A smart, absorbing blend of criticism and biography that demythologizes the writings of Britain's premier postwar dramatist. London theater critic Billington draws on interviews with Pinter (born 1930), his friends, and his co-workers to explore the links between the writer's personal experience and such plays as The Birthday Party and Betrayal; screenplays, including The Servant and Remains of the Day; and numerous television and radio dramas. This penetrating book discovers a good deal of autobiography in works previously thought to be forbiddingly abstract and philosophical. Billington argues persuasively, for example, that the frequent portraits of male camaraderie in Pinter's plays are based on the tightly knit group of boys with whom he formed lifelong friendships during their youth in London's Jewish East End. The critic's careful explication also convincingly refutes the idea that Pinter made an abrupt shift in the 1980s to become a ``protest'' playwright; Billington shows that the early works, which unflinchingly depict personal struggles for power, were just as politically charged, albeit more covertly. Some points are debatable, such as the contention that Pinter takes an essentially feminist view of male/female conflicts, and Billington tends to make all his points rather repetitiously. The book deals fairly evenhandedly with the combative playwright's private life, although his first marriage, to actress Vivien Merchant, is described almost exclusively from Pinter's point of view. (His second wife, historian Antonia Fraser, gets gentler treatment.) These are forgivable faults in a generally solid piece of research combined with a thoughtful analysis of Pinter's place in contemporary theater. Billington's knowledge of world dramatic literature and theatrical history puts his American colleagues to shame. Pinter's work has been obfuscated as often as illuminated by critics over the past 40 years; Billington combines intelligence with accessibility to create a fine theater book for the general reader.
Pub Date: March 24, 1997
ISBN: 0-571-17103-6
Page Count: 326
Publisher: Faber & Faber/Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 1997
A well-researched but dull account of the hungry, unkempt days of early television. Written by film director Ritchie (The Candidate, etc.), the book shows the chaotic beginnings that justified the once widely held belief that this gimmicky new technology had no future. A fuzzy picture was first telecast on a bulky monitor with a tiny screen in the 1920s by Philo T. Farsworth, a high school student in rural Utah. But it would be another 20 years before television was taken seriously in America. Ritchie chronicles many of TV's historic firsts. In 1927, for example, future president Herbert Hoover was the first public official to speak in front of a ``televisor'' in Washington D.C., while his wife appeared from New York. They were followed by a comedian in black-face who called his routine ``a new line of jokes in negro dialect.'' Television's first commercial was illegal, but this did not stop broadcasters from soliciting commercials. NBC earned seven dollars in 1937 for simply showing the face of a Bulova watch. Many of the early (live) commercials were more than artistic disasters: A newly invented ``automatic'' Gillette safety razor would not open on camera, and the hostess of a Tenderleaf tea commercial mistakenly lauded the quality of Lipton tea. The first television newscasts were also tentative affairs. News was considered the exclusive domain of radio, of which television was then a poor cousin; CBS's first newscast featured Lowell Thomas talking in front of a stack of sponsor Sonoco's oil cans. The BBC was technologically ahead of US companies, but it abruptly stopped transmission (in the middle of a Mickey Mouse cartoon) when WW II broke out. A historical video would be better than written narrative for this material. The 77 black-and-white photos provided here hold the nonspecialist's attention, while the text rarely does.
Pub Date: Oct. 30, 1994
ISBN: 0-87951-546-5
Page Count: 280
Publisher: Overlook
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1994
A thoughtful, well-presented argument about an issue many people face.
A doctor’s manifesto about terminally ill patients’ right to die.
While many Americans believe that the terminally ill should be able to choose to end their lives, the medical profession, the courts and the government mostly remain beholden to traditional and religious beliefs about the sanctity of life. Preston, a medical professor for more than 20 years, argues that it is time to re-evaluate those ethics in light of today’s technology and its ability to prolong life beyond its natural course. The author writes that confusion and misconception pervade most discussions about aid in dying. He distinguishes "patient-directed dying" or "aid in dying" from terms like "physician-assisted suicide” or "euthanasia." In his analysis, the word "suicide" should not apply to someone who is dying with no hope of recovery. Euthanasia, on the other hand, refers to someone other than the patient administering a lethal drug. Patient-directed dying is when a terminally ill individual is able to request and obtain a prescription for medication to end his or her life, under guidelines set to guard against abuse. Through four composite stories based on situations Preston has witnessed from counseling terminally ill patients and their families, he reveals the suffering caused by prohibitions against patient-directed dying. He adds that doctors must be more willing to care for patients when curing them is no longer possible, and recognize that exhausting every medical treatment, no matter how slim the chances of success, often just prolongs suffering. Preston states his case persuasively, illustrates the need for patient-directed dying as an option, counters arguments often made against it and suggests compromises to address concerns on both sides of the debate.
A thoughtful, well-presented argument about an issue many people face.Pub Date: Feb. 6, 1936
ISBN: 978-1-58348-461-2
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 27, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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