RIP Harold Pinter – Moon of Alabama

December 25, 2008

RIP Harold Pinter

“We are actually looking at a never-ending range of reflections. But sometimes a writer has to smash the mirror – for it is on the other side of that mirror that the truth stares at us.” – HP

BBC obit

Noble Lecture 2005: Art, Truth & Politics

Real Player and MS video here.

Posted by b on December 25, 2008 at 19:22 UTC | Permalink

Comments

it remains a stark & tough speech & in its way profoundly moving. our recent visitor matt would do well to listen to it, again & again
i wonder if this was ever screened in blair’s britain. i doubt it
pinter along with dennis potter, trevor mcgrath -many others, people who traditionally remained or moved to the right – until thatcher & blair’s england moved them irrevocably to the left. not so ironically the journalists – even on the guardian or the independant have gone completely the other way & are as one with jeremy clarkson sucking on thatcher’s tits
literature has little honour left in her – but pinter did his best – to put conscience back into the english vocabulary

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Dec 25 2008 21:10 utc | 1

i thought it might have been possible to find the last interview with dennis potter who has a similar resonance for me but culture being what it is – commodified – it is unavailable – that is to say, it is for sale

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Dec 26 2008 0:21 utc | 2

If you dont already own them, Amazon has most of his major works (through the Homecoming) in four paperback volumes costing $10.80 each. There might well be a better collection in the UK, but I couldnt find it this morning.
It’s interesting who Amazon links with Pinter as soon as you put one of his books “in your cart” — Albee, Sam Sheppard, Tom Stoppard. These guys were hip without being “post-modern” — the good old days!
Drugged up and drowning in information as we are, anyone who uses language sparingly is a hero.

Posted by: seneca | Dec 26 2008 16:42 utc | 3

To echo Tantalus and b, RIP Harold Pinter.
and thanks seneca.
also, Seasons Greetings to all you Seasoned Mooners as well as to our esteemed host.

Posted by: Juannie | Dec 26 2008 17:33 utc | 4

i wanted the potter because he spoke before his death – of the pollution of political life – that it had begun in the media. potter was speaking very much of the absences – of that that has happened that doesn’t happen – for the english speaking world. the reign of terror from thatcher/reagan to the present mement & before completely hidden out in the open
& if you try to explain the day to day genocide(s) of that empire to a matt – he does not see or hear – because his beloved media has never mentioned a word about guatemala, indonesia, honduras, chile, nicaragua – on & on. these very real events hidden by words. for the majority these words have come from those on the payroll of rupert murdoch, directly or indirectly
it has pleased me (tho i have not yet seen it) that the artist steve mcqueen’s film ‘hunger’ on the hunger strikes in ireland strips away all the words & exposes them, revealing the terrorism of the british state at its most basic – that of the body
& i suppose that is why i make the connection with pinter & potter because the body & breath were so present in their works & lives – i do not think it is incidental that through their pain which could have easily led them to misanthropy – led them to a more nuanced form of humanism – a trouble humanism – but a humanism, all the same

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Dec 26 2008 18:46 utc | 5

Reprinted in the Guardian, a Pinter piece from 1996: The biggest bully in the west

The US is without doubt the greatest show on the road. Brutal, indifferent, scornful and ruthless it may be, but it’s also very smart. As a salesman it’s out on its own. And its most saleable commodity is self-love. It’s a winner. The US has actually educated itself to be in love with itself. Listen to President Clinton – and before him, Bush and before him, Reagan and before him all the others – say on television 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.” A nation weeps.
It’s a pretty brilliant 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 you don’t know that. Nobody tells you. So the status quo remains where it is and Father Christmas remains American and America remains the Land of the Brave and the Home of the Free.
Except of course for the 1.5 million people in prison, the 50 million living under the poverty line, the adolescents and mentally deficient about to be gassed or injected or electrocuted in the 38 out of 52 states which carry the death penalty.
…

Posted by: b | Dec 27 2008 10:27 utc | 6

R.I.P. oh no I thought and my eyes teared. and now who, on the london literary/artistic scene or european for that matter will express opinions like that of Pinter?
if it’s all about money it’s all over.
various strands crossed in my brain, this is free association, not relevant to Pinter directly (I was also thinking about Obama) and I remembered that debate between Buckley and Vidal on ‘the ideal president’ from 1968 – I only saw it when it came on Youtube – from ABC I think – how things have changed. now the ppl who spoke like they did are dead or dying off..the culture and the media have changed.. of course buckley is a special cup of tea and not mine and vidal can’t be compared to Pinter, that isn’t the point..
you tube, in parts

Posted by: Tangerine | Dec 27 2008 16:36 utc | 7

& here in france – the holy trinity of foucault, deleuze & derrida are not here to offer correction to the wholesal shift to the most impoverished politics of the right – we are living in a cultural climate that would have been supported by that most malignant of forces in the 20th century in france – the action française – it is not a proud moment to be an intellectual in europe
slothrop would deny it but he represents the moral corruption of intellectuals in europe far more than i could – so in that sense he is right to accuse me of vulgar marxism because in the world of deadenders – that is what i am

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Dec 27 2008 18:58 utc | 8

I remember two things he said especially: “Hopelessness is the disease of old men”, and : “Bush and Blair are fucking cunts. You know, the English language has fantastic resource. Fucking cunts. Bush and Blair, fucking cunts. It is absolutely right for them.”
He said this quite deliberately in a voice the whole restaurant would hear.

~
Craig Murray on Harold Pinter

Posted by: Uncle $cam | Dec 28 2008 5:11 utc | 9

I remember how blown away I was as a young undergraduate in the 60s when I saw my first Pinter play – “The Dumb Waiter” It was my first exposure to a totally different way of looking at the world from what I had been led to believe it was all about. The plays of Pinter, Beckett, Ionesco, Boris Vian and other “absurdists” had a profound impact on how I viewed the universe. Thanks b for your RIP and to the rest of the comments from the Moon community. I am a long-time reader but a first time commentor. Where in France do you live remembereringgiap? Haute Savoie here.

Posted by: RogerS | Dec 29 2008 9:17 utc | 10

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