to some places from his youth and discusses how they have changed since he had been there. After detailing a few violent attacks, Murakami questions why violent things happen.

At first I wasn't sure what purpose this article served. It was published in a travel issue of Granta, you can read it here and I assume it is just a collection of thoughts he had while walking around Kobe. The writing is pretty interesting and his stories may be relatable to some people. If you have a few minutes, you should take a look at this.

[Carol · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoyed reading stories set in different locales around the world. This is not a tourism guide but literature embodying different cultures.

[Daniel · Rating 4 out of 5]

"In a sense, our lives are nothing more but a series of stages to help us get used to loneliness."

[Patrick McCoy · Rating 3 out of 5]

was inspired to read Granta 124: Travel (2013) becuse of the general theme of travel and the fact that it contained pieces by three of my favorite contemporary writers: Rattawut Lapcharoen, Dave Eggers, and Haruki Murakami. That being said I was disappointed by all of them save Murakami, who had an interesting nonfiction piece about walking in his former hometown of Kobe years after the 1995 earthquake ravaged the area. Lapcharoen (author of a impressive short story collection, Sightseeing, in his debut) wrote a strange story, "The Captain," about a Thai American who returns to SE Asia for his honeymoon and is separated from his wife and held captive by locals who drain his bank accounts. I couldn't discern if he was trying to make a statement about modern Thailand or whether he was making some sort of personal metaphor out of the situation. Egger's story was something like a real life anecdote written as fiction and not very memorable. That being said there several other more memorable pieces such as Hector Abad's memoir about a visit to the Colombian amazon jungle in "A Rationalist in the Jungle." Another interesting piece was "Barrenland" by A Yi, which at first i mistook for a short story, but turned out to be memoir by a rural Chinese policeman. "Water Has No Enemy" by Nigerian writer Teju Cole was another enticing personal memoir about calamities and other extraordinary events that took place on a return visit to Lagos. I also found the photo essay "Tour Gide," with commentary by Phil Klay with WWII photos from Colonel A. Black, fascinating. There were more nonfiction pieces in this collection than usual and there were several pieces that didn't appeal to me on some level.

[Mikaela · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some great stories in this issue, but mostly mediocre stuff

Highlights:
The Captain (Rattawut Lapcharoensap)-Sprawling crime story which starts off making you think it will be some cliché travel-love story; pretty funny also kind of annoying (intentional?)

Underland (Robert Macfarlane)-My favorite story by far. Been wanting to read his stuff, and this convinced me that I'm definitely missing out. Talks about his trip in a cave.

Tour Guide (Phil Clay)- Found art piece discussing the dichotomous photo album of a WW2 veteran. Tourist pictures and cutesy labels next to pictures of war victims and destruction.

Compass Plant (Rachel Boast)- Poem. Just read it. It's good.

The Best Hotel (Sonia Faleiro)- A simultaneously stoic and comical look into child trafficking in India

Water Has No Enemy (Teju Cole)- Cole goes back to his home country and notes a few choice moments where he felt like a foreigner in his own country.

[William Mego · Rating 3 out of 5]

Like any compilation of writing, there's that which hits, and that which misses. The theme of this edition of Granta was that of travel; that's a theme I've always found to be problematic for this sort of thing, and this was no exception. There were stories and essays I wanted to enjoy but didn't, and those I was surprised by. The story by Siddhartha Mukherjee was excellent, and I was surprised by how much I enjoyed the Dave Eggers. I felt the poetry was a little uneven, and suffered in comparison to some of the better efforts. Overall I did enjoy reading this, though I'm glad I did so in a library rather than paying for it; I'd have been a little disappointed to pay the asking price for it.

[Susan Emmet · Rating 3 out of 5]

This edition of Granta brought me to places I've never been...and to many I'd prefer to avoid.
A fine mixture of essays, poetry, and photographs.
Steffi Klenz's pictures of lost travelers and explorers are amazing, as is her technique of exposing old photos to corrosive ocean bacteria, lending a crackling to the pictures.
A Yi's "Barrenland" is amazing. So is "A Rationalist in the Jungle." The darkness of "Blood Money" is stark and clear. I also liked "Nuestra Senora De La Asuncion."
Granta is one of the finest quarterlies around.
So like the way of using various guest editors and consistently pulling in so many writers from all over the world.

[Mary Warnement · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not your usual "travel writing." Underland almost gave me an attack of claustrophobia on the subway. Eggers protrayed a sense with his usual succinct eye. I'd never heard of David Searcy and have no idea why his story is called Hudson River School. A rationalist in the jungle and walk to Kobe both made me think about places I'd never been in a familiar way. I first sought out this volume b/c someone somewhere praised Water has no enemy. These essays didn't make me want to go to the places they describe; they made me think about where I've been, where I'm from, and where I'm going.

[Chris · Rating 5 out of 5]

Every Granta is excellent, but Granta does Travel best. Miroslav Penkov's story may be one of the best stories I've ever read.
I am curious why David Searcy's story about, predominantly, a Texas rancher is called The Hudson River School. There's mention of Colonial Nantucket, and the vast landscapes of the settings are well represented, the title seems a distant allusion. I'll reread that story.

[Rebecca · Rating 3 out of 5]

Blood Money is my favorite piece. It is a work of fiction, both humanely real, and inhumanly shocking at the same time.

Another one that stands out for me is Barrenland.

Both are depictions of everyday life of some people, in some parts of the world. I do not know how much of if is fiction and how much is real. I do not wish to know, ever.

[T P Kennedy · Rating 1 out of 5]

One of the dullest Grantas I've read. Travel writing is not my thing but I foolishly assumed that Granta would bring a more interesting or provocative slant to the topic. This is primarily non fiction and even the piece by the inspirational Teju Cole isn't worth the price of admission.

[Graham · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some really good writing in this issue but nothing better than the pot-holing excerpt from Robert Macfarlane's 'Underworld', a book about subterranean and the lost world's beneath our feet...

[Phil · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another good issue, I like the variety.

[Sarah]

giving up in this for now

[Marcin · Rating 3 out of 5]

My rating is based only on Haruki Murakami's short story.

[Amy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not great. Enjoyed Lina Wolff's piece, and that by Siddhartha Mukherjee. Otherwise it was a pretty indifferent collection. Released it into the wild at the Union Sq. Barnes and Noble.

[e · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love short stories. Especially the first few. So weird to read stuffs translates from Chinese and Japanese into English... I think I want to read more short stories, and travel a lot more.

[Niranjan M · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've written a review on my blog, so I'll just link to it - yellowed-pages.tumblr.com.

[Katy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good - well, I like the topic, and there's a Murakami essay in this issue. I particularly liked the essay on caving.

[JD · Rating 1 out of 5]

You’ve changed…..

Nothing outstanding in this Granta, but most pieces did what Granta mostly seems to do these days which is to offer perspective and experience far from anything most readers could normally access. A culturally different perspective is a precious thing. I do have a problem with it though and now I think about it, this problem has been coming for a long time. This no longer a British literary magazine. It has become very American in character and content aimed at an American audience. Nothing wrong with American literature, I read quite a lot of it and I am not uninterested in how they see themselves and the rest of the world. They are not all Dave Eggers with his gob smacking lack of self awareness(see his contribution to this book) ,but I subscribed 20 years ago to a different kind of literary magazine and I miss it.

[Julie Kolb · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was truly best armchair traveling. An introduction to new writers as well as favorites. The views and voice were enlightening about the world, even years after its publication was current. Knowing the changes or lack of changes that have occurred since they were originally published is striking.

[Julie Capell · Rating 2 out of 5]

Considering the pedigrees of many of the authors in this collection, I expected to enjoy these stories more than I did. My favorites were Underland, by Robert McFarlane; The Man at the River, by Dave Eggers; and Tour Guide, by Phil Klay. Many of the stories had nothing much to do with travel, which underscored my general disappointment with this anthology.

[ciera dakota · Rating 3 out of 5]

honestly the first one shot grabbed my attention the most and my attention quickly fell off from there. maybe will have to try again in the future, but a great cover to keep on the shelf.

[ofox20 · Rating 3 out of 5]

gifted pre-qualification leave

[Michaela Miladinova · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5