Well played, Nobel Committee!

It's... about... damned... time!

Pinter Wins Nobel Prize in Literature

By MATT MOORE, Associated Press Writer

STOCKHOLM, Sweden - British playwright Harold Pinter, who juxtaposed the brutal and the banal in such works as "The Caretaker" and "The Birthday Party" and made an art form out of spare language and unbearable silence, won the 2005 Nobel Prize in literature Thursday.


Pinter "in his plays uncovers the precipice under everyday prattle and forces entry into oppression's closed rooms," the Swedish Academy said. The chilling, understated style of his work even inspired an adjective all his own: Pinteresque.

Harold Pinter, October 13, 2005

Starting with his breakthrough play, "The Caretaker," Pinter codified a style in the 1950s and '60s of verbal evasion and violence, menace both spoken and not. His influence has been felt throughout British literature, and across the ocean in the work of American playwrights Sam Shepard and David Mamet.

"Pinter restored theater to its basic elements: an enclosed space and unpredictable dialogue where people are at the mercy of each other and pretense crumbles," the academy said.

His other works include "The Room" and "The Dumb Waiter."LINK

I have a feeling Pinter's recent poems had a lot to do with the Nobel committee's decision...

God Bless America

Here they go again,
The Yanks in their armoured parade
Chanting their ballads of joy
As they gallop across the big world
Praising America's God.

The gutters are clogged with the dead
The ones who couldn't join in
The others refusing to sing
The ones who are losing their voice
The ones who've forgotten the tune.

The riders have whips which cut.
Your head rolls onto the sand
Your head is a pool in the dirt
Your head is a stain in the dust
Your eyes have gone out and your nose
Sniffs only the pong of the dead
And all the dead air is alive
With the smell of America's God.

Harold Pinter, January 2003



The Special Relationship

The bombs go off
The legs go off
The heads go off

The arms go off
The feet go off
The light goes out

The heads go off
The legs go off
The lust is up

The dead are dirt
The lights go out
The dead are dust

A man bows down before another man
And sucks his lust

Harold Pinter, August 2004

It would appear that the Nobel committee has finally rediscovered its raison d'être.

It's... about... damned... time!

File this under: The Yanks in their armoured parade.