27 October 2005

Belated Congrats to Harold Pinter on the Nobel Prize

Sure it happened a few weeks back, but Harold Pinter won the Nobel Prize for Literature this year. I was happy at the time, because Pinter was one of my first experiences with post-WWII drama -- the others being Samuel Beckett and Caryl Churchill. The sparsity of Pinter's language was exhilarating -- he and Beckett pruned sentences to their core -- and a long way from the dense growth that Faulkner cultivated (which I also love). But I filed it away in the back of my mind until I came across this irritating quote from Christopher Hitchens, a man whose senses deserted him like the last drops from a bottle of scotch:

The award to someone who gave up literature for politics decades ago, and whose politics are primitive and hysterically anti-American and pro-dictatorial, is part of the almost complete degradation of the Nobel racket. [Guardian]

First, the notion that anyone could consider Pinter hysterically anything is ridiculous. And as he's done so often in the last few years, Hitchens confuses critiques of the U.S. government's bungled attempts at empire building with "anti-American" attitudes. Hitchens apparently forgets the outpouring of support and solidarity across the world -- and especially in Europe -- when September 11 occurred -- and he also forgets that that support eroded because most of the world saw through the Bush adminstration's fraudulent attempt to make a dictator -- who'd been crippled by ten years of sanctions -- out to be the world's greatest threat since Adolf Hitler. Don't get me wrong: Hitchens is extremely witty and his critique of Henry Kissinger is devastating. However, in the past, he didn't confuse critiques of some abusers of power with affinity for other abusers of power -- with Iraq, though, he seems to be convinced that all those who opposed the U.S. violations of international law somehow condoned Saddam Hussein's regime (the closer truth is that Bush and Hussein have similar cavalier attitudes toward "international law").

Here's a sample of Pinter's "hysterical" opinions on the U.S. and Iraq (Hitchens is a leading cheerleader for the situational ethics of pre-emptive war):

We have brought torture, cluster bombs, depleted uranium, innumerable acts of random murder, misery and degradation to the Iraqi people and call it “bringing freedom and democracy to the Middle East”. But, as we all know, we have not been welcomed with the predicted flowers. What we have unleashed is a ferocious and unremitting resistance, mayhem and chaos.

You may say at this point: what about the Iraqi elections? Well President Bush himself answered this question only the other day when he said “We cannot accept that there can be free democratic elections in a country under foreign military occupation”.

I had to read that statement twice before I realised that he was talking about Lebanon and Syria.

Pinter is a persistent student of language, who -- like George Orwell before him -- understands the power of language not only to reveal but also to obfuscate. Pinter merely parses the language that these governments put in front of us and as he does in his own work, he seeks out the roots hidden under the foliage and the dirt. He is working with material provided him by miserable failures like George W. Bush, and if you are an observer of torturous linguistic phrases, Bush provides fertile soil.

7 comments:

Megarita said...

I won't argue that Pinter's a bastion of sanity, but I do agree that he's a smart cookie who is always alert to what words can do. The Orwell analogy is very apt and well said.

Cupcakegrrl said...

Ditto to Megarita's comment.

I think if Pinter read this post, he'd appreciate your use of language, too. Fine writing and clear thoughts.

I don't know why you don't get more comments. I love your blog. (This in reference to Brando's latest posting- onechildleftbehind, which has me thinking about that.)

Wicketywack said...

Don't know much about Pinter, but I'm gonna find out more, now.

As for Hitchens, as you know, I've been a fan for quite some time. While I disagree with a lot of what he says these days, the reason I keep coming back time and again is because his opinions are often very hard to classify---something that is sorely lacking in our modernday discourse. Watching pundits is usually so predictable and boring; here's the guy who follows the Left's party line; here's the guy who follows the Right's.

While I do think it's ridculous---and cliche---to smear someone as supporting the enemy if they critisize the overlord, often Hitchens' foes do support the enemy, ie, ANSWER coalition, George Galloway, etc.

There's one intellectual heavyweight battle I'm dying to see: Hitchens vs. Chomsky. That would be worth paying good money for.

m.a. said...

Your last sentence is divine, sir.

Washington Cube said...

Fertile soil or steaming pile? 0:)

cs said...

Cube: Either way it's fertilizer.

MA: Thank you much.

LB: That would be a good match (unless you made it into a drinking contest, like beat the clock or something, then I'd hold out for Hitchens easily)

Cupcake: some men are born posthumously (just joking -- the low comment count doesn't bother me much: as spinal tap's manager said, it just shows my "audience" is more selective).

Mega: maybe the attention to language is why Shelley called poets the "unacknowledged legislators of mankind" or something like that. If only he had been right...

Scriptor said...

Pinter and Orwell! The extent of the shaping of the individual through language prevalent it seems in all realms of telescreens. Orwell was shrewd also to set the year of the completion of Newspeak at 2050. Well we are racing toward that goal. A study of Soviet and in particular Stalinist PR techniques illuminates the current US situation. Did you know that 'political correctness' was a Stalinist slogan? ('politicheskii pravitel'nost')
Crunchkin