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Granta: The Magazine of New Writing #102
Granta 102: The New Nature Writing
As our conception and experience of nature changes, so too does the way we write about it. This special issue features Kathleen Jamie on human pathology, Jonathan Raban on the road in the American West and Robert Macfarlane ghost-hunting in the Fens. Plus, new fiction by Lydia Peelle and a graphic story from David Heatley.
288 pages, Paperback
First published July 7, 2008
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January 7, 2023GRANTA: THE NEW NATURE WRITING / Jason Cowley (ed.) / Granta Publications, 2008
First of all, each bit of writing in here is strikingly wrought. All of the writers in here are seasoned veterans, or at least seem to be. Seamus Heaney even comes in for a little quasi-ekphrastic two-pager on a birch log, which I did not expect to enjoy as much as I did. Even without a unifying theme, the book could be a masterclass in (mostly nonfiction) craft. In fact, some of my favorite pieces—Heaney’s, Anthony Doerr’s, Lydia Peele’s—only weakly contribute to the particular ethos of this Granta issue as I understand it.
Granta’s staff is only partially successful at articulating what the issue contributes. Any ‘new’ nature writing must set itself up against the old. In his introduction, editor Jason Cowley presents this ‘old’ as the classic pastoral trope of a writer going into nature to find a release (sometimes a deadly one) from urban life. The reason it must be abandoned, Cowley thinks, is that human-nature dualism cannot be maintained in the face of modern “economic migration, overpopulation and climate change”. Completely sensible, and correct, I think. But I would add that it also goes against the very contemporary idea that the relationship between humans and our environment is largely one-sided. That is, it’s missing something to pay no attention on how even a reshaped nature has profound impacts on human life. In my opinion, successful “New Nature Writing” must renegotiate our relationship with nature by broadening the scope of what can be considered ‘natural’ and bringing to attention aspects of human-nature interaction which a dualistic understanding cannot subsume under its simplistic shell. Incorporated in this renegotiation will be, especially due to our neo-Foucaultian-ish attentions to subjectivity, conscious attention the position of the writer/observer.[*]
Some pieces, though of course excellent in many other ways, don’t do a whole lot to meaningfully advance either a broadened scope or a primarily reciprocal understanding human-environment relationship. The poem “Elegy” by Sean O’Brian really only uses nature as a starting point. Donovan Wylie’s photo essay “Demolishing the Maze” really only works as about nature if you just broaden the ‘natural’ field to include all artifice too, rendering the concept meaningless—something I was worried would happen with Matthew Power’s “Cherry Tree Garden”, my favorite piece in the book, but didn’t. And Heaney gives off more mystical and transcendental vibes to be truly practical as a piece of nature writing.
I’ll end by listing some of my favorites that I think were successful in addressing the issue’s theme:
“Pathologies: A startling tour of our bodies” by Kathleen Jamie – A wonderful examination of what it might mean to consider microbiomes gone wrong as natural or unnatural, and a worthy turn of attention to the microscopic.
“Science: When the world turns ugly” by Jim Holt – A fascinating idea of anvironmentalism on (neoplatonic) aesthetic grounds?
“Ghost Species” by Robert MacFarlane – Really bringing it home what it means to call a person ‘part of the landscape’ by taking a look at old-timers in the Norfolk Fens.
“Cherry Tree Garden: A rural stronghold in the south Bronx” by Matthew Power – Urban gardens and a somewhat naturalized idea of urban planning history as environmental history, besides being a raucously good story,
“Colorado: Frontier Life” by Benjamen Kunkel – Every interaction you can think of and more considered between the too-square borders of Kunkel’s western state.
! “Second Nature: The de-landscaping of the American West” by Jonathan Raban – A fascinating cross-cultural look about how nature can (or cannot) become artifice in Britain and the USA.
[*] >?< “Phantom Pain” by Lydia Peele – It is precisely due to the considerations in this paragraph that I was reluctant to include Peele’s short story as demonstrating a strongly successful form of new nature writing. On one hand, I still need to do more thinking about how fiction can fit in here. But more fundamentally, I used to read her short story as operating on a bifurcated or else completely unified relationship between humans and nature. After a bit of thinking, though, I’m rejecting this and putting her firmly in the ‘successful’ category. The reading of the humans-encountering-wild-animal conceit as a pastoral picture misses the idea that it is the humans’ perception of the events and only that that makes something natural or unnatural, as wonderfully demonstrated in the final passage where the old taxidermist’s employee mistakes him for a mountain lion. Importantly, this does not mean that absolutely everything is ‘natural’ now, either. Despite the somewhat naturalistic self-understanding of the old man as towards his body as a fundamentally physical landscape (Cartesian mind-body split vibes in this reading), the main thrust of the story shows how the taxidermist misses out because he sees the stories of the townsfolk not as invitations to make contact but as ‘there’ / ‘not there’ indications of an (externally!) natural phenomenon.
First of all, each bit of writing in here is strikingly wrought. All of the writers in here are seasoned veterans, or at least seem to be. Seamus Heaney even comes in for a little quasi-ekphrastic two-pager on a birch log, which I did not expect to enjoy as much as I did. Even without a unifying theme, the book could be a masterclass in (mostly nonfiction) craft. In fact, some of my favorite pieces—Heaney’s, Anthony Doerr’s, Lydia Peele’s—only weakly contribute to the particular ethos of this Granta issue as I understand it.
Granta’s staff is only partially successful at articulating what the issue contributes. Any ‘new’ nature writing must set itself up against the old. In his introduction, editor Jason Cowley presents this ‘old’ as the classic pastoral trope of a writer going into nature to find a release (sometimes a deadly one) from urban life. The reason it must be abandoned, Cowley thinks, is that human-nature dualism cannot be maintained in the face of modern “economic migration, overpopulation and climate change”. Completely sensible, and correct, I think. But I would add that it also goes against the very contemporary idea that the relationship between humans and our environment is largely one-sided. That is, it’s missing something to pay no attention on how even a reshaped nature has profound impacts on human life. In my opinion, successful “New Nature Writing” must renegotiate our relationship with nature by broadening the scope of what can be considered ‘natural’ and bringing to attention aspects of human-nature interaction which a dualistic understanding cannot subsume under its simplistic shell. Incorporated in this renegotiation will be, especially due to our neo-Foucaultian-ish attentions to subjectivity, conscious attention the position of the writer/observer.[*]
Some pieces, though of course excellent in many other ways, don’t do a whole lot to meaningfully advance either a broadened scope or a primarily reciprocal understanding human-environment relationship. The poem “Elegy” by Sean O’Brian really only uses nature as a starting point. Donovan Wylie’s photo essay “Demolishing the Maze” really only works as about nature if you just broaden the ‘natural’ field to include all artifice too, rendering the concept meaningless—something I was worried would happen with Matthew Power’s “Cherry Tree Garden”, my favorite piece in the book, but didn’t. And Heaney gives off more mystical and transcendental vibes to be truly practical as a piece of nature writing.
I’ll end by listing some of my favorites that I think were successful in addressing the issue’s theme:
“Pathologies: A startling tour of our bodies” by Kathleen Jamie – A wonderful examination of what it might mean to consider microbiomes gone wrong as natural or unnatural, and a worthy turn of attention to the microscopic.
“Science: When the world turns ugly” by Jim Holt – A fascinating idea of anvironmentalism on (neoplatonic) aesthetic grounds?
“Ghost Species” by Robert MacFarlane – Really bringing it home what it means to call a person ‘part of the landscape’ by taking a look at old-timers in the Norfolk Fens.
“Cherry Tree Garden: A rural stronghold in the south Bronx” by Matthew Power – Urban gardens and a somewhat naturalized idea of urban planning history as environmental history, besides being a raucously good story,
“Colorado: Frontier Life” by Benjamen Kunkel – Every interaction you can think of and more considered between the too-square borders of Kunkel’s western state.
! “Second Nature: The de-landscaping of the American West” by Jonathan Raban – A fascinating cross-cultural look about how nature can (or cannot) become artifice in Britain and the USA.
[*] >?< “Phantom Pain” by Lydia Peele – It is precisely due to the considerations in this paragraph that I was reluctant to include Peele’s short story as demonstrating a strongly successful form of new nature writing. On one hand, I still need to do more thinking about how fiction can fit in here. But more fundamentally, I used to read her short story as operating on a bifurcated or else completely unified relationship between humans and nature. After a bit of thinking, though, I’m rejecting this and putting her firmly in the ‘successful’ category. The reading of the humans-encountering-wild-animal conceit as a pastoral picture misses the idea that it is the humans’ perception of the events and only that that makes something natural or unnatural, as wonderfully demonstrated in the final passage where the old taxidermist’s employee mistakes him for a mountain lion. Importantly, this does not mean that absolutely everything is ‘natural’ now, either. Despite the somewhat naturalistic self-understanding of the old man as towards his body as a fundamentally physical landscape (Cartesian mind-body split vibes in this reading), the main thrust of the story shows how the taxidermist misses out because he sees the stories of the townsfolk not as invitations to make contact but as ‘there’ / ‘not there’ indications of an (externally!) natural phenomenon.
January 19, 2024
A nice compilation of "New Nature Writing" that challenges some of the conceptions of the 'old' nature writing. I enjoyed some parts of it more than others, I especially found the comic an interesting choice, but would have overall enjoyed a bit more context to some of the pieces. Some lyrical pieces, quite nice.
July 2, 2016
An very good issue of Granta with excellent essays by Robert MacFarlane, Richard Mabey, Jonathan Raban and others regarding aspects of the countryside and the special ways it works on our imaginations, our traditions, our capitalist economy and our sense of who we are. Intriguing also is a discussion between Paul Farley and Niall Griffiths about growing up in a housing estate in Liverpool that was close to open fields and farmland. However Kathleen Jamie's essay on human innards was one that I couldn't...er...stomach.
August 7, 2019
I really shouldn't take so long to read books after acquiring them. One of the recurrent themes reading this was wondering what further changes have been wrought in the intervening decade. But even so, a remarkable collection of thoughtful, inspiring essays, well worth a visit.
July 13, 2023
I really got a kick out of the second half of the book.
October 25, 2008
Granta is always great. this edition is great writing about nature. I read a piece on the "wilding" of the Columbia River Valley by Jonathan Raban, Short essays by Jim Holt on global warming, Seamus Heaney writes about a piece of Birch he found in New Hampshire that reminds him of a woman's torso. Philip Marsden writes about J.T. Blight who was kinda crazy but assiduously studied and wrote about one of my favorite places in the world, Cornwall. There's lots more and who knows when I'll get to it. Well, I haven't read everything in this Granta, but I found myself thanking Miss Doherty and Mrs. Littlefield for teaching me how to read after I completed Lydia Peele's Phantom Pain. It is an amazing story that I think about nearly everyday now since I read it a week and a half ago.
August 31, 2008
Granta is good for exposure to different types of writing that you may not tend to pick up on your own. This one's all about nature writing, or as Granta calls it, new nature writing. It's not about man's elgiac or rapturous response to being in nature as something separate from himself. This is more analytical, more realistic, less human centric. Man, of course, has an impact and not altogether a good one. But this isn't writing about man's divine right to exercise dominion of all the things of the earth. Really appreciated all the pieces here: well written, eye opening, and frightening. I wouldn't have even have taken steps to find and read these pieces had I not been a long time subscriber to Granta. Thanks for another good issue.
January 3, 2010
I missed the lack of fiction in this issue, “Phantom Pain” by Lydia Peelle was the only piece. There were some interesting essays, namely Jonathan Raban’s “Second Nature” about the de-landscaping of the American West and “The Migration” by Edward Platt about birding in Israel. I also liked the beautiful observations of nature in “Daydreaming Has Been My Making and My Undoing” by Roger Deakin.
January 20, 2017
I find reading about Nature relaxing, even when the discussion is focussed on its decline and threat. A couple of favourites from this issue:
Jonathan Raban writing on the de-landscaping of the American West in "Second Nature," & Robert Macfarlane, "Ghost Species."
Jonathan Raban writing on the de-landscaping of the American West in "Second Nature," & Robert Macfarlane, "Ghost Species."
March 7, 2012
The David Heatley comic in this was way better than that one he did about all the times he got sex. Also the thing about the bog was pretty ill.
April 23, 2009
Wonderful. Always. Anyone with an interest in terrific writing ought to subscribe, or simply pick up an older edition somewhere.
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January 18, 2010Granta 102: The New Nature Writing (Granta: The Magazine of New Writing) by Jason Cowley (2008)
April 5, 2014
Am nearing the end of this, and am enjoying the variety. Might try more Grantas, have been a bit put off by them before for some reason.
February 21, 2015
***(*)
February 22, 2016
Read: Ghost Species by Robert Macfarlane - 22/2/16 - 4 stars.
Read: Second Nature by Jonathan Raban - 22/2/16 - 2 stars.
(Will update more when I read them for uni.)
Read: Second Nature by Jonathan Raban - 22/2/16 - 2 stars.
(Will update more when I read them for uni.)
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews