Source A: John Simon, “Ignoble Nobel: Let Us Pause.
Source B: Dale Peck, “The Moody Blues.”
CRITICAL FUSION:
Harold Pinter is the worst Nobel Prize winner of his generation.
As I made my way through Pinter’s incomprehensible labyrinths, all of them laden with pregnant pauses which kept me perplexed, wondering all the while why the Nobel Committee had not given me the prize, I contemplated my own considerable grace in how to broach this seminal problem in a Radar Magazine essay — which is to say, without humility or nuance.
“Do you have the pepperpot?” “Yes, I have the pepperpot.” This is the stuff of meaningful dialogue? I think not.
Yet another false start: What are we to say to such widespread acceptance of a playwright who specializes in the banal? Are we to cut off the forefingers of every fawning Pinterite to prove a point? Sad to say, this may be the only solution. If we are placed in the position of identifying those who are poorly educated, the dupes and charlatans, by counting nine fingers on their two hands, then it will become that much easier to avoid callow banter at a cocktail party.
For the enlightened members in our society are those who refuse to give Harold Pinter credence. They are the ones who will be invaluable during the upcoming eugenics war, when we wipe the anti-Pinterites from the face of the earth, allowing them to language through slow torture. Who needs the Geneva Convention when so many people are willing to love Harold Pinter? When indeed those pesky Swedes, who have invaded our homeland with their precious IKEAs, give this diabolical menace their highest award?
As to the question of who shall lead this cadre of torturers, I shall be only too happy to put my name at the forefront. I shall lead by example, storming into Greenwich Village apartments (in particularly, those easily amused theatrical types) and start hacking off fingers with a machete after administering a government-devised TTE (Theatrical/Torture Exam).
The salient problem here is that Pinter is no longer writing plays. He insists upon tossing off hastily composed poems as he is dying of cancer. Here is one such poem titled “Malignant”:
Smoked too many fags
Now the scrotum sags
Sags
I ask: is this even poetry? I have passed notes in class that have been more significant. And let’s be perfectly clear about the issue: never once has my scrotum sagged. And how does this even pertain to cancer?
If the Nobel people must encourage such doggerel, then the time has come to cut off their forefingers, ideally throwing them into a burlap sack and hanging this collection of fingers from the highest pike. This will set an example for those proud Pinterites who believe they sit safely behind their Playbills. I call upon our Attorney General to begin counting Pinterites, for they are the greatest threat to our country’s democratic fabric.
The Call by Yannick Murphy: The always interesting author of Here They Come and Signed, Mata Hari returns with a novel that whips up a worldview from a rather quirky set of limitations: namely, the call logs that a veterinarian maintains as his son is unexpectedly put into a coma and an unforgiving economy denies him work. What emerges is a surprisingly optimistic, often funny, and very moving account on how one family uses acceptance and forgiveness as a way to atone for hard knocks. (
Birds of Paradise by Diana Abu-Jaber: Forget Franzen and Eugenides. If you're looking for a social novel that counts, Diana Abu-Jaber is the author you're looking for. Building from the free-form exploration of consciousness and identity in Crescent and the gripping procedural structure of Origin, Abu-Jaber's latest novel is her finest, equally fluent with gutterpunk culture and smarmy real estate men. It has been suggested by The Washington Post's Ron Charles that you will likely gain some pounds while reading this novel. This is certainly true. Abu-Jaber's description of food is so precise that it often made me want to do more cooking. But I very much admired the way in which Abu-Jaber presents all her characters as unwitting victims of rough capitalism, which permits them some dignity even as they perform terrible acts.
The Last of the Live Nude Girls by Sheila McClear: This memoir isn't so much about the decline of the Times Square peepshow, as it is about one young woman's efforts to pull herself up by by her bootstraps when presented with few economic options. Filled with self-introspective candor and a quiet dignity, McClear's story is one that might befall any of us in these volatile times. While McClear does get back on her feet, her book leads one contemplating the terrible fates of other young women now moving to New York and falling into deadlier vocations. (
I’m with you on Pinter as play-write – right over my head. As an orator however he deserves some kind of medal. Being able to sustain that combined degree of rationality and fury throughout the duration of his Nobel acceptance speech…accessible on line…truly exceptional. He continues the tirade, and very entertainingly so, on Charlie Rose…also available.