The English have never been ones for lounging around in black polo necks, chain-smoking and discussing the Marxist implications of a full stop. Intellectualism is a habit we leave to others.
Compared to friends across the Atlantic or over the Channel, the rare beast we call the English literary intellectual has been starved. Until recently, their means of sustenance has been limited to a few publications. The London Review of Books is an oasis in the intellectual desert of the British Isles, even the cakes in the café are “independent-market, surprising and energetic”. Recent issues included a spat between Establishment figures Pankaj Mishra and Niall Ferguson and a poem by the late WG Sebald. It’s always the same: political allegiances are stamped on their highbrows and it may have been a good poem, but it’s hardly a discovery, etc. etc.
In terms of new and exciting foreign fiction, Granta does remain interesting. However, the four names enticingly displayed on the cover of their latest collection are Paul Auster, Don Delillo, Will Self and Stephen King. The latter probably has the edge over a post-grad with a penchant for gore but when it comes to encouraging new authors, King is about as up and coming as … well … Paul Auster, Don Delillo or Will Self.
So if you are an intrepid enough intellectual to want to venture to new literary horizons, UK options are somewhat limited. But, could today’s austerity foster a revolution? Cultural commentators by the dozen have been suggesting that the flip side of deprivation is a creativity fuelled by anger and frustration. Indeed, with a shortage of jobs and with PhDs at a premium, there are enough unemployed humanities students to emulate what a group of students did in 1889 with Granta. And enough unemployed graduates to read it.
The new literary start-ups, however, are not a ragtag bunch of literary jokers; they are very seriously minded. The White Review, with its beautiful yet austere white cover, is one of the newer cultural magazines on the block. It features ‘thinkers’ rather than contributors and the aesthetic is a conscious opt-out from — as the two surprisingly young founders put it — ‘the media grind’. A focus on print rather than web, it is a counter mainstream magazine that both prizes classicism and deliberately harks back to the golden era of the engagé litterati, La Revue Blanche (1889-1903).
Unapologetically expensive, you get what you pay for: crisp white sheets, pull out artwork and content, which at that price, you’d be silly not to read. Perched between Paris and London and shunning the media circus, their performance is pitched on quality and encouraging new writing. Poetry, art and articles on marine extinction or apocalyptic anxiety in Canadian art run side-by-side the bait: interviews with William Boyd and (not him again) Will Self.
Similarly to many US magazines, it was initially set up by crowd sourcing (which allows people to donate online). Some impressive trustees and its forthcoming charity status will let aficionados donate tax free. Its success — from Newcastle to Richmond (Virginia) — shows a new model for arts funding arts as government resources continue to dry up, although whether it’s sustainable remains to be seen. A thousand hits for Lars Iyer’s literary manifesto – which, if you have the time, has to be read to be believed – shows there is a thirst for this kind of thing. One thing is undoubtedly true: the publishing industry is filling its own grave with an overload of hastily executed books coated with a thick gloss of hype. Independent literary magazines are a vital forum for young authors to experiment and develop before jumping into the fray.
The Junket is another literary start-up: cheekier, and, as an online quarterly, less expensive. Set up by friends for friends, all the essays in this virtual literary salon revel in extremely well written flights of fancy — read the meditation on Ukrainian airplane food; about the art of memorising poems for impromptu performance or how Guardian reviewer James Purdon thinks covert culture in the Cold War is still relevant. It’s more duffle-coat than polo-neck.
The White Review and The Junket have both been influenced by Atlantic cousins. During the past decade, America has witnessed resurgence in a particular type of literary magazine culture: the Brooklyn based n+1, the LA Review of Books, which is still gearing up for its website launch, and Dave Egger’s The Believer. They share a mix of the highbrow and the whimsical, married with a healthy dose of humour. And some cool graphics.
Clearly, there is a similar dissatisfaction with the constraints of mainstream media in England and a determination to create a better home for unfettered writing. But each project is very much
about its own aspirations, revealing disengagement with certain current issues. It’s about appealing to a certain type of reader rather than trying to shake things up. But perhaps that’s
beside the point. Magazines aren’t going to change the world. They’re just here — to quote the doyen of the serious glossies, Graydon Carter — to tell you about their world. Either way,
Vogue says polo necks are back in fashion.
Fleur Macdonald is editor of The Omnivore.
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