Nobel for Pinter

Lots of praise for Pinter's Nobel. But John Simons trashes the man and his work:

Ignoble Nobel: Let Us Pause

Nobel winner Harold Pinter has been hailed as Britain’s Beckett. But not by his old antagonist John Simon.

by John Simon

Harold Pinter has just won the Nobel Prize for Literature? I would have gladly accorded him the Nobel for Arrogance, the Nobel for Self-promotion, or the Nobel for Hypocrisy—spewing venom at the United States while basking in our dollars—if such Nobels existed. But the Nobel for Literature? I think not.

Pinter’s plays—the best known being Betrayal, The Homecoming, and The Caretaker—are labyrinths without issues, leading from the tediously strained to the preposterous. What accounts for this triumph of sham? The reasons are many, but two are obvious. One is poor education, which begets a public of dupes and charlatans; another, general loss of self-confidence, despite Hans Christian Andersen’s cautionary tale about the dubious fashion statement of a certain emperor. Instead of having the guts to say there is nothing to this “drama,” some try to score points by discovering virtues where none exist, or dumbly believe what the other dupes—sorry, Crrrritics!, as Beckett might have said—have trumpeted at him. ....

Some blog coverage:

The essence of Pinter’s drama is adolescent Samuel Beckett - it’s warmed-over and second-hand. ... Moonbat Central - http://moonbatcentral.com/wordpress

Harold Pinter's work brings disturbing insight into human behaviour in the political environment. ... The Skies are Weeping - http://weepingskies.blogspot.com

German newspapers react (not very well) to Harold Pinter's Nobel Prize for Literature: ... Why not Harold Pinter?' even if he is no longer in vogue as a playwright ... For all their mysteriousness, Harold Pinter's early plays have the ... To the point - http://thekupfers.typepad.com/tothepoint/

Now Pinter's vilification of his own prime minister and the US president is broadly mainstream newspaper opinion, with only the Times consistently dissenting ... Liberal England - http://liberalengland.blogspot.com

Some of the coverage

Says Arts & Letters Daily:Harold Pinter, whose plays force “entry into oppression’s closed rooms,” has won the Nobel Prize for Literature... Nobel ...
AP ...
Chronicle of Higher Ed ...
Guardian ...
London Times ...
NY Times ...
Telegraph
Weekly Standard ...
London Times ...
Telegraph ...
Washington Post ...
LA Times ...
Boston Globe ...
Guardian ...
in his own words

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