The first book for this blog is lushly re-designed Granta One Hundred and One.Although this came out in the spring I've only just got round to picking it up, due to having been out the country for a while. Now under the editorship of Jason Cowley (a pretty well-known chap in the world of books and journalism who has judged various literary prizes, including the Whitbread and the Booker, and has been literary editor on The New Statesman, which he will become editor of in September), the magazine is holding on to its roots, publishing original fiction, photo-journalism, memoir, reportage and other non-fiction, while breaking its mould a bit by throwing poetry into the mix, and having undertaken a fairly drastic refurb.
The issue starts with a series of short pieces by, amongst others, Douglas Coupland and Hilary Mantel, which I can’t help but feel have been deliberately chosen for this new-look (and feel edition). Coupland talks about visual thinkers, and makes mention of how he thinks the words ‘Zulu Romeo Foxtrot’ look ‘gorgeous’ on paper. His thrust is that writing can, and maybe should, be a visual experience, as well as a digestive mental one, and this richly visual Granta, with its new matt cover and gloss pictures, its new font (I have always thought that the font a book is written in can drastically alter one’s perception of it, can make the reading of it more or less enjoyable, can enable to writing beneath the print to flow more easily - which is what the writings in this Granta certainly does - although perhaps this is just because my poor eyes find it harder to strain for smaller fonts) its addition of more pictures (and even some graphics) to its writing (now they are found throughout pieces, rather than just at the beginning), is certainly that.
Mantel’s piece concerns an icon she bought while living in Saudi Arabia. She describes the moment that she found it, on one of her rare forays out of her house:
‘When I got the icon in my hand at first, I knew enough to pretend I wasn’t interested in it. I put it down and walked away, but the thought that anybody else might swan in and pick it up made my skin creep, made me cold, sick and weak’
When I first saw the new look Granta I felt a little revulsed. How can you change the design of such an iconic magazine? How can you ruin the look of over 20 Grantas in chronological order on my shelf? Yet when I picked it up, I felt drawn to it. It’s matt cover is seductively calm to hold and as your hands brush the gloss cover image something akin to arousal flutters through your fingers. Surely this piece was chosen to make the reader feel more deeply this experience of holding the new Granta, to help to win him or her over to its fairly radical new look.
And now, I feel robbed of sensation, because Granta hasn’t felt this good all along. This new Granta is is engaging more of my senses than the old Granta. It has a new smell, and these thicker pages sound different as I turn them. Maybe I should lick it.
