Harold Pinter Wins Nobel Prize for Literature 2005

This was announced last week, and i still cannot get over the shock that Harold Pinter of all writers and playwrights won the Nobel Prize for Literature!!! Not to say I don't like his writing, in fact I do. There is something sparse yet magical about his plays, not to mention that it can be awfully perverse and strange. He is famous for his "pauses". His play goes something like this:

Boy: You know what?

(pause)

Boy: Do you?

(pause)

Girl: I don't like butter.

(pause)

Boy: What about butter? I asked you if you knew what I am thinking.

(pause)

Girl: Butter.

(pause)

Boy: (pause) Yeah.

Though I am OVER-SIMPLIFYING the complexity of Pinter's plays, this is essentially the shape of his plays. As you can see it is highly stylized and it looks like no other play in the world. In fact, I dare say his style is so unique that it is almost recognizable everywhere.

The thing is, It is just that there are so many authors who deserve to be honored with the Nobel prize for Literature, and I am not sure if Pinter got the prize because he is like, one of the last remaining great playwrights alive. Maybe I am reading too much into this but, when I compare J.M Coetzee, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2003 and good ol'Pinter... the discrepency is just huge.

Not to mention that people will start buying really costly editions of his plays now....