86 Comments

1. Laura SF:

Your link to his personal life seems to be broken. But otherwise – great post. I have the same mixed feelings about him myself, though I’m not sure I can forgive him as readily.

Dec 25, 2008 - 9:56 pm 2. Roger L Simon:

Thanks. Link fixed.

Dec 25, 2008 - 9:58 pm 3. Minerva:

I saw Richardson and Gielgud in Pinter’s No Man’s Land. Normally bored by Pinter, but those two actors were Gog and Magog. “Once you change the subject, you can never change the subject again…”

Dec 26, 2008 - 12:53 am 4. Pajamas Media » Harold Pinter Passes: The Death of a Great Artist Who Hated Us:

[...] Read the entire piece here. [...]

Dec 26, 2008 - 1:18 am 5. Colin Glassey:

I have a hard time with Leni’s case. She was a very talented artist, she worked for some of the worst scum on the planet. Plenty of other artists with real talent worked for evil scum (Eisenstein worked for Stalin, to name just one example of some great Russian artists who worked for Stalin). How is Ms. Reifenstahl different from Sergei or Shostakovich?

As to Mr. Pinter, inferior to Stoppard (and also Michael Frayn) but yes, a good playwright.

Dec 26, 2008 - 1:55 am 6. Rather Read:

I’ve never seen a Pinter play, but I have read several of them. Boring.

Now his wife, Lady Antonia Fraser – there is a wonderful, interesting historian. I love her books and recommend them highly.

My sympathies to the Pinter family, but I can’t say that Mr. Pinter’s work ever gave me an iota of enjoyment or even food for thought. His works do make great sleeping pills though.

Dec 26, 2008 - 2:18 am 7. Peg C.:

Roger, I consider myself lucky to have been inculcated in the Theatre of the Absurd in private school in West L.A. Few if any of my contemporaries who went to public school knew of those writings or any of the playwrights. Pinter was not one of my favorites (Ionesco was, actually) but I developed an appreciation for his works to an extent.
I’m one of those who can more easily accept anti-American and anti-Western politics from Europeans, for whom, despite my Anglophilia (and fairly intense French studies) while growing up, I have a healthily-developed disrespect now. (For me they are all Weasels.) IOW, Pinter’s politics do not surprise and are of a piece with the lesser intellectual lights of Europe.

I would say that the Theatre of the Absurd, including Pinter, is my fondest memory of high school. It taught me a new way of viewing life that has never left me. That it was taught by my favorite teacher is secondary. A part of that has died, and that is sad. Pinter’s politics were execrable but all too normal for his class, but his works stand on their own, as it should be.

Dec 26, 2008 - 5:07 am 8. B Dubya:

I am familiar with the man only because of his Euro-chic permanent bookings on the train of useful fools and fellow travellers.
I suppose that makes me one of the unenlightened, unwashed plebes. Good.
I already don’t miss him.

Dec 26, 2008 - 6:42 am 9. Tom:

Pinter, Nader, Soros, Olberman, Ayers, Vidal, and all of their friends won’t be remembered by anyone 50 years from now.

Even giving these guys my contempt is really a waste of time.

It amazes me when people describe folks as “geniuses” when they can’t even make basic distinctions between genocidal murderers and the people who overthrow them to free the oppressed.

The more I learn about the so-called intellectual “left” the more I feel that most of their beliefs are simply adolescent whining from people who never grew up.

Dec 26, 2008 - 7:17 am 10. TalkinKamel:

Artists are just people, like everybody else, and talent isn’t equivalent to virtue.

It’s interesting to see how much artists like Riefenstahl, and Pinter are forgiven, because, well—they’re hip and cool and talented, whereas artists who don’t go along with the spirit of the times, such as Tolkien and C.S. Lewis, aren’t forgiven anything, even though, unlike Riefenstahl, they never shilled for totalitarian governments, and, unlike Pinter, never shilled for the Left, and Marxism (which killed more people during the 20th Century than Nazism).

Yet, any biography of these two, or any other non-left, non-hip artist, will either be a hit piece, filled with endless attempts to analyze them or apologize for their supposedly backwards world view, as if these guys were a dangerous combination of the Marquis de Sade and Genghis Khan!

When it comes to more conservative, Christian or some other sort of un-hip artist, we’re rarely told that we should just ignore their views, and just love their works for the beauty that’s in them.

Dec 26, 2008 - 8:08 am 11. Letalis Maximus, Esq.:

So, he supported the government of Fidel Castro?

Well.

Then.

What more does one really need to know?

Dec 26, 2008 - 8:10 am 12. don baker:

Pinter—good playwright, incredibly bad poet.

Dec 26, 2008 - 8:20 am 13. Andrew Ian Dodge:

Another famous extreme-lefty dies. I think he sullied his great works with his vile politics a long time ago.

Dec 26, 2008 - 8:32 am 14. lucy:

He couldn’t have been a clear thinker for starters. How do you support Castro and revere Che, as they all do, and have a soul? What would this man have to say that was of any value to me at all? Good writer? He had a skill. So does a dancing bear.

Dec 26, 2008 - 8:41 am 15. Ursa Major:

B Dubya says it all for me. But then I was never enamored with Susan Sontag either.I am simply a midwesterner whose great grandfather (my mother’s side) fought as a Northerner in the Civil Way for four years in order to become a US citizen and whose great grandfather on my father’s side came to Ohio in 1827 from New York and hand-cleared 200 contiguous acres in northern Ohio to raise his family, built a modest farmhouse that is still standing today. And so I have that great love and respect for my country that is so derided by “intellectuals,” either in America or Europe. I am now in my mid-70s; my wife and I raised 7 children, all happily married and employed; and we have 12 grandchildren.

I tried reading Pinter years ago, but gave up. Like an earlier post here, I found him boring. That was probably because I do not consider myself to be a post modern deconstructionist, aka “intellectual.”

Yet my faith requires that I wish him R.I.P

Dec 26, 2008 - 8:42 am 16. C.S. Maxwell:

So, Pinter was simultaneously a gifted writer and a morally and politically reprehensible person. How does this make him any different from his 20th century artistic colleagues, the vast majority of whom were also fellow-traveling, useful idiots?
Poetic talent is, as Plato warned us long ago, not only not synonymous with wisdom, it is in (perhaps) the majority of cases, antithetical to it. And if Plato was right (as I’m sure he was) about the artists in his day–the Golden Age of classical genius–how much more so would his insight obtain during an age of conspicuous degeneracy like our own; one in which the philosophical corrosives of modernity have greatly eroded the guiding norms of aesthetic and moral sensibility?

Dec 26, 2008 - 8:51 am 17. Roger L Simon:

Good points, C. S. Maxwell. And it certainly is true that what passes for literary talent today compared to the Greek masters is almost ludicrously thin. But Ursa Major, in fairness to Pinter, reading him is pointless. By far his best writing (and it was early) was for the stage (and scren), meant to be read aloud. Dialog was his talent.

Dec 26, 2008 - 9:19 am 18. ReConUSMC:

One suspects Pinter would have found “No Home, Peace or Joy ” or any Artist Expressions and Freedoms he Bathed in ….In Merry old England … Especially In those Marxist , Dictators driven Countries he hated America and England for trying to bring Freedom and Democracy too .
My wish for Pinter is he would have had to live under Saddam LIVING HELL and his Sons bloody hands for 33 years as did Iraqi’s and 2.3 Million murdered gassed raped and beaten to death later .
One suspects he would have gotten off the totally opinion or beliefs S..T quickly ….duh !
That goes for all these Lefties blogging about the Pricks B/S Greatness .
Pinter was as moronically Blind to common sense and Reality as was Lord Chamberlain to Hitler .
Anti War , Pacifist , Liberals and Socialist in England and America are equally mindless and Blind .

Dec 26, 2008 - 9:35 am 19. ReConUSMC:

Pinter and Jane Fonda have a obvious Commonality …… I love their Work, Art and Job skills but their Politics’ Suck as do their opinions outside of their Body of work !
I have always wondered why anybody cares what Actors , Writers , Jocks , College Professors say about Politics or War .
It turns out the polls all say 90 % of us don’t Trust Nancy Pelosi and her 31 years in Politics or the House of Representatives SHE LEADS .
–Now I would Trust General Petraeus on War Tatics
– Shelby and Michael Steele , Thomas Sowell and Walter Williams on Economics and the Black experience
—- Our founding FATHERS on what Freedom means .
– Washington , Jefferson Adams Politically .
—- Bill Gates on Computers .
——AND LASTLY THE MEDIA ON NOTHING

Dec 26, 2008 - 9:56 am 20. Roger L Simon:

“I have always wondered why anybody cares what Actors , Writers , Jocks , College Professors say about Politics or War.”

With all respect ReConUSMC, I beg to differ slightly. Certainly jocks and actors should be of no particular interest, but what writers have to say about politics and war is of paramount importance to us and always has been from Plato to Sun Tzu to Jefferson and on and on. For good or ill, almost all of our important information in the political sphere comes from writers. I know that sounds self-serving because I am a writer, but it’s the truth. It just depends on who the writer is. Some we like. Some we don’t. (As for college professors, well, I take your point there as well.)

Dec 26, 2008 - 10:03 am 21. david foster:

“a great artist who hated us”…why is this feeling more common in the arts & entertainment, Roger, than in most other fields? There don’t seem to be nearly as many plumbers or welders or electrical engineers or business executives who hold their fellow citizens in general contempt as there are artists/entertainers. Indeed, I suspect that even among academics there is less hostility toward “us” than in arts & entertainment.

Why?

Dec 26, 2008 - 10:04 am 22. Roger L Simon:

“Indeed, I suspect that even among academics there is less hostility toward “us” than in arts & entertainment.

Why?”

david foster, I wrote my book in part to answer that question. You might enjoy reading it.

Dec 26, 2008 - 10:06 am 23. david foster:

Yeah, I’ll certainly be reading your book, Roger.

One other observation: writers and scholars in earlier times often had broader experience of life than their present-day counterparts. Socrates was a decorated combat veteran. Goethe was a counselor to the Duke. And so on. The “professionalization” of literature and scholarship have arguably had the effect of creating and propagating narrow outlooks.

Dec 26, 2008 - 10:13 am 24. ~Paules:

I will leave it to those better qualified to comment on Pinter’s talent as a playwrite. Nevertheless, Pinter clearly demonstrates the decadence of his social circle. What is so moral about ignoring the suffering of the Iraqi people when the U.S. had the means, the legal right, and the duty to put an end to his evil regime? Thousands of innocents died during the invasion, but that is the price sometimes levied by terrible necessities. I suppose that for cowards life under tyranny is preferable to death.

I fear now that the U.S. is sliding toward societal decadence. Too few citizens are willing to work hard and sacrifice for the future while too many feel they are entitled to something for nothing. A vested interest in one’s own life, based on hard work and genuine accomplishment, and the right to retain the fruits of one’s labor are the pillars of a free citizenry. No government can substitute its influence for civic virtue. This is the fundamental error in socialist theory that will lead eventually to perdition.

Too many of our nation’s political and social elites gained their status as a result of marriage, inheritance, financial skullduggery, self-promotion, or dumb luck. The process has a corrosive effect on one’s moral character leading to a sense of entitlement. Meanwhile, the body politic has chosen celebrity status over substance. We are equally to blame. I fear history will condemn us as the lesser sons of greater men. God Save the Republic!

Dec 26, 2008 - 10:14 am 25. david foster:

Regarding Riefenstahl: the question of loyalty to a profession (artistic or otherwise) *versus* loyalty to humanity is addressed in my post Journalism’s Nuremberg.

Dec 26, 2008 - 10:24 am 26. cedarford:

Tom:
Pinter, Nader, Soros, Olberman, Ayers, Vidal, and all of their friends won’t be remembered by anyone 50 years from now.

It is convenient to think that people you ideologically disagree with will be forgotten, but the great artists the Left and fascism (Riefenstahl, Ezra Pound), and Communism (Chagall, Eisenstein, Redgrave) attracted WILL be remembered. For their contributions outside politics.

Vidal for reinventing the historical bio novel (”Burr”, “Lincoln”).
Pinter for his plays, notably in dialogue AND his fearless use of silence and body language outside the spoken roles..
Chomsky (and recently departed wife) for pioneering work in linguistics and language development.
Soros for his financial machinations and for showing how wealth can be applied to new forms of puppeteering the leaders and the masses.
Nader for his initial needed, necessary mechanisms for consumers to be informed and have a path to counter harmful things capitalism and the corporatists were putting on their driveways and in their food and homes. (Then how Nader became diminished as a public scold and professional politician through personal ambition – entering fields he was unfit to be in and taking a fascist turn..)

Binning Olbermann, a ridiculous hack sportscaster who lives with his Mommy, in that group, shows you aren’t thinking well.

I would say that Leni Riefenstahl and Sergei Eisenstein are more “guilt by association” types than the Pinters and Pounds – which directly condemned their countries and other groups and nations they hated. The former extolled in film the glories of the Reich and Stalinist ideology, but were not out condemning groups and nations in specific words.

For what it’s worth, Pinter also had real problems with Soviet-style Communism (but not Castroism) and was at the vanguard with P.E.H. defending Soviet and E European dissident writers. His death brought out a who’s who among noted E European and Russian writers, including Haval, commemorating that side of Pinter.

For my money, he was a talented person who happened to be anti-American, anti-West, anti-Totalitarian. And in his later years, the literary talent was dissipated and he was left stewing in his own bile…So thanks for the plays, Harold, but good riddance, dickhead…

Dec 26, 2008 - 11:02 am 27. M G Prime:

Roger. Three words

Res ipsa loquitur

If the thing is artfully done, it is art. The artefact takes on a life of its own and transcends: time, space, the initial, or then present, intentions of its creator and the context in which it was created.

The bad news. All art is not noble or enobeling It can be degrading or depraved in theme or otherwise subversive of virtues. Leni Riefenstahl made art not because of the “what” (theme) but because of the “how” (treatment and technique).

Perhaps your progressive and or homo sapiens roots are showing. We tend to want all good things to go together with each other. We want art to “elevate” the spirit. We want our heroes to be fundamentally “good” albeit not flawless. We want these comforts

Dec 26, 2008 - 11:13 am 28. Azores:

Or perhaps Pinter was only a big narcisist as almost all the intelectuals.

Dec 26, 2008 - 11:24 am 29. ReConUSMC:

Roger Simon wrote
With all respect ReConUSMC, I beg to differ slightly. Certainly jocks and actors should be of no particular interest, but what writers have to say about politics and war is of paramount importance to us and always has been from Plato to Sun Tzu to Jefferson and on and on.

Too Roger Simon in all due respect . Plato and Jefferson did not write about Warriors OR War Tactics …..They were very skilled politicians and wrote well received work on Politics and other subjects not related to War .
Sun Tzu Wrote about War BUT He was a real Warrior .I had to study him since i was a ReCon Marine and still read him today since his words worked for me as the President of Sealy and very serious business man .
In the last 18 Months many of the so called Conservative ”Writers ” were out to Lunch and LOOK how terrible they treated Sarah Palin is beyond moronic . It was hard to tell the Conservative talking heads and writers from Sick minded Feminist or the jerks in the NYTIMES or MSNBC .
Surly after “”reading “” 90 % of all the Knee Pads Journalist for Obama media .
You SIR one suspects would not look at the NY TIMES , WASHINGTON POST , NEWS WEEK ,NBC , MSNBC , CNN as the Bible of learning, Honesty , Truth on anything .
Spin and leftist agenda …. Oh Yea !

Dec 26, 2008 - 11:38 am 30. ReConUSMC:

Most Journalist , Writers , “”Pinter” , Soros , Ayers Marx and Lenin ..LIVING and Dead would approve of Obama’s vision… Enough Said .

Dec 26, 2008 - 11:47 am 31. geoffrey cain:

I was coerced into seeing a Pinter play at the Royal Theatre, Denmark, a year ago and left in the interval. What a pile of useless garbage, unintersting and deeply UNPLEASANT.

I think that sums up Harold Pinter

Geoffrey Cain

Dec 26, 2008 - 11:53 am 32. fred:

Roger,

I’ve googled up the life and work of people like Pinter and Redgrave before. I realize that perhaps at least peripherally you have had exposure to the people who are writers and artists. Why do these people come to hate capitalism and America so much? It just seems more to me that these people need something hate and to resent, and we’ve become the scapegoats. And they are rarely honest about their lives, so we become spectators to their drama but they offer us no insight into when, how, and why they became Marxists.

I used to be an aspiring academic Marxist many years ago. And I know why I was drawn into the intellectual currents of it. I know when and how it happened and with anyone who would bother to ask me I could give a detailed and honest account for what was going on within my mind and heart. And I can even explain why, when, and how I came to make the journey back in the opposite direction from Marxism.

But people like Pinter and Redgrave leave us no honest accounting for who they are and why they are what they are. I realize these are private matters with many people, but public hate is no longer a private matter. BTW, for the record, with me hate and scapegoating were not factors in my journey. These people shove their vitriol and burning passions right in our faces. They lob their bombs at us, and then move on to another situation and context, whereby they lob more grenades at Western Civilization. They just fling destruction and vitriol at people, and display no hints at any introspection about themselves to account for it all.

Dec 26, 2008 - 12:01 pm 33. Dr. Lumplevin:

Of course Mr. Pinter was a cliché Leftist and hated the very western culture he wrote for and sprung up from. All creative intellectual people, especially sensitive artists are naturally world-weary and filled with deep self-loathing. It is part of their brilliance. That is why Pinter also wrote in theater of the absurd style.

Oh wait.

Dec 26, 2008 - 12:56 pm 34. Instapundit » Blog Archive » ROGER SIMON: Harold Pinter passes: the death of a great artist who hated us. …:

[...] ROGER SIMON: Harold Pinter passes: the death of a great artist who hated us. [...]

Dec 26, 2008 - 1:29 pm 35. ricpic:

Ionesco’s Rhinoceros will last because in it Ionesco really said something. Did Pinter ever say anything? When you get past his ability to conjure up dread, empty dread, I don’t think he said a thing.

Dec 26, 2008 - 1:56 pm 36. Eric Jablow:

I would not consign Leni Riefenstahl to the Ninth Circle of Hell; she did not betray her family, country, or benefactor. That’s her problem, really. She supported her evil benefactor too much. The Eighth Circle, Malebolge, would be more appropriate. I’m not sure whether she would best be consigned to the second Bolgia of the flatterers or the ninth Bolgia of the sowers of discord.

Ezra Pound betrayed his country; freeze him in Antenora in the Ninth Circle.

Dec 26, 2008 - 2:01 pm 37. progressoverpeace:

The fact is that Pinter’s writing is nothing Earth-shattering and the world would get along just fine if he had never written a single word. Therefore, his idiotic political stance is enough to declare that the world is better off without him. Period.

People who work in the arts tend to take themselves, and their art, far too seriously and like to think that their impact is much greater than it actually is. A few great plays don’t add up to much of anything, but loud, stupid stances against civilization do mean something.

Good riddance, and without any qualms, whatsoever.

Dec 26, 2008 - 2:03 pm 38. Agoraphobic Plumber:

I was of an artsy-fartsy bent as a young man in the 80s, but have since lost all interest in the theater and don’t know much about Pinter.

But it seems to me that Roger regards Pinter in somewhat the same light that I regard John Mellencamp. His political views are pretty odious, but hey, the guy gave us “Jack and Diane”, “The Authority Song”, and so many others. Given that Mellencamp’s (and Pinter’s) importance in the political world is nil, I think it’s reasonable to judge them both on the work they did in the world where they made their name.

And I’m sorry, but if you came of age in the 80s, Mellencamp ROCKED. He was a major part of the soundtrack of my youth.

Dec 26, 2008 - 2:06 pm 39. hermie:

People like Pinter, Redgrave, etc basically moved around in their own anti-American circles and only ventured out of them to insult those who disagreed with them. Pinter grew more bitter towards America because all he had was a group of fellow anti-Americans who worshipped his past work. He basically ’stewed in his own juices’, and wasted the final years of his life in bitterness.

Dec 26, 2008 - 2:07 pm 40. Mwalimu Daudi:

[Pinter's] politics, I think, was mostly governed by chic, veering as he did to the left in the 1980s to be part of the typical London theater crowd (cf. Vanessa Redgrave).

I have been reading an interesting book written by a survivor of the Rwandan genocide. The excuse used by at least some of the killers in that genocide was that if they did not kill they would be killed. All too true.

So what was Pinter’s alibi? Was his life in danger? Pinter was a walking and talking obscenity, a moral monster that used his influence to support the cause of a murderous butcher called Saddam. The “chic” excuse magnifies, rather than lessens, his culpability, since it was nothing but a self-serving effort to fit in rather than stand up against one of history’s worst dictators.

Dec 26, 2008 - 2:09 pm 41. Mike_K:

Reading this make me appreciate even more a writer whose biography I recently discovered and read. Mary Renault wrote some of the very early novels with gay life as a theme and was fairly successful. She also was a trained nurse and, with her companion, worked a brutal schedule during the war. In 1948, she and her companion, Julie, took a ship to South Africa to escape post war England and there she began her novels of ancient Greece. Some of those novels have been used by classical scholars as examples of daily life in classical and pre-classical Greece. She marched in protest to Apartheid and entertained gay actors and writers when it was not fashionable to do so. She was an Oxford graduate who went to nursing school and knew Tolkein as a don. As far as I am concerned, she is a far more important literary figure with her novels all in print 25 years after her death. I can do without Pinter although I will take your word for his importance in his little circle.

Dec 26, 2008 - 2:11 pm 42. Stephen:

Roger,

You ask, “What do we do with great artists whose political ideas are anathema to us?”

The answer is straight forward. You do nothing at all. You weigh his political views in light of the evidence at hand. His political views are entitled to no greater respect for the greatness of his artistry.

That anyone is swayed by his political views because of his position as a great artist speaks more to the person swayed than to the views of the artist. That artists like Pinter are given greater access to the media to express their views speaks more to the motivation and views of those who amplify his voice.

Why should anyone be persuaded by his views on anything other than the art at which he excels simply for having been voiced by him? This does not rise even to level of a fallacy by appeal to authority.

Dec 26, 2008 - 2:18 pm 43. Assistant Village Idiot:

I echo the Ionesco-not-Pinter sentiment. But on the other topic, I wonder if artists lean to extreme political beliefs because of their superior imaginations and inferior objectivity? They see the everyday problems of their culture and can envision them in full extension – the subtle slights perceived as full bigotry, irritation as rage, disapproval as censorship and fascism. They over-interpret what is around them because they can imagine it. But events farther away, whatever the actual facts, are less real to them.

An analogy: therapists adopt a neutrality and unblaming attitude in order to come alongside a patient. That is professionally appropriate. But it is a bad mode of thought to bring into the real world of judgment.

In both cases, the needed professional skill is not an interesting sidelight to moral stupidity, but its actual cause.

Dec 26, 2008 - 2:21 pm 44. Oligonicella:

Well hell, I was going to say what a lot already have, but I will 2cent.

“I will forgive Harold Pinter his political excrescences on his death.”

I will forgive him nothing of any loathsome character that he has done. Why should I? Certainly not because he wrote plays.

Interesting you pointed out Plato to Sun Tzu to Jefferson. None of these men were writers. They were people who wrote. Big, big difference.

Dec 26, 2008 - 2:22 pm 45. Roughcoat:

You’re over-thinking the issue. So what if he was a great writer? He was an awful person. I’m tired of great writers–or great anythings–who are awful people. The world is, actually, swarming them: people of ability who contribute to making our lives miserable. Good riddance to him. Whether or not he rests in peace is not up to me. I’m just glad he’s gone.

Dec 26, 2008 - 2:27 pm 46. Roughcoat:

Or, more simply put: God rot great but awful people.

I’ve dealt with such people all my life. Haven’t we all?

Dec 26, 2008 - 2:30 pm 47. MarkJ:

If one is into the “Theater of the Absurd” and “minimalism” then our nominees for the 2009 Nobel are no-brainers:

1. Barack Obama: our first “minimalist president,” for saying absolutely nothing better than anyone else on the planet.

2. Congress: Harold Pinter in his wildest flight of fancy couldn’t dream up an entity more absurd than this one.

Dec 26, 2008 - 2:35 pm 48. Michael Ledeen:

I confess to having been bored by Pinter’s plays; after a little while i stopped going. i did see zero mostel in rinoceros, after which it’s hard to imagine skinny old olivier in the role, but i loved the play.

The issue of art vs. goodness is very old, ask socrates. in modern times, the times after the french revolution, the times in which the word ‘intellectual’ took on meaning, most artists and intellectuals saw themselves in opposition to ‘the system’ or ‘the society.’ Epatez le bourgeois, etc. Pinter was one of those. But such a posture imposes loneliness, and that proves unbearable for most of the artists/intellectuals. So they became easy prey for the ideological mass movements, in which they imagine themselves as leaders, or at least as little consiglieri to The Prince. That was Pound, for example. He really adored il Duce and he really hated America. Look at all the deep thinkers who really loved Stalin. Or Mao.

Last thought: it is not unusual for a great artist to overcome his own ideological failings. Brecht wrote Mother Courage imagining it would be the ultimate anti-war play, but when you see it on the stage, it’s a heartrending hymn to a brave woman who loses her men to war, but the war ultimately becomes a noble calling. I don’t think Pinter ever overcame his ideology.

Dec 26, 2008 - 2:46 pm 49. Mister Snitch!:

“His politics, I think, was mostly governed by chic, veering as he did to the left in the 1980s to be part of the typical London theater crowd.”

And that’s pretty typical – artists take the views acceptable to their peers. The further they champion those views, the more they themselves are lauded (particularly if their books/plays/movies are doing well already).

But you already know this. You’re living the flip side of it, aren’t you?

Dec 26, 2008 - 2:57 pm 50. Mister Snitch!:

…on the other hand, David Mamet has declared himself ‘no longer a brain-dead liberal’. Naturally, his ‘divergence tolerant’ peers have not stopped bashing him.

Dec 26, 2008 - 3:05 pm 51. Ellen:

He hates me; he’s dead. I feel those two concepts go well together, though I’m not about to work to make the pairing come about.

Dec 26, 2008 - 3:11 pm 52. Wolla Dalbo:

I guess I am a troglodyte.

I do not think that the “genius” label, self-applied or applied to anyone who calls himself an “artist,” should exempt that person from having his or her morality and behavior evaluated and judged by the same standards as are used to evaluate and judge the morality and behavior of average people–the janitor at the local grade school, the butcher down the corner, the head of a corporation, or the local doctor or accountant.

The “sociological defense.” i.e. “I’m depraved because I’m deprived.” satisfies neither Officer Krupke nor me, for, after all, a lot of people grow up in deprivation, yet most turn out all right, and are not nasty, repellent, self-centered creatures, or moral monsters.

It also seems to me that you cannot compartmentalize such a genius’s art, and their art and their morality and behavior are not two entirely separate things–one side seeps into, colors the other, informs and influences it.

It seems to me that, by virtue of being considered artists and “geniuses,” a lot of people have been allowed to get away with a lot of immoral, stupid, crazy and, in fact, nasty, rude, selfish, barbaric and crude–if not criminal–behavior. I think these “artistic geniuses” should be held to the same standards as the rest of us; art does not make up for all, and they should not be cut any slack.

P.S. I am reminded of a Professor of Art History I once took a course from, whose sole criteria for judging national leaders was apparently the attention they paid to their country’s national monuments. Thus, in this professor’s book, Mussolini deserved a lot of praise, because he preserved Italian monuments and antiquities, and all his other actions were completely overlooked and irrelevant.

Dec 26, 2008 - 3:33 pm 53. Zimriel:

Renault achieved her position for “The King Must Die”, her attempt to graft the Theseus myth into Arthur Evans’s Knossos. I understood that when I realised that Stephen Lawhead’s “Taliesin” novel later plagiarised its bull-leaping scenes. However since 1987 or so, we’ve known that the burning of Knossos (consensus now as then: 1425-50 BC) postdated the eruption of Thera (consensus now: 1625-50 BC) by some centuries.

Interesting that you claim that Renault supported homosexual rights and opposed apartheid. In “The King Must Die”, Renault inserted a comic character from Canaan who treated the Minoan bull as a pagan god, and refused to defend himself against the bull in the arena. His scenes were a deliberate parody of the Christian martyrdom stories.

In its sequel “The Bull From The Sea”, she treated Theseus as a king above human laws, who received his divine right from the pagan gods especially Poseidon.

Renault was a progressive fascist. She would have got along famously with Mussolini circa 1925 (although admittedly not Hitler).

Lawhead is a hack and nobody thinks he’ll be remembered. The same fate awaits Renault.

Dec 26, 2008 - 3:41 pm 54. Stephen Rittenberg:

Gertrude Stein tried to get the Nobel Peace Prize for HItler in 1936. ‘Nuff said. Writers, quite naturally, overvalue words and tend to envy men of action, hence are drawn to the likes of Stalin, Hitler and Mao.

Dec 26, 2008 - 3:49 pm 55. Bleepless:

Then there’s Richard Wagner, a total loss as a human being.

Dec 26, 2008 - 4:02 pm 56. MarkD:

To answer your question, “not if we want to survive.”

Dec 26, 2008 - 4:12 pm 57. chuck:

Add Celine to the list. Orwell used him as an example in an essay addressing the problem of great artists with despicable views.

Dec 26, 2008 - 4:23 pm 58. Mondocko:

Very rarely, an obituary makes me smile.

Pinter’s was one of those rare occasions.

Dec 26, 2008 - 4:24 pm 59. Sgt. Mom:

I wonder if Mr. Pinter did not fall into the trap – which seems to be common of a certain sort of international intellectual – of adopting as their boogy-man of choice a sort of generated, created and fake America. This would be a sort vision of America and Americans cobbled together of all the nasty bits, some of it generated by everyone from the old Soviet propaganda machine and their fellow-travelers, to all sorts of smug Euro-snobs, resentful at having their proper place in the sun usurped – and even some of our own very dear intellectual elites. Oh, dear, those crude, rude and awful Americans, with no culture, no heritage, no manners, their guns and their egalitarianism – and their awful bossy, neo-fascist government! Imagine, them having the nerve to think they can fix anything, do any better!
Of course, the worst of this stuff comes from our own very exile intellectuals. But I am amused sometimes, to read of the experiences of assorted Euro and South American intellectuals, who actually come to visit the real America, outside the right and left coasts… and discover to their shock and amazement, that ordinary America is polite, well-mannered, racially tolerant, and generally is welcoming towards a wide assortment of stuff that they have always preened themselves about their own tolerance and appreciation of.

Poor Mr. Pinter – I wonder if he ever visited an American military base in a place like Korea, or a American neighborhood of Cambodian or Vietnamese refugees?

Celia Hayes
Author – “The Adelsverein Trilogy
http://www.celiahayes.com

Dec 26, 2008 - 4:56 pm 60. Gringo:

Warning: I write this from memory, not from having the information in front of me.

Back in 1988 the Index on Censorship published an article by Harold Pinter. In the article Pinter stated that recently released US State Department documents written by (IIRC)”Secretary of State George Kennan” (Yes, I realize that Kennan was never Sec. of State, but IIRC Pinter stated that was Kennan’s position.) in the late 1940s showed that the US had even back then a “to hell with everybody else” and “we will do our best to take over the world and if not bomb it into oblivion” type of mentality. ( This is from memory). As I lived a short distance from a world-class university library, I easily retrieved the microfiche/microfilm of George Kennan that Pinter referred to. I discovered that Pinter had completely misrepresented what Kennan had written. Kennan’s position paper had the tone that the US had limited power in the postwar world. After that investigation I ignored anything that Pinter said or wrote.

I do not believe that this was Kennan’s famous article on the cold war, authored by “X.” After all, that was published in the 1940s/)

Dec 26, 2008 - 5:15 pm 61. Войска ПВО:

lucy writes:

“How do you support Castro and revere Che, as they all do, and have a soul?”

Lucy, one wonders why these tools — irrespective of talent and artisic contribution line up on the side of the murderous Castro brothers and Guevara like they do.

Parentetically, we had best brace ourselves, because the 50th anniversary of Fidel Castro’s revolution is upon us, replete with media adulation and sycophantic adoration.

Dec 26, 2008 - 6:09 pm 62. Marie Claude:

I have been watching a theater play, “the caretaker” ; In the french version, Robert Hirsch was extraordinary in the main part. (the writer Philippe Djian made the dialogues adaptation) It’s been a long time that the TV didn’t attract me, though I couldn’t resist and enjoy watching that play. May-be due to the actor part and the excellent dialogues.

Otherwise, I am discovering a bit more of Harold Pinter on that board
__________

Chuck, “Celine” was a “monster” in all senses, A great stylist writer and an abject person

Dec 26, 2008 - 6:19 pm 63. SukieTawdry:

I enjoyed “Betrayal” and several of his screen treatments (most notably “The French Lieutenant’s Woman”), but generally have little regard for America-hating, Commie-loving, elitist “artistes.” Like so many others of his persuasion, Pinter was grossly overrated by the literati who embraced him more for his utter disdain for western civilization than his actual talent (and besides, anyone who can seriously compare GWB to Hitler is undeserving of additional heed). His Nobel Prize was just one of many awarded this decade to recipients whose worthiness was in direct proportion to their willingness to repudiate George Bush’s America. Nevertheless, RIP, Mr. Pinter, and may you find enlightenment.

Dec 26, 2008 - 8:44 pm 64. Richard Aubrey:

Many artists depend for their living on the constant approval of the smallest possible in-group, their peers and a few critics. This makes them bankable, as long as the echo chamber is consistent.
Jack London wrote a partially autobiographical novel about a writer, once a sailor, whose early work became good and accepted and famous once he became famous. What was wrong with it then? he asked himself.
If the echo chamber remains consistent, the rest of us who want to be considered in the know can’t possibly disagree with the Kewl Kids.
So, an aggressive surrender to the generally accepted views of the echo chamber is a financial necessity.
Some guys take it too far. They even believe it.

Dec 26, 2008 - 9:03 pm 65. Lokesh Pathak:

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Dec 27, 2008 - 2:42 am 66. Adam Maas:

One thing to recall is it’s rarely the artists whose primary audience is literati who are recalled as geniuses, especially with the written word.

It’s those whose audience is the masses, along with a few great thinkers who write primarily for a wider audience (As did Plato, Socrates, all of the great Roman authors)

Shakespeare? The Jerry Bruckheimer of his age. Dickens? The Stephen King of his.

How many Authors of the 50’s and 60’s are still widely read today? Or even have most of their work in print. Tolkien, Heinlein, Asimov top that list, along with folks like Louis L’Amour and Zane Grey. All ‘genre’ fiction that’s derided by the Literati and enjoyed by the masses. Very few of the literati of that era ever made reprints (And Kerouac likely tops that, another writer to a wide audience).

Pinter’s going to be forgotten outside of a few specialists and the inevitable University English Program circle-jerks.

Dec 27, 2008 - 7:07 am 67. ReConUSMC:

Too Richard Aubrey

One suspects Jack London and Pinter will drink from the same glass of Kool Aid and Gin in Hell along with Mao Stalin and Hitler .
But knowing the Last Threesomes history . One suspects London and Pinter will Die of Thirst first .
Of couse Mao , Stalin and Hitler will promise them they are all equal with Masterful words and deep seeded convictions .
Now listen to Obama . Scary !

Dec 27, 2008 - 8:06 am 68. libmeister:

A boring, partisan twit. Why all the fuss? He was a Bush-hating moonbat to the core and he lived in a house of cards of his own making while being slobbered over by the left-wing glitterati.

He contributed nothing of significance to bettering our way of life, to actually improve Americans’ living standards in any real sense. When all is said and done, his “works” were mere distractions of fiction, certainly no biblical epic upon which to build civilizations. Go ahead and lionize this foppish pointy head, he’s no hero to me given he was one to avail himself of the First Amendment and never to secure it for others like American soldiers on the frontiers of freedom.

Life under Islamofascism would have been very interesting revelation to people like Pinter, people who have their heads stuck in the sand about the real threats to our way of life – and Bush was no threat to any freedom loving American.

Dec 27, 2008 - 8:09 am 69. steve simels:

the death of a great artist who hated us

I really hate to belabor the obvious, but in the immortal words of the Lone Ranger’s faithful Indian companion, what you mean “us”, white man?

Seriously — that’s the most blindingly un-self aware thing I’ve read since Rick Warren claimed some of his best friends were gay.

Dec 27, 2008 - 8:11 am 70. libmeister:

Bush was no threat to any freedom loving American … or anyone else in the Western world where real freedom rings.

Dec 27, 2008 - 8:14 am 71. Derek Wall:

take a look at Pinter’s remarkable Nobel Prize speech, even though he was severly ill then he made the most impressive speech…language he argued is used to prevent thought.

Dec 27, 2008 - 8:37 am 72. Roger’s Rules » Unpleasant thoughts about Harold Pinter:

[...] Roger L. Simon, for example, rightly abominated Pinter’s repulsive politics but nonetheless confessed that he found himself “in awe” of Pinter the playwright ever since seeing an early [...]

Dec 27, 2008 - 8:47 am 73. JerryT:

I’ve already forgotten Pinter. His views clouded and diluted any literary qualities of his writing.

Dec 27, 2008 - 9:26 am 74. Minerva:

So Roger, what happened with your jury trial? Did it settle or did it go to the jury? Were you elected foreman? Can you write about it?

Dec 27, 2008 - 11:11 am 75. william (not a prince):

The Wik article on Pinter points out his spirited defense of Milosovic. Many leftists are supportive of Castro but to support Milosovic you have to reach a level of Marxist enlightenment that few have reached…It is not surprising that given their ideology so many Marxist leaders become genocidal maniacs. What I cannot understand is how it is possible that someone of genuine talent and insight like Pinter become apologists for such vileness….Someday I hope a great artist comes along and captures the contradictions and betrayals necessary to live and prosper in a capitalist country while flacking for its overthrow….Whatever his skills as an artist, as a human being Pinter was a second rate fraud. I think he knew that.

Dec 27, 2008 - 11:39 am 76. Mary Madigan:

Of Pinter’s anti-Western ideas, journalist Johann Hari says:

Pinter often fumes about tyranny, but equally fumes about people who resist it. During the Second World War, Pinter called the British Army uniform ”a shit-suit” (his talk is filled with faeces) and during the war against the Nazis he declared, “I am never going to put a shit-suit on for anyone.” Just a few years later, Europe was being threatened to the East by a Stalinist tyranny that had already murdered 30 million people, and the Labour left – led by Nye Bevan – was (rightly) supporting the airlifts to occupied Berlin. But Pinter called this “ridiculous”. When he was called up for army service, he became a conscientious objector, deriding the people backing free Berlin as “fools.”..

..on Pinter’s defense of Serbian nationalists

..So when there was ethnic cleansing two days’ drive from Auschwitz, Pinter’s response was to defend the aggressor and attack the victims. While much of the left – decent people like Peter Tatchell, Michael Foot and Susan Sontag – were calling for democratic countries to arm the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) to defend the ethnic Albanians from racist murder, Pinter described the KLA as “a bandit organisation” that was “actually” responsible for the ethnic cleansing in the region. Watching the trial, Pinter said admiringly, “Milosevic is giving them a run for their money.” He now says his position is that Slobodan should be released until “the real criminals”, Bill Clinton and Tony Blair, join him in the dock.

Human Rights Watch – and others who know something about the Balkans – have responded to Pinter’s position with horror. Its director, Richard Dicker, says, “This is not victors’ justice – this is justice for the victims of horrific crimes. Slobodan Milosvic was at the top of the chain of command of military and security forces that wrought mayhem in Kosovo in early 1999.” Pinter repeatedly says the “real” crimes began after the NATO bombing campaign, but most of the crimes Milosevic is charged with were committed in Bosnia-Herzegovina between 1992 and 1995…

..I once tried to discuss his defence of Milosevic with him and he began to scream – literally scream – at me.
Unless there is a new Nobel Prize for rage-induced incoherence, Harold Pinter’s shouting should not be beamed into Stockholm this weekend.

If Pinter’s fantasies were restricted to fictional writing, he could be judged as an artist, but Pinter’s leftist-activist fantasies have influenced the world of politics and journalism. As a political activist and as a human being, he was not ‘great’ in any way.

Dec 27, 2008 - 4:26 pm 77. Mikey NTH:

If you hate your fellow humans, what kind of art can you produce? What is art without an audience but one person talking to himself? I would say that it is pretty one-dimensional at that point, a one-trick-pony.

N.B. – This is just musing on the post above, and not on the life and work of Harold Pinter per se.

Dec 27, 2008 - 4:51 pm 78. Mike_K:

Roger, David Pryce-Jones seems to hold Pinter in lesser esteem than you do.

At another dinner he praised Ayatollah Khomeini for his anti-Americanism, and again I responded, only to discover that he had never before heard the terms Shia and Sunni. He caught prejudices in the air as other people might catch colds, and he lacked the information with which to cure them.

Dec 27, 2008 - 5:41 pm 79. ganderson:

It’s time to get out the episode of Seinfeld that was done backward-one of the characters was names ‘Pinter’

Dec 27, 2008 - 8:05 pm 80. Dave Surls:

Pinter was the scum of the earth, and the world is a much better place now that he’s not in it.

He was also a talentless hack, and if ever you’ve had the misfortune to read his “poetry”, you’ll know what I mean.

Dec 27, 2008 - 10:16 pm 81. piggle:

Hating your own world is for an ‘artist’ a guaranteed way to create drama, which they feed off. Supporting terrible dictators and evil regimes generates controversy, which propels the ‘artist’ into higher adulation in the small circles in which they move.

Perhaps Pinter felt so inclined.

Dec 29, 2008 - 11:42 am 82. deguello:

Another semi-talented “artist” and commie sympathizer, living a capitalist lifestyle,croaks.GOOD RIDDANCE!

Dec 30, 2008 - 1:06 pm 83. scaramouche:

I’d read your fellow PJ’er Roger Kimball on the subject. I think he nails it: http://pajamasmedia.com/rogerkimball/2008/12/27/unpleasant-thoughts-about-harold-pinter/

Dec 30, 2008 - 1:24 pm 84. scott:

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Dec 31, 2008 - 12:56 am 85. Mike:

Not to dispute that Pinter’s politics were pretty bad. But why is it that people on the right often seem to have such sophmoric literary/artistic taste? Asimov? Mellencamp? Tolkein and CS Lewis?

Jan 1, 2009 - 8:31 am 86. TalkinKamel:

Mike, haven’t read Mellencamp, but what’s so sophomoric about Lewis, Tolkien and Asimov? (Do you consider all science fiction “sophomoric” simply because it’s science fiction? All fantasy, just because it’s fantasy?)

Myself, I don’t think there’s anything on the planet more sophomoric than the endless stream of “Yuppie scum in love” novels churned out by supposedly serious writers (sometimes varied by “Rich yuppie scum in love in Manhattan” novels), or hating your own country, and/or worshipping bloodthirsty despots, or pushing Communism/socialism, despite the fact it’s never worked, and never will. Now THAT’S sophomoric! I’ll take elves, Narnia or voyages into space over that sort of dreck any day!

Jan 4, 2009 - 7:38 pm

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