Granta 110: Sex (Granta: The Magazine of New Writing)
... the mixture of memoir and fiction is unusually successful. JEANETTE WINTERSON's playful story of sex among the Greek gods, "The Agony of Intimacy", is the best I've read by her; ADAM FOULDS's portrait of an angry priest congested by his passion for an inappropriate boyfriend confirms there's no skin FOULDS can't get under; REBECCA LENKIEWICZ , like ROBERTO BOLANO, crams into a mere two pages an entire lifetime of roads suggested by a stranger's finger, roads beckoned down but not taken ...  My personal favourite, "Silence", by the poet MICHAEL SYMMONS ROBERTS, describes a stint at a Benedictine monastery in Scotland. The author, given a sheet of Latin plainsong, reads that the service is called "None", the Latin for nine. The word obsesses him. "None as in nothing. No one." In that absent space, that letting go, he enjoys a supercharged encounter, "a profound reckoning with human aloneness". So, during prayer, did Teresa of Avila scale every height of physical pleasure and agony. As Father Benedict tells Roberts: "God is way, way, way beyond anything else we could describe as `experience'" - prompting the rebellious thought that this issue could equally well have been called "God".   --The Daily TelegraphThe issue covers all kinds of couplings - mainly the dysfunctional and alienated, rather than the loving and rewarding kind - but one story stands out. EMMANUEL CARRERE's This Is For You ... It's a heroic piece of writing, and trumps everything else in the issue, for this simple reason: it makes the lonely journey to the last frontier of literary sex.  --Guardian blog, Chris Cox...it's an eye-opening voyage through different cultures and sensibilities, where sex provides a conduit to everything from the divine (Jeanette Winterson's deftly witty `The Agony of Intimacy') to the lascivious (Roberto Bolano's saltily voyeuristic `The Redhead').  Like a good lover, an anthology out to display a range of techniques, skilfully paced, and on that score this one's difficult to fault.  ... --Time Out...this issue [has] sent me into an ecstasy that is positively multimedic: check out these three short films inspired by pieces in the issue; this audio interview with the divine MARK DOTY; and EVIE WYLD's thoughtful, amusing online piece . My copy of the print journal hasn't yet arrived, but I already like it: if it's part of this pretty world, how could it be bad.                                 --The New Yorker blog...the mixture of memoir and fiction is unusually successful. JEANETTE WINTERSON's playful story of sex among the Greek gods, "The Agony of Intimacy", is the best I've read by her; ADAM FOULDS' portrait of an angry priest congested by his passion for an inappropriate boyfriend confirms there's no skin FOULDS can't get under; REBECCA LENKIEWICZ , like ROBERTO BOLANO, crams into a mere two pages an entire lifetime of roads suggested by a stranger's finger, roads beckoned down but not taken...  My personal favourite, "Silence", by the poet MICHAEL SYMMONS ROBERTS, describes a stint at a Benedictine monastery in Scotland. The author, given a sheet of Latin plainsong, reads that the service is called "None", the Latin for nine. The word obsesses him. "None as in nothing. No one." In that absent space, that letting go, he enjoys a supercharged encounter, "a profound reckoning with human aloneness". So, during prayer, did Teresa of Avila scale every height of physical pleasure and agony. As Father Benedict tells Roberts: "God is way, way, way beyond anything else we could describe as `experience'" - prompting the rebellious thought that this issue could equally well have been called "God".    --Nicholas Shakespeare, The Daily TelegraphThe issue covers all kinds of couplings - mainly the dysfunctional and alienated, rather than the loving and rewarding kind - but one story stands out. EMMANUEL CARRERE's This Is For You... It's a heroic piece of writing, and trumps everything else in the issue, for this simple reason: it makes the lonely journey to the last frontier of literary sex.      --Chris Cox, Guardian blog...this issue [has] sent me into an ecstasy that is positively multimedic: check out these three short films inspired by pieces in the issue; this audio interview with the divine MARK DOTY; and EVIE WYLD's thoughtful, amusing online piece . My copy of the print journal hasn't yet arrived, but I already like it: if it's part of this pretty world, how could it be bad.  --Macy Halford, The New Yorker blog...it's an eye-opening voyage through different cultures and sensibilities, where sex provides a conduit to everything from the divine (Jeanette Winterson's deftly witty `The Agony of Intimacy') to the lascivious (Roberto Bolano's saltily voyeuristic `The Redhead').  Like a good lover, an anthology out to display a range of techniques, skilfully paced, and on that score this one's difficult to fault.  --Rachel Halliburton, Time Out--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.