I’m still sick and just started on antibiotics, but here’s a post which elucidates my own attitude on Harold Pinter: Unpleasant thoughts about Harold Pinter, by Roger Kimball.
Over the years I managed to subject myself to hours of Pinteresqueness, and after a while decided that the only thing that made them bearable was the performances of a few of the actors, most notably Alan Bates in The Caretaker, and Jeremy Irons in Betrayal. Beyond that, count me among the many who,
reacted to the Swedish Academy’s latest flirtation with absurdity by quoting the English wit who, writing about Harold Pinter’s plays, observed that Pinter was “a man of few words, most of them silly.” There was a lot of sniggering when Stockholm announced Pinter as the winner of the prize for literature. But there was also a certain anger, a certain outrage. If nothing else, Harold Pinter has done us the service of demonstrating that the silly is by no means at odds with the malevolently deranged. R.I.P.
Will the Nobel Prize for Literature rise above politics, ever?
No, of course the Nobel Prize for literature will never rise above politics. How can it? The very idea of a world-wide literature prize is absurd. Mind you, not as absurd as the Peace Prize.
Personally, I am rather looking forward to the debunking of Pinter as writer and, even more so, political shaman and the elevation of Tom Stoppard to the position he deserves – the best living British playwright. But then, Sir Tom is on the right and has been a committed anti-Communist throughout his career.