According to the Swedish Academy, Pinter is a writer “who in his plays uncovers the precipice under everyday prattle and forces entry into oppression’s closed rooms.” As with every Nobel Prize, one wonders at the political context–is the above comment a dig at the ongoing trial-free detentions at Gitmo?All in all, I think most people (who care about such things) will believe that Pinter deserves it. Perhaps his political writing in recent years has been at best self-indulgent, at worst puerile. (See here for one of his most recent poems). But his plays–ranging from “The Birthday Party” in 1957 to arguably his last major work for the stage “Betrayal” (1978)–created a world, a mood, and a language that can only be described by the phrase “Pinteresque”. And I think once you’re responsible for an eponymous adjective entering the language, the Nobel should be yours.On an incidental note, it’s amusing that people like myself feel little compunction about commenting about writers’ worthiness for gongs such as the Nobel or even the Booker Prize. For example, how many blogs discussed whether these guys really made that important a contribution to the quantum theory of optical coherence?