An interesting choice for this year’s Nobel Prize. I was not aware of Harold Pinter’s poetry as much as his plays, nor his recent political stance against the Iraq Invasion. Julian Sanchez over at Reason Hit and Run seems more amused by the fact that Pinter was born in Hackney, although this bio mentions Pinter’s recent anti-war book of poetry, as well as this interesting quote: “Pinter’s early fascination with politics was also evident in The Hothouse (1980), a bilious black comedy set in a state-run hospital in which nonconformists are classified as mental patients. Written in 1958, it was never publicly performed till 1980.” In a subsequent sentence, however, it just seems like Pinter copies Henrik Ibsen’s play, The Wild Duck, in discussing The Caretaker, which is “about power and pipe dreams: about the desire for domination and about the human need for illusions.” The Nobel Price tends to result in an upsurge of sales for the winner, and often puzzlement at the selection by critics. Earlier this week the Nobel Prize for literature received another type of attention when a judge denounced last year’s selection and quit the panel.
UPDATE: Just read a comment over at Libertarian Samizdata calling Pinter an apologist for Slobodan Milosevic, “Europe’s most prolific socialist mass murderer since Joseph Stalin.” Pinter else has been ridiculed as a “Champagne Socialist” and hypocrite for declining a knighthood by a conservative government and accepting state honors from a social democractic one. Perhaps this award is a good thing after all, as it will shine the light of truth on its recipients.
