THEY ONLY GAVE HIM THE PRIZE IN EXCHANGE FOR THE RANT:

When Pinter should have paused for effect: Dishing off a rambling recorded rant for his Nobel recognition, the ailing writer misses a chance to say so much more. (James C. Taylor, January 1, 2006, LA Times)

HAROLD PINTER, perhaps Britain's greatest modern playwright and winner of the 2005 Nobel Prize for literature, presented his Nobel lecture last month. Despite his reputation as a master of dark, absurdist comedy, Pinter's speech — which has since been widely reprinted — can only be described as tragic.

The first tragedy of Pinter's speech was that he could not deliver it in person. [...]

This is the second tragedy of Pinter's Nobel lecture: that after seven minutes of talking about his work in an illuminating fashion, Pinter devotes the following 39 minutes to a rant against U.S. foreign policy.

To anyone familiar with Pinter's politics, this anti-Americanism is no surprise. Indeed, he hinted back in October that he might use the Nobel podium to "address the state of the world," and his lecture titled "Art, Truth, and Politics" contains many of the same issues (U.S. policy in Nicaragua, the use of cluster bombs, the war in Iraq) that Pinter has been speaking out against for years.

If there was any surprise in his speech it is that he was more dismissive of his native Great Britain, which he describes as "pathetic and supine," than the United States, which he has previously compared to Nazi Germany. Pinter's disdain for Tony Blair was not a surprise (he once called the prime minister a "deluded idiot"); however, the lecture's one coup de théâtre was when the playwright called on the International Criminal Court to arraign Mr. Blair. Pinter then added: "We can let the Court have his address if they're interested. It is Number 10 Downing Street, London."

This might have made for a real theatrical moment had Pinter delivered it in front of a live audience — if nothing else it would have been a bona-fide laugh line. But as recorded on video, the gag felt rehearsed and labored, sort of like a candidate reciting an old joke that he's been using for months on the campaign trail.

Certainly, many of the points Pinter makes are accurate and deserve attention, but the scope of his lecture feels limited. Interestingly, the two nations he rails against — while guilty of spinning language to obscure the truth — have not officially silenced, imprisoned or fined those who have spoke out against their foreign policies, while, at the same time Pinter was recording his lecture, Orhan Pamuk, the Turkish writer who was widely believed to be the front runner for this year's literary Nobel, was preparing to be tried by his own government for speaking out against atrocities that took place 90 years ago. Pinter does not address this, nor does he ever widen his view of the world's forces of oppression beyond the U.S. and Tony Blair. Because of this, his lecture offers little that is new or freshly persuasive about art, truth or politics.

Interesting? It's dispositive.

Posted by Orrin Judd at January 8, 2006 11:37 PM