Playwright Harold Pinter Wins Nobel Literature Prize

When an author has such an impact on literature that the critics invent an adjective to describe his mood, tone or approach, it’s a pretty good sign that he is really big. In the case of Harold Pinter, “pinteresque” was needed to describe what the FT called “full of dark hints and pregnant suggestions, with the audience left uncertain as to what to conclude.” Maybe, maybe not. But Mr. Pinter’s body of work is as brilliant as it is huge, and he deserves the Nobel Prize the Swedish Academy announced yesterday.

What may irritate a great many is the unapologetically political tone of much of his work, the Jane Austen school that says literature should be about personal relationships and emotions rather than the big picture background against which all lives are lived. His early works, “The Birthday Party,” “The Dumb Waiter,” or “The Hothouse” were bone-crunching in their political content. As Mr. Pinter said, “I was aware that they were political, too. But at that time, at whatever age I was--in my twenties--I was not a joiner. I had been a conscientious objector, you know, when I was eighteen. But I was a pretty independent young man, and I didn't want to get up on a soapbox. I wanted to let the plays speak for themselves, and if people didn't get it, to hell with it.” It was the “to hell with it” that gave rise to “pinteresque.”

Mr. Pinter, however, never really succeeded when it became necessary to explain himself. Right around the millennium, he told an interviewer, “Once, many years ago, I found myself engaged uneasily in a public discussion on the theater [in speaking after being awarded the 1970 German Shakespeare Prize]. Someone asked me what my work was ‘about.’ I replied with no thought at all and merely to frustrate this line of enquiry: ‘the weasel under the cocktail cabinet.’ That was a great mistake. Over the years I have seen that remark quoted in a number of learned columns. It has now seemingly acquired a profound significance, and is seen to be a highly relevant and meaningful observation about my own work. But for me the remark meant precisely nothing. Such are the dangers of speaking in public.”

A great many in this age of celebrity insist that those whom the world idolizes be purer that Caesar’s wife. Mr. Pinter’s personal life will, no doubt, disappoint. He created a huge public scandal in 1977 by leaving his wife, the troubled actress Vivien Merchant, for Lady Antonia Fraser. His play “Betrayal,” however, (the film version of which featured Jeremy Irons back when he was a hot property in Hollyweird) was about an earlier affair the playwright had with TV presenter Joan Bakewell. A decent doctoral thesis could well be written about the author’s personal life as it appears in his other works.

What is particularly gratifying about this award is that Mr. Pinter has managed to achieve commercial success while retaining his literary merit. Moreover, the theatre is not his only medium; his poetry and prose are no less brilliant. And at the same time, he is still a pain in the backside over the very same political attitudes that made him a conscientious objector half a century ago. Nice though the kroner are that come with the award, his integrity is far more valuable.


© Copyright 2005 by The Kensington Review, J. Myhre, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent.
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