Complete Works, Volume I

HAROLD Pinter's career as a playwright is highly distinguished by anyone's reckoning. Many critics have no reservations in calling him 'our greatest living playwright'. But few would argue that it is on a handful of stage plays, from The Birthday Party, The Caretaker, and The Homecoming in the late 1950s and early 1960s, to Old Times, No Man's Land, and Betrayal in the 1970s, that his reputation rests. In recent times, Pinter's celebrity has depended more on his politics than on his plays. The master of the dramatic pause now seems more of a rebel without a pause, taking almost every opportunity to make moral pronouncements on current affairs. A scathing critic of US foreign policy and British Government support for it, he was prominent in the popular campaign against the recent Iraq war, even penning a poem in the lead-up to the conflict: 'Here they go again/The Yanks in their armoured parade/Chanting their ballads of joy/As they gallop across the big world/Praising America's God...' In an earlier letter to the New York Review of Books in 1994, Pinter differentiated US foreign policy from the mass murder inspired by Hitler, Stalin and Mao only on the grounds of its moral hypocrisy: 'The great difference between the ruthless foreign policy of the US and other equally ruthless policies is that US propaganda is infinitely cleverer and the Western media wonderfully compliant'.

Harold Pinter is arguably one of the most important playwrights to come out of England in the past 100 years. His plays resonate in the minds of his audience, not for what is said, but for what is left unspoken. The plays in this edition show Pinter at his best as a writer and are valuable to the reader. Also recommended: REDEFINING THE 'SELF': SELECTED ESSAYS ON SWIFT, POE, PINTER, AND JOYCE by John Condon Murray

Harold Pinter, what more can be said than that he is one of the most important playwrights to come out of England in the past 100+ years."The Dumb Waiter," shows Pinter's dark indoor confussion at its best. "The Birthday Party," is twisted and fully capable of playing tricks with a reader's mind.Anyone who enjoys Pinter, Samual Beckett (Pinter's mentor & author of "Waiting for Godot," as well as countless other pieces), or good absurd theater would be well advised to purchase this set of plays, short stories etc.Early works of Pinter, show him at his best as a writer and this edition gives a great value. There are a lot of plays, an essay, and a couple of short stories, all in a book that does not cost too much more than an average "Grove Press," single play."Complete Works 1," will take you to some fascinating but dark places, and at the end you will be ready and excited to buy the second (then third, then fourth) edition(s) of Pinter's "Complete Works."

If you must have Pinter and are short of cash, this volume is THE must have(although I'd recommend all four volumes). Three classic Pinter plays are included in this volume: The Birthday Party, The Room, and The Dumb Waiter. For those of you new to Pinter, more than likely it was one of these plays that turned you on to him. However, the selling point of this volume is not actually the plays, but the outstanding introduction entitled "Writing for the Theatre" which is a 1962 speech made by Pinter himself. Any aspiring playwright as well as those immersed in all that is Pinteresque will find this introduction both profound and useful. On another note, for Pinter completists, be advised that The Birthday Party, The Room, and The Dumb Waiter are on VHS. The Dumb Waiter and The Room are difficult to find, but rest assured they're out there. In short, if you must have Pinter, this is the volume to get.

The Birthday Party is an unparalleled classic, and is nothing like anything that Ionesco has ever written. This book is worth buying just for that.