Harold Pinter

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Harold Pinter

"Pinter" redirects here. For other uses, see Pinter (disambiguation).

Harold Pinter, CH, CBE (born October 10, 1930) is a British playwright, director, actor, poet, and political activist. He has written works for theater, radio, television and film. The recipient of scores of awards and honorary degrees, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2005.

Contents

1 Biography
2 Career (1957- )
3 Political activism
4 Honors

4.1 The Nobel Prize in Literature 2005
4.2 '''Art, Truth, & Politics: The Nobel Lecture'''

5 Miscellaneous
6 Works

6.1 Stage and television plays
6.2 Dramatic sketches
6.3 Radio plays
6.4 Screenplays for films
6.5 Prose fiction
6.6 Collected poetry
6.7 Anthologies and other collections

7 Notes
8 References
9 External links
10 See also

Biography

Pinter was born in Hackney in London to working-class Jewish parents of Eastern-European ancestry. Contrary to earlier speculations, "three of Pinter's grandparents hail from Poland and one from Odessa, making them Ashkenazic rather than Sephardic Jews."Billington, Life and Work 1-5: "A constant feature of the Pinter legend, repeated in all the books, is that the family were Sephardic Jews of Spanish or Portuguese origin and that the original family name was Pinto, da Pinto or da Pinta, but there seems no evidence for this whatsoever. Indeed Antonia Fraser, with a historian's passion for geneaology, sat down with Pinter's parents one afternoon after lunch in Holland Park and discovered the real story: three of Pinter's grandparents [his paternal grandfather, Nathan Pinter, and his grandmothers] hail from Poland and one [his maternal grandfather, Harry Moskowitz (in business, aka Richard Mann)] from Odessa, making them Ashkenazic rather than Sephardic Jews" (3). ("Pinter's paternal grandfather Nathan was born in Poland in 1870 and came to England alone in 1900 in the wave of Russian pograms. He later went back for his wife and family. . . . [Their] third child Jack, Harold Pinter's father, was born in the East End in 1902. . ." [2-3]. Pinter's maternal grandfather [Harry Moskowitz (Richard Mann)] emigrated to London from Odessa "via Paris" in 1900 and remarried "Polish-born Rose Franklin" following his first wife's death; Pinter's mother, Frances, their "eldest" child, was born in 1904 [3].) In the Aug. 1950 issue of Poetry London, Pinter's first poems to appear in such a poetry magazine ("New Year in the Midlands" and "Chandeliers and Shadows") were "published under the name of Harold Pinta largely because one of his aunts was convinced—against all the evidence—that the family came from distinguished Portuguese ancestors, the da Pintas" (29). Pinter also discussed his heritage with Ramona Koval, during a public interview at the Edinburgh Book Festival in August 2002, later transcribed and posted online on ABC public radio (Books and Writing). At that time, Pinter repeated some of these details, referring to speculations about his family's Hungarian and Portuguese derivations: "My mother and father were born in England, by the way, in about 1902 and 1904; so they were here. They were English. . . . they were English-Jewish. My grandparents came from a rather mysterious area which some call Odessa and others call Hungary. I have no idea. My wife is convinced that after a lot of research, and she’s pretty good at research, that my family did actually come from Odessa. And she has pretty good evidence of that. However, I found that in the 1946 Olympics there was a Hungarian sprinter called Pinter. And I also know that—I’ve been told, anyway—one of my aunts believed that we were originally da Pinta in Portugal and that we were thrown out by the Spanish Inquisition. I wasn’t quite sure whether they had a Spanish Inquisition in Portugal, but according to my aunt, they certainly did. [laughter]. [Cf. Portuguese Inquisition.] And where they went from the Spanish Inquisition is rather misty, shall we say, so I’m not quite sure . . . Anyway, in short, my background is slightly misty. But my family, nevertheless, was a very stable and conventional Jewish family." (Pintér [or Pinter] is a common Hungarian surname; Pinto, Pinta, and da Pinta are common Portuguese surnames and place names. Pinto and da Pinto also occur in Italian [by way of Portuguese]. Cf. List of most common surnames.) Harold Pinter was educated at Hackney Downs Grammar School. A "profound influence" on him was his evacuation to Cornwall and Reading from London during 1940 and 1941 before and during The Blitz and facing "the life-and-death intensity of daily experience" (Billington, Life and Work 5-10). Pinter frequently wrote and published poetry as a teenager (and has continued to do so throughout his career). He played Romeo and Macbeth in 1947 and 1948, while still a student at Hackney Downs Grammar School in productions directed by his English tutor, mentor, and friend Joseph Brearley (13-14).

Beginning in autumn 1948, for two semesters, Pinter attended the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA). Later that year, he was "called up for National Service," registered as a conscientious objector, was brought to trial twice, and ultimately fined by the magistrate for refusing to serve. He "loath[ed]" RADA, mostly cut classes, and dropped out in 1949. He had a minor role in Dick Whittington and His Cat at the Chesterfield Hippodrome in 1949-50. From January to July 1951, he attended "two terms" at the Central School of Speech and Drama. From 1951-52, he toured Ireland with the Anew McMaster repertory company, playing over a dozen roles; in 1952 he began regional repertory acting jobs in England; and from 1953-54, he worked for the Donald Wolfit Company, King's Theatre, Hammersmith, performing nearly ten roles. From 1954 until 1959, Harold Pinter acted under the stage name David Baron, working as an actor for "about nine years", primarly in regional repertory companies, performing nearly twenty-five roles.Pinter's paternal "grandmother's maiden name was Baron . . . he adopted it as his stage-name . . . [and] used it [Baron] for the autobiographical character of Mark in the first draft of [his novel] The Dwarfs (Billington, Life and Work 3).Harold Pinter also performed occasional roles in his own and others' works (for radio, tv, and film) during that period, as he has done increasingly more recently.Billington, Life and Work 20-25; 31, 36, 38; Batty, "Chronology" in About Pinter; Batty, comp., "Acting" & "Directing" at HaroldPinter.org.

From 1956 until 1980, Pinter was married to Vivien Merchant, a rep actress whom he met on tour, probably best known for her performance in the original film Alfie (1966). Their son, Daniel, was born in 1958. Through the early 70s, Merchant appeared in many of Pinter's works, most notably The Homecoming on stage (1965) and screen (1973). Pinter's marriage was rather "turbulent" and began disintegrating in the mid-1960s, however (Billington, Life and Work). For seven years, from 1962-69, Pinter was "otherwise engaged" in a clandestine affair with Joan Bakewell, which informs his play Betrayal (1978). According to his own program notes for that play, between 1975 and 1980, Pinter "lived with" historian Lady Antonia Fraser, wife of Sir Hugh Fraser. In 1975 Vivien Merchant filed for divorce."People." Online posting. [Time Archive: 1923 to the Present] 11 Aug. 1975. 7 July 2006.. The Frasers' divorce became final in 1977 and the Pinters' in 1980. In 1980, Pinter married Antonia Fraser.Unable to overcome her bitterness and grief at the loss of husband Pinter, Vivien Merchant died of acute alcoholism in 1983. According to Billington, Pinter "did everything possible to support" Merchant until her death and regrets that he became estranged from their son, Daniel, after their separation and Pinter's marrying Antonia Fraser. Now nearing fifty, a reclusive "gifted" writer and musician who prefers anonymity, Daniel does not use the surname Pinter, having adopted as his surname "his maternal grandmother's maiden name" Brand after his parents separated (Life and Work 276; 255). Pinter has stated publicly in several recent interviews that he remains "very happy" in his second marriage and enjoys family life, which includes his six adult step-children and over twice as many grandchildren.See Billington, Moss, and others.

Career (1957- )

Pinter is the author of twenty-nine plays, fifteen dramatic sketches, and over twenty screenplays and filmscripts for cinema and television and co-author of two works for stage and radio. Along with the 1967 Tony Award for Best Play for The Homecoming and several other American awards and award nominations, he and his plays have received many awards in the UK and elsewhere throughout the world. His screenplays for The French Lieutenant's Woman and Betrayal were nominated for Academy Awards in the category of "Writing: Screenplay Based on Material from Another Medium" in 1981 and 1983, respectively. (See Honors.)

Pinter's first play, The Room, written in 1957, was a student production at Bristol University directed by (later acclaimed) actor Henry Woolf, who also originated the role of Mr. Kidd in that play (which he reprised in 2001). After his longtime friend Pinter had mentioned that he had an "idea" for a play, Woolf asked him to write it so that he could direct it as part of fulfilling requirements for his postgraduate work. Pinter wrote it in three days.Woolf, as qtd. in Merritt, "Talking about Pinter" 147.

His second play (among his best-known), The Birthday Party (1957), was initially a disaster, despite a rave review in the Sunday Times by leading theater critic (the late) Sir Harold Hobson, which appeared only after the play closed, so it could not save that production. But after the success of The Caretaker in 1960, which established his theatrical reputation, The Birthday Party was revived both on television (with Pinter himself in the role of Goldberg) and on stage and well received. By the time Peter Hall's production of The Homecoming (1964) reached New York (1967), Harold Pinter had become a celebrity playwright, and the play garnered four Tony awards, among other awards.

In a review published in 1958, borrowing from the subtitle of A Lunatic View, a play by David Campton, theater critic Irving Wardle also called Pinter's early plays "comedy of menace," a label that people have applied repeatedly to his work, at times pigeonholing and attempting to tame it. (Cf. Comedy of manners.)Merritt, Pinter in Play 225-26. Such plays begin with an apparently innocent situation that becomes both threatening and absurd as Pinter's characters behave in ways often perceived as inexplicable by his audiences and one another. (Cf. Theatre of the Absurd.) Pinter acknowledges the influence of Samuel Beckett, particularly on his early work; they became friends, sending each other drafts of their works in progress for comments.Harold Pinter on Newsnight Review.

From the late sixties through the early eighties, Pinter wrote Landscape, Silence, "Night," Old Times, No Man's Land, Betrayal, and The Proust Screenplay, Family Voices, and A Kind of Alaska , all of which dramatize aspects of memory and which critics sometimes categorize as Pinter's "memory plays."

Pinter began to direct more frequently during the 1970s, becoming an associate director of the National Theatre in 1973, and he has directed almost fifty productions of his own and others' plays for stage, film, and television.

Beginning in the mid-1980s, his plays tended to become shorter and overtly political, serving as critiques of oppression, torture, and other abuses of human rights. In a 1985 interview called "A Play and Its Politics," with Nicholas Hern, published in the Grove Press edition of One for the Road, Pinter states that whereas his earlier plays presented "metaphors" about power and powerlessness, the later ones present "realities" of power and its abuse. From 1993 to 1999, after the deaths of first his mother and then his father, Pinter wrote the poem "Death" and Moonlight and Ashes to Ashes, full-length plays with domestic settings relating to death and dying and (in the latter case) to such "atrocities" as the Holocaust.

In July and August of 2001, a Harold Pinter Festival celebrating his work was held at [Lincoln Center]] in New York City, which he participated in as both a director (of a double bill pairing his newest play Celebration with his first play The Room) and an actor (as Nicolas in One for the Road). That winter his collaboration with director Di Trevis resulted in their stage adaptation of his The Proust Screenplay (Remembrance of Things Past) being produced at the National Theatre, in London.Archived production details [National Theatre, London, Feb. 2001]. There was also a revival of The Caretaker in the West End. In October 2001, as part of a weeklong "Harold Pinter Homage" at the World Leaders Festival, in Toronto, he presented a dramatic reading of Celebration, following the reception and during the dinner honoring him, and also participated in a public interview.Press release [International Festival of Authors, Toronto].

Late in 2001, Pinter was diagnosed with cancer of the esophagus, for which, in 2002, he underwent a successful operation and chemotherapy. During the course of his treatment, he directed a production of his play No Man's Land, wrote and performed in his new sketch "Press Conference" for a two-part otherwise-retrospective program of his dramatic sketches at the National Theatre, and was seen on television in America in the role of Vivian Bearing's father in the HBO film version of Margaret Edson's Pulitzer Prize-winning play Wit. Since then, having become increasingly politically "engaged" as "citizen Pinter," Pinter has continued to write and present politically-charged poetry, dramatic works, essays and speeches.

In February 2005, in an interview with Mark Lawson on the BBC Radio 4 program Front Row, Pinter announced that he would retire from writing plays to dedicate himself to his political activism and writing poetry: "I think I've written 29 plays. I think it's enough for me. I think I've found other forms now. My energies are going in different directions—over the last few years I've made a number of political speeches at various locations and ceremonies . . . I'm using a lot of energy more specifically about political states of affairs, which I think are very, very worrying as things stand.""Pinter to 'give up writing plays.'" Online posting. [BBC News] 28 Feb. 2005]. Pinter has reiterated his statement subsequently, but occasionally leaves open the possibility that if a compelling dramatic "image" were to come to mind (which he states as "not likely"), perhaps he would still be obliged to pursue it. Indeed, after making this point, at the end of the June 2006 Newsnight Review interview with Kirsty Wark, he and Rupert Graves performed a dramatic reading of a "new work" by Pinter, a dramatic sketch called "Apart from That," inspired by Pinter's strong adversion to mobile telephones (He made clear that he doesn't own one)."Harold Pinter on Newsnight Review." Online posting Newsnight [BBC 2] 23 June 2006.

Political activism

Pinter was an early member of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament in the United Kingdom and supported the British Anti-Apartheid Movement (1959-94), participating in British artists' refusal to permit professional productions of their work in South Africa in 1963 and in subsequent related campaigns).See E. S. Reddy, "Free Mandela: An Account of the Campaign to Free Nelson Mandela and all other Political Prisoners in South Africa" (July 1988). Online posting. [African National Congress (ANC): Documents: History of Campaigns]. He has been active in International PEN, serving as a vice-president, along with American playwright Arthur Miller. In 1985, Pinter and Miller traveled to Turkey, on a mission co-sponsored by International PEN and a Helsinki Watch committee to investigate and protest the torture of imprisoned writers. There he met victims of political oppression and their families. At an American embassy dinner in Ankara, held in Miller's honor, at which Pinter was also an invited guest, speaking on behalf of those imprisoned Turkish writers, Pinter confronted the ambassador with (in Pinter's words) "[t]he reality . . . of electric current on your genitals": Pinter's outspokenness apparently angered their host and led to indications of his desired departure. Guest of honor Miller left the embassy with him. Recounting this episode for a tribute to Miller on his 80th birthday, Pinter concludes: "Being thrown out of the US embassy in Ankara with Arthur Miller — a voluntary exile — was one of the proudest moments in my life."[link] Pinter's experiences in Turkey and his knowledge of the Turkish suppression of the Kurdish language "inspired" his 1988 play Mountain Language.Billington, Life and Work 309-10; Gussow, Conversations with Pinter 67-68.

He is an active delegate of the Cuba Solidarity Campaign in the United Kingdom, an organization that defends Cuba, supports the government of Fidel Castro, and campaigns against the U.S. embargo on the country. [link] In 2001 Pinter joined the International Committee to Defend Slobodan Milošević (ICDSM), which appealed for a fair trial for and the freedom of Slobodan Milošević; he signed a related "Artists' Appeal for Milošević" in 2004. (The organization continues its presence on the internet even after Milošević's death in 2006.)

Pinter strongly opposed the 1991 Gulf War, the 1999 NATO bombing campaign in Yugoslavia during the Kosovo War, the 2001 United States war in Afghanistan, and the 2003 Invasion of Iraq. He has been very active in the current anti-war movement in the United Kingdom, speaking at rallies held by the Stop the War Coalition. Pinter has called the President of the United States, George W. Bush, a "mass murderer" and the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Tony Blair, both "mass-murdering" and a "deluded idiot"; he alleges that they, along with past U.S. officials, are "war criminals". He has compared the Bush administration ("a bunch of criminal lunatics") with Adolf Hitler's Nazi Germany, saying that, under Bush, the United States ("a monster out of control") strives to attain "world domination" through "Full spectrum dominance", while, like a "bleating little lamb tagging behind it on a lead, the pathetic and supine Great Britain," led by Blair, participates in a slaughter instigated on behalf of "the American people," who, Pinter acknowledges, increasingly protest "their government's actions."Pinter, in a public reading from War, as qtd. by Chrisafis & Tilden, ["Pinter blasts 'Nazi America' and 'deluded idiot' Blair"]; Pinter, ["Speech at Hyde Park"]; and Pinter, [Art, Truth & Politics]: "Many thousands, if not millions, of people in the United States itself are demonstrably sickened, shamed and angered by their government's actions, but as things stand they are not a coherent political force - yet. But the anxiety, uncertainty and fear which we can see growing daily in the United States is unlikely to diminish." Cf. Not in Our Name.

Harold Pinter continues to sign petitions on behalf of artistic and political causes that he supports. Pinter became a signatory of the mission statement of Jews For Justice For Palestinians in 2005 and of its full-page advertisement "What Is Israel Doing? A Call by Jews in Britain" featured in the London Times on 6 July 2006.See [About Jews For Justice For Palestinians], featuring its mission statement and links to a pdf file of the ad. Pinter contributes letters to the editor, essays, speeches, and poetry strongly expressing his artistic and political viewpoints, which are frequently published initially in British periodicals, both via print and online publishing, and, increasingly, distributed and re-distributed extensively over the internet and throughout the blogosphere. Such publications by Pinter have become distributed far more widely since his winning the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2005; subsequent related news accounts often cite his status as a Nobel Laureate.

Honors

Pinter was appointed CBE in 1966 and became a Companion of Honour in 2002 (having previously declined a knighthood in 1996). He has also received the 1995 David Cohen British Literature Prize, in recognition of a lifetime's achievement in literature, the 1996 Laurence Olivier Special Award for a lifetime's achievement in the theater; a 2001 World Leaders Award for "creative genius"; the 2004 Wilfred Owen Award for Poetry—"in recognition of Pinter's lifelong contribution to literature, 'and specifically for his collection of poetry entitled War, published in 2003,'" and the Europe Theatre Prize, in recognition of lifetime achievements pertaining to drama and theater (conferred March 2006).Wilfred Owen Association Newsletter 4 Aug. 2004; and the [Europe Theatre Prize--X Ed. (8-12 Mar. 2006)]; see espec. ["Letter of Motivation"]. NB: More fully-complete lists of Pinter's many other awards, including several honorary degrees from universities around the world, appear in the section on Pinter's ["Biography"] posted online at his official website HaroldPinter.org and in published chronologies of his career. See also his Nobel Prize [Bio-bibliography], notably: Baker and Ross; Gordon (ed.), Pinter at 70; Merritt (comp.), "Harold Pinter Bibliography"; and webpages of The Harold Pinter Society. Updates are generally listed on HaroldPinter.org.

The Nobel Prize in Literature 2005

On October 13,2005 the Swedish Academy announced that the Nobel Prize in Literature for 2005 was being awarded to Harold Pinter, "who in his plays uncovers the precipice under everyday prattle and forces entry into oppression's closed rooms".Press release [Nobel Prize official website].

Due to concerns about his health, Pinter and his family could not attend the Nobel Prize Awards Ceremony and related events of Nobel Week in Sweden and elsewhere in Scandinavia, although he had originally planned to travel to Stockholm to present his lecture. After his doctor barred such travel when Pinter was hospitalized for a rare mouth infection, Pinter went from hospital to a Channel Four studio to videotape his Nobel Lecture: Art, Truth & Politics, which was shown on three large screens at the Swedish Academy on December 7, 2005. The video was simultaneously broadcast, introduced by friend and fellow playwright David Hare, that evening on Channel Four in the UK as well. Subsequently, the full text and streaming video formats were posted for the public on the Nobel Prize and Swedish Academy official websites.These formats of [Pinter's Nobel Lecture] have been widely cited, quoted, and distributed by print and online media and the source of much commentary and debate. For selected commentary, see Harold Pinter#References

Art, Truth, & Politics: The Nobel Lecture

In his controversial Nobel Lecture Art, Truth & Politics, speaking with obvious difficulty while seated in a wheelchair, Harold Pinter distinguishes between the search for truth in art and the avoidance of truth in politics."Art, Truth, & Politics:[The Nobel Lecture] He asserts:

Political language, as used by politicians, does not venture into any of this territory [of the artist] since the majority of politicians, on the evidence available to us, are interested not in truth but in power and in the maintenance of that power. To maintain that power it is essential that people remain in ignorance, that they live in ignorance of the truth, even the truth of their own lives. What surrounds us therefore is a vast tapestry of lies, upon which we feed.

As every single person here knows, the justification for the invasion of Iraq was that Saddam Hussein possessed a highly dangerous body of weapons of mass destruction, some of which could be fired in 45 minutes, bringing about appalling devastation. We were assured that was true. It was not true. We were told that Iraq had a relationship with Al-Qaeda and shared responsibility for the atrocity in New York of September 11th 2001. We were assured that this was true. It was not true. We were told that Iraq threatened the security of the world. We were assured it was true. It was not true.

The truth is something entirely different. The truth is to do with how the United States understands its role in the world and how it chooses to embody it.

Charging the United States with having "supported and in many cases engendered every right wing military dictatorship in the world after the end of the Second World War," leading to "hundreds of thousands of deaths," Pinter asks: "Did they take place? And are they in all cases attributable to US foreign policy?" Then he answers his own question: "The answer is yes they did take place and they are attributable to American foreign policy. But you wouldn't know it."

Revisiting arguments from his political essays and speeches of the past decade (See also), Pinter reiterates:

It never happened. Nothing ever happened. Even while it was happening it wasn't happening. It didn't matter. It was of no interest. The crimes of the United States have been systematic, constant, vicious, remorseless, but very few people have actually talked about them. You have to hand it to America. It has exercised a quite clinical manipulation of power worldwide while masquerading as a force for universal good. It's a brilliant, even witty, highly successful act of hypnosis.

I put to you that the United States is without doubt the greatest show on the road. Brutal, indifferent, scornful and ruthless it may be but it is also very clever. As a salesman it is out on its own and its most saleable commodity is self love. It's a winner. Listen to all American presidents on television say the words, "the American people," as in the sentence, "I say to the American people it is time to pray and to defend the rights of the American people and I ask the American people to trust their president in the action he is about to take on behalf of the American people."

In imagery recalling his description of "speech" as "a constant stratagem to cover nakedness,"In his 1962 speech to the National Student Drama Festival in Bristol, in an often-quoted passage, Pinter observes:

There are two silences. One when no word is spoken. The other when perhaps a torrent of language is being employed. This speech is speaking of a language locked beneath it. That is its continual reference. The speech we hear is an indication of that which we don't hear. It is a necessary avoidance, a violent, sly, anguished or mocking smoke screen which keeps the other in its place. When true silence falls we are still left with echo but are nearer nakedness. One way of looking at speech is to say that it is a constant stratagem to cover nakedness. ("Writing for the Theatre," rpt. in Various Voices 24-25)

Pinter adds:

It's a scintillating stratagem. Language is actually employed to keep thought at bay. The words "the American people" provide a truly voluptuous cushion of reassurance. You don't need to think. Just lie back on the cushion. The cushion may be suffocating your intelligence and your critical faculties but it's very comfortable. This does not apply of course to the 40 million people living below the poverty line and the 2 million men and women imprisoned in the vast gulag of prisons, which extends across the US.

Toward the end of the lecture, after reading two poems referring to "blood in the streets," "deaths," "dead bodies," and "death" by fellow Nobel Laureate Pablo Neruda and himself, in a whimsically-humble gesture, Pinter offers to "volunteer" for the "job" of "speech writer" for President George W. Bush, penning a ruthless message of fierce aggression masquerading as moral struggle between good versus evil yet finally proferring the "authority" of his (Bush's) "fist". (The June 23, 2006 Newsnight program featuring Wark's interview of Pinter presents a video clip of his subsequent reading of "Bush's speech" before a later audience in London.) Pinter demands prosecution of Tony Blair in the International Criminal Court, while pointing out, with irony, that he would do the same for George W. Bush if Bush had not so shrewedly refused to "ratify" that Court. Pinter concludes his Nobel Lecture with a call for "unflinching, unswerving, fierce intellectual determination, as citizens, to define the real truth of our lives and our societies" as "a crucial obligation which devolves upon us all," one which he regards as "in fact mandatory," for, he warns, "If such a determination is not embodied in our political vision we have no hope of restoring what is so nearly lost to us — the dignity of man."Online posting of the full text of [Pinter's Nobel Lecture].

Miscellaneous

Pinter is the chairman of the Gaieties Cricket Club and has called cricket one of his three great "loves." [link] The other "two" are "love" (of women) and "writing" (Gussow, Conversations with Pinter 28-29). "Running" (as a teenage sprinter [29]) and "reading" are two other pleasures that he mentions at times in interviews.)

Pinter is an Honorary Associate of the National Secular Society.

On October 13,2005, the day his Nobel Prize was announced, the Sky News reader saw his name and erroneously reported him dead. It was widely known that he had been battling esophageal cancer since 2002 and that he had fallen and injured his head in Dublin, upon returning from the Gate Theatre festival celebrating his 75th birthday that previous weekend; that knowledge may have led to her mistaken assumption. When interviewed about his reaction to the Nobel Prize announcement by Billington, Pinter joked: "I was told today that one of the Sky channels said this morning that 'Harold Pinter is dead'. Then they changed their mind and said, 'No, he's won the Nobel prize.' So I've risen from the dead."[Billington, comp. "They've said you've a call...."]

Harold Pinter's drama has spawned the adjective Pinteresque, placing him in the company of authors considered unique or influential enough to elicit eponymous adjectives, such as William Shakespeare (Shakespearian), Franz Kafka (Kafkaesque), Bertolt Brecht (Brechtian), James Joyce (Joycean), and George Orwell (Orwellian). Pinter has occasionally objected to the use of Pinteresque, and he did so again when Kirsty Wark asked him about it, replying that he has no idea what Pinteresque specifies."Harold Pinter on Newsnight Review" [23 June 2006.] The Online Oxford English Dictionary (OED) entry for Pinteresque is: "Of or relating to Harold Pinter; resembling or characteristic of his plays. . . . Pinter's plays are typically characterized by implications of threat and strong feeling produced through colloquial language, apparent triviality, and long pauses."

Once asked what his plays are about, Pinter lobbed back a phrase "the weasel under the cocktail cabinet," which he regrets has been taken seriously and applied in popular criticism. Like one of the "two silences" that he defined in his 1962 speech to the National Student Drama Festival in Bristol,"I am not suggesting that no character in a play can never say what he in fact means. Not at all. I have found that there invariably does come a moment when this happens, when he says something, perhaps, which he has never said before. And where this happens, what he says is irrevocable, and can never be taken back" (rpt. in Various Voices 25). such a time when "too many words are spoken" may be "irrevocable"; it cannot be "taken back".
Once many years ago, I found myself engaged uneasily in a public discussion on theatre. Someone asked me what was my work "about." I replied with no thought at all and merely to frustrate this line of enquiry: "the weasel under the cocktail cabinet." This 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.Harold Pinter, "On Being Awarded the German Shakespeare Prize in Hamburg" (1970), rpt. in Various Voices 39.

A witty homage to Pinter's play Betrayal occurs in an episode of Seinfeld entitled ""The Betrayal." Structured in reverse somewhat like the play, the episode features a character named "Pinter." Coincidentally, Pinter's play features a character named "Jerry," the first name of co-creator Jerry Seinfeld and the main character of Seinfeld based on himself.

The fourth episode of the second season of Dawson's Creek, "Tamara's Return" (28 Oct. 1998), alludes to Pinter in dialogue between lead character Pacey Witter (played by Joshua Jackson) and Tamara Jacobs (Leann Hunley), his former English teacher with whom Pacey has had an affair. Tamara tells Pacey that an awkward moment of silence between them is "what we ex-English teachers call a classic 'Pinter' moment, where everything is said in silence because the emotion behind what we really want to say is just too overwhelming. . . . [S]ilence is an acquired taste. The more complicated life becomes the better it is to learn to say nothing." When Pacey inquires "Who is this Pinter guy?" Tamara urges him, "Stay in school." Later Pacey tells Tamara that he has "looked up this Pinter guy. Harold, playwright, the king of subtext. You say one thing, but you mean another," wondering further: "Do you think it's possible for us to have a moment without all the subtext?" "Uh, I don't know, Pacey," Tamara replies. "Words have always gotten us into so much trouble." Pacey and Tamara finally agree that "This Pinter guy was really onto something."[link] Ironically, one of those words which has "gotten" Pinter critics "into so much trouble" is that very word subtext."Some Other Language Games," chap. 7 in Merritt, Pinter in Play 137-70.

Works

Stage and television plays

The Room (1957)
The Birthday Party (1957)
The Dumb Waiter (1957)
A Slight Ache (1958)
The Hothouse (1958)
The Caretaker (1959)
A Night Out (1959)
Night School (1960)
The Dwarfs (1960)
The Collection (1961)
The Lover (1962)
Tea Party (1964)
The Homecoming (1964)
The Basement (1966)
Landscape (1967)
Silence (1968)
Old Times (1970)
Monologue (1972)
No Man's Land (1974)
Betrayal (1978)
Family Voices (1980)
A Kind of Alaska (1982)
Victoria Station (1982)
One for the Road (1984)
Mountain Language (1988)
Party Time (1991)
Moonlight (1993)
Ashes to Ashes (1996)
Celebration (1999)
Remembrance of Things Past (2000) [Stage adapt. of The Proust Screenplay; a collaboration with Di Trevis.]

Dramatic sketches

"The Black and White" (1959)
"Trouble in the Works" (1959)
"Last to Go" (1959)
"Request Stop" (1959)
"Special Offer" (1959)
"That's Your Trouble" (1959)
"That's All" (1959)
"Interview" (1959)
"Applicant" (1959)
"Dialogue for Three" (1959)
"Night" (1969)
"Precisely" (1983)
"The New World Order" (1991)HaroldPinter.org lists this work as a "play," but it is actually a 4-page dramatic sketch; it lasts approximately eight to ten minutes in production. It was first produced as a "curtain raiser" for Death and the Maiden by Ariel Dorfman at the Royal Court Upstairs in London, in July 1991; the [poster] featured on HaroldPinter.org identifies it a "sketch." "The New World Order" is also identified as a "sketch" in a review of the Royal Court première by Mel Gussow, ["Critic's Notebook: On the London Stage, a Feast of Revenge, Menace and Guilt."] Online posting. New York Times 31 July 1991. Recent productions and publications do refer to it, however, more generically, as a "play," perhaps following the website's "Plays" section.
"Press Conference" (2002)
"Apart from That" (first public reading 2006) [Unpublished]

Radio plays

Voices (2005) (collaboration with composer James Clarke)[link]

Screenplays for films

The Caretaker (1963)
The Servant (1963)
The Pumpkin Eater (1963)
The Compartment (1963) [Screenplay for unproduced film; adapt. for stage as ''The Basement]]]
The Quiller Memorandum (1965)
Accident (1966)
The Birthday Party (1967)
The Go-Between (1969)
The Homecoming (1969)
Langrishe, Go Down (1970; adapt. for TV 1978; film release 2002]
The Proust Screenplay (1972) [Published but unproduced for film; rev. & adapt. for stage (2000); cf. Remembrance of Things Past.]
The Last Tycoon (1974)
The French Lieutenant's Woman (1980)
Betrayal (1981)
Victory (1982) [Published but unproduced]
Turtle Diary (1984)
The Handmaid's Tale (1987)
Reunion (1988)
The Heat of the Day (1988) [adapt. for TV]
The Comfort of Strangers (1989)
Party Time (1992) (Rev. & adapt. for TV)
The Trial (1989)
Lolita (1994) [Unpublished and unproduced; cf. Lolita (1997 film)]
The Dreaming Child (1997) [Published but unproduced]
The Tragedy of King Lear (2000) [Unpublished and unproduced]

Prose fiction

"Kullus" (1949)
The Dwarfs (written from 1952-1956; rev. and published 1990) (Novel)
"Latest Reports from the Stock Exchange" (1953)
"The Black and White" (1954-55)
"The Examination" (1955)
"Tea Party" (1963)
"The Coast" (1975)
"Problem" (1976)
"Lola" (1977)
"Short Story" (1995)
"Girls" (1995)
"God's District" (1997) [Unpublished]
"Sorry About This" (1999)
"Tess" (2000)
"Voices in the Tunnel" (2001)

Collected poetry

Poems (1971)
I Know the Place (1977)
Poems and Prose 1949-1977 (1978)
Ten Early Poems (1990)
Collected Poems and Prose (1995)
"The Disappeared" and Other Poems (2002)
War (2003)

Anthologies and other collections

99 Poems in Translation: An Anthology Selected by Harold Pinter, Anthony Astbury, & Geoffrey Godbert (1994)
100 Poems by 100 Poets: An Anthology Selected by Harold Pinter, Anthony Astbury, & Geoffrey Godbert (1987; rpt. 1992)
101 Poems Against War (2003). Eds. Matthew Hollis & Paul Kegan. Afterword Andrew Motion. (Incl. "American Football," by Harold Pinter [80].)
The Essential Pinter (Grove Press, forthcoming Aug. 2006)
Poems by Harold Pinter Chosen by Antonia Fraser. (Greville Press Pamphlets, 2002) [Ltd ed. of 300 copies, "of which the first fifty are numbered and signed by the selector."]
Various Voices: Prose, Poetry, Politics 1948-2005 (1998; rev. 2005)
Death etc. (2005)

Notes

References

Batty, Mark. About Pinter: The Playwright and The Work. London: Faber and Faber, 2005. ISBN 0-571-22005-3. [Description].
Bensky, Lawrence M. [Interview with Harold Pinter, "The Art of Theater: No. 3,"]. Online posting. The Paris Review 39 (Fall 1966). 30 June 2006.
Billington, Michael. The Life and Work of Harold Pinter. 1996; rpt. London: Faber and Faber, 1997. ISBN 0-571-17103-6. [Description].
[Books and Writing with Ramona Koval: Harold Pinter]. Broadcast on Radio National Australian Broadcasting Corporation 15 Sept. 2002. Online posting of transcript of interview conducted at Edinburgh Book Festival, Aug. 2002.
Gussow, Mel. Conversations with Pinter. London: Nick Hern Books, 1994. ISBN 1-85459-201-7. Rpt. New York: Limelight, 2004. ISBN 0-87910-179-2. [Description].
["Pinter Wins Nobel Literary Prize."] Online posting. BBC News 13 Oct. 2005. 8 July 2006.
*Billington, Michael. ["'They said you've a call from the Nobel committee. I said, why?': Harold Pinter in His Own Words."] Online posting. The Guardian 14 Oct. 2005.
*Hitchens, Christopher. "Commentary: The Sinister Mediocrity of Harold Pinter." Wall Street Journal 17 Oct. 2005: A18.
**[The Silver Christopher]. Online posting of "Commentary" by Hitchens. ZNet 18 Oct. 2005. 4 July 2006.
*Howard, Jennifer. ["Nobel Prize in Literature Goes to Harold Pinter, British Playwright Widely Studied in Academe."] Online posting. Chronicle of Higher Education 13 Oct. 2006. 8 July 2006.
*Pilger, John. ["The Silence of Writers."] Online posting. ZNet 16 Oct. 2005. 5 July 2006.
*Traub, James. ["The Way We Live Now: Their Highbrown Hatred of Us."] Online posting. New York Times Mag. 30 Oct. 2005. 2 July 2006.
Merritt, Susan Hollis. Pinter in Play: Critical Strategies and the Plays of Harold Pinter. 1990; Durham and London: Duke UP, 1995. ISBN 0-8223-1674-9. [Description].
---. "Talking about Pinter." (On the Lincoln Center 2001: Harold Pinter Festival Symposia.) The Pinter Review: Collected Essays 2001 and 2002. Eds. Francis Gillen and Steven H. Gale. Tampa U of Tampa P, 2002. 144-67.
---, comp. ["Harold Pinter Bibliography."] The Pinter Review 1987- .
Moss, Stephen. ["The Guardian Profile: Harold Pinter: Under the Volcano."] Online posting. The Guardian Unlimited 4 Sept. 1999. 7 July 2006.
["Pinter 'to give up writing plays.'"] Interview with Mark Lawson on Front Row (BBC Radio 4). Online posting. BBC News 28 Feb. 2005. 2 July 2006.
Pinter, Harold. [Art, Truth & Politics: The Nobel Lecture]. Online posting. 7 Dec. 2005. (RealPlayer streaming audio and video as well as text available). London: Faber and Faber, 2006. ISBN 0-571-23396-1. [Description] [NB: date of presentation in description is incorrect; 7 Dec. 2005 not 2006]. Rpt. in [Not One More Death] (London: Stop the War Coalition, 2006); forthcoming in The Essential Pinter.
*Billington, Michael. ["Passionate Pinter's devastating assault on US foreign policy]: Shades of Beckett As Ailing Playwright Delivers Powerful Nobel Lecture."] Online posting. The Guardian. 8 Dec. 2005.
*Bond, Paul. ["Harold Pinter's Artistic Achievement."] Online posting. World Socialist Web Site 29 Dec. 2005.
*["Bush and Blair slated by Pinter"] Online posting. BBC 7 Dec. 2005.
*Riddell, Mary. ["Comment:Prophet without honour: Harold Pinter can be cantankerous and puerile. But he is a worthy Nobel prizewinner."] The Observer. 11 Dec. 2005. Online posting. The Guardian 11 Dec. 2005. 3 July 2006.
*["Special Report: The Nobel Prize for Literature: 2005 Harold Pinter"]. Online posting. The Guardian Dec. 2005. 30 June 2006.
---. ["Campaigning against Torture: Arthur Miller's Socks" (1985)]. ("Written as a tribute to Arthur Miller, on the occasion of his 80th birthday.") Online posting. HaroldPinter.org. 3 July 2006. Rpt. in Various Voices 56-57.
---. Death etc. New York: Grove, 2005. ISBN 0-8021-4225-7. [Description (Contents)].
---. The Essential Pinter: Selections from the Work of Harold Pinter. New York: Grove, forthcoming (Aug.) 2006. ISBN 0-8021-4269-9. [Description].
---. Various Voices: Prose, Poetry, Politics 1948-2005. rev. ed. 1998; London: Faber and Faber, 2005. ISBN 0-571-23009-1. [Description].
---. War. London: Faber and Faber, 2003. ISBN 0-571-22131-9. [Description].
*Brown, Mark. ["What Is It Good for?"] Book review. Online posting. Socialist Review (Sept. 2003).
*Chrisafis, Angelique, and Imogen Tilden. ["Pinter blasts 'Nazi America' and 'deluded idiot' Blair."] Online posting. The Guardian 11 June 2003.
Riddell, Mary. ["The New Statesman Interview: Harold Pinter."] Online posting. New Statesman 8 Nov. 1999. 1 July 2006. (Limited access.)
Wark, Kirsty. ["Harold Pinter on Newsnight Review"]. Online posting. Newsnight 23 June 2006. (RealPlayer streaming video accessible from 24-30 June 2006.)

External links

["Apart from That"]. Streaming video. Online posting. Eamelje.net 28 June 2006. 3 July 2006. (NB: See ["disclaimer."])
[Bio-bibliography for Harold Pinter: The Nobel Prize in Literature 2005] by the Swedish Academy. Online posting. Nobel Foundation and Swedish Academy Official Websites.
[Harold Pinter] HaroldPinter.org: Official website of Harold Pinter. [Home page].
.
.
["Harold Pinter."] Online posting. The Artists Network of Refuse & Resist! 12 Dec. 2005. 4 July 2006. (17 pages.) A selection of writings by and commentary about Pinter.
["Harold Pinter."] Online posting. Contemporary Writers. Biography and critical account provided by Michael Billington for British Council: Arts.
["Harold Pinter."] Online posting. Literary Encyclopedia. Biography and critical account.
["Harold Pinter (b. 1930)."] Online posting. The Poetry Archive. Biography, critical account, and streaming audio of a special recording of Pinter reading four of his poems: "Cancer Cells," "It is Here," "Later," and "Episode"; recorded 16 Dec. 2002, The Audio Workshop, London; prod. Richard Carrington.
["Harold Pinter (1930- )."] Online posting. Books and Writers. Biography and critical account. (Featured on [Authors' Calendar] 2005-2006). 1 July 2006.
[The Harold Pinter Society]. Allied organization of the Modern Language Association.
["Listmania: Harold Pinter: Winner of the 2005 Nobel Prize for Literature"]