Granta 69: The Assassin

The Assassin is a facinating story. I never knew that the father of Apartheid was assassinated and that there was a single "father of Apartheid". The man wasn't even South African but Dutch! Then there is a story about the assassin, who I had never heard of either. A half-African, half-Greek man from Mozambique whose father attempted to raise him as his first born, Greek son, only to have the son racked by terrible mental illness. The son was not able to socialize with others and no country wanted to claim him. His family could not stand him. The irony and blind chance that led him to assassinate the Prime Minister is astounding. It came at a time when the laws were becoming stricter and more intolerant of the racial intermixing and the policies were in a direct conflict with our assassin, who was considered white in South Africa but was asking to become coloured. I was really absorbed in the story and hope to read more about it. Other great stories and articles in this issue include a Hawaiian Hotel in which Paul Theroux learns observes some strange guests. An editor reveals what it is like to edit V.S. Napaul's books and the trouble with elderly mothers and addict jazz musicians. I enjoyed the whole issue.

This is an important book that anyone interested in South Africa must read. Goethe famously said that to really understand something, first you have to love it. I don't know if this is always true, but van Woerden's sympathetic reconstruction of Tsafendas' sad and, through one deed, monumental life is a compelling example of this methodology. Still, I have strong reservations about the rhetorical project of the book. Van Woerden rightly sets out to prove that Tsafendas was not merely insane, but that he was a kind of living reductio ad absurdum of apartheid racism. However, I think van Woerden pushes his point too hard when, especially toward the end, he suggests Tsafendas was a martyr / prophet / hero of the 'new South Africa.' This might have been true of David Pratt (another sad story), but there is little doubt in mind that Tsafendas was profoundly mentally ill. We should pity him. Making a hero out of him after the fact is troubling. Even at the time, one should remember, Mandela and the ANC condemned Tsafendas' act. I am inclined to defer to that opinion.

This is the first Granta book I've read but I'm definitely interested in more after this one. A collection of essays, stories, memoirs and photographs all based around the theme of London, it contains works by such well-known authors as Anthony Bailey, Ian Buruma, Amit Chaudri, Hanif Kureishi, John Lanchester, Dale Peck, Will Self and Graham Swift plus articles by two writers for the Observer. Sandwiched in between all of these works are ten 'London Views', where various authors ruminate on their favorite or most memorable views in and about the city.Many of the essays are accounts of the author's memories of their time spent in London, as in the childhood memories of Ferdinand Dennis and Ruth Gershon or the more recent recollections by Ian Hamilton and Lucretia Stewart. My favorite part, however, was the short fiction, especially Philip Hensher's mysterious tale of real estate in the late '80s and Lanchester's quirky story about an accountant's experience of a bank robbery. I also enjoyed Helen Simpson's 'With a Bang,' an account of life in Kew in the age of Nostradamus, an appropriate addition to a volume published in 1999.The stories taken collectively give a really in-depth view of London at the turn of the century. Yet even if you're not interested in London per se, the writing here is good enough to warrant buying this anyway.

As I read this issue travelling from LA to New York and back, I saw there was a secret thread that held most of the pieces in it together: Ghosts of one sort or another. Henk van Woerden's excellent "The Assassin" is about a man who had no sense of identity, and whose attempt to find one led to the assassination of South African premier Hendrik Verwoerd in September 1966. His Demetrios Tsafendas is a man without a country, without a religion, and without the human affiliations that seem to make life worth living. Other pieces in this thread are Hanif Kureishi's arresting "Goodbye, Mother" about a son's inability to deal with his aging mother; Graham Swift's "Our Nicky's Heart," about a boy's death in a motorcycle accident and its strange aftermath; and especially Richard Williams's haunting "Gifted," about his search for jazz trumpeter Dupree Bolton, one of the best written pieces I have ever read on the subject of jazz. Also, I must add Kent Klich's sad "Born in Romania," about HIV-positive Romanian children whom he photographed, many of whom died before the article went to press. I enjoyed Diana Athill's "Editing Vidia," a contribution in the emerging subgenre of why V.S. Naipaul is not likeable (adding to Paul Theroux's article last year in the NEW YORKER). The question I ask is, what does that have to do with Naipaul's work? Niceness is not a trait common to all great artists, so why belabor the point? There are also short pieces by Paul Theroux and Keith Ridgway that struck me more as fillers for an otherwise excellent issue of this indispensable publication.

There are two Australias: there's the sanitized Australia of myth encompassing Crocodile Dundee, koalas and kangaroos, Nicholas Roeg's WALKABOUT, Peter Weir's early films, and Bruce Chatwin's THE SONGLINES. Then there's the gritty, no-hope, hardscrabble world of the stories in this GRANTA anthology. Good writing is alive and well Down Under. Some of the pieces were haunting, especially Ben Rice's "Pobby and Dingan," about a child's invisible friends who take on a whole new reality; Paul Toohey's "The Road to Ginger Riley," about the last days of a drunken journalist who wants to "find" Australia before he dies; and Thomas Keneally's "My Father's Australia," about life in a small town before World War I. The Aborigines are a ghostly presence in this anthology, except for Robyn Davidson's eerie "Marrying Eddie" and Polly Borland's haunting photos and interviews of Aborigine men and women spiralling down into oblivion. There's no COOPER'S CREEK heroism here: You have to find your own way, Mate! However dark the vision of most of these selections, this volume is a worthy addition to GRANTA's growing library of stories and essays. When you pack your bags to go on vacation, you could do worse than take ANY volume of GRANTA with you. Each one is a window into a different world -- maybe not a pleasant one, but always a fascinating one.