Harold Pinter: A Question of Timing by Martin S. Regal (review)

Book Reviews than the masculinist critical mode has so far produced" (47). There are two potential problems with this polemic. First, it is not at all clear rnal collaboration will produce something that a large group of people might agree is bener criticism. Second. and perhaps more important, Merritt seems to imply that the practices (and perhaps the motives) of "masculinist" critical strategists are out of line with the goal of achieving "a more ethical and caring society." That this observation seems not born out by the interviews she herself includes in her book is unaddressed. But beyond that, the contention (which seems to impugn the integrity of those who would argue for a competitive model of scholarly excellence) is not logically self-evident. There seem to be spheres of human endeavor where competition does (is even designed to) produce eth· ical results (a court proceeding to establish child custody, for instance). Criticism may be one of those endeavors. Merritt seems not-even to consider the possibility. To say that the priorities of academic publishing are misordered, or that too much emphasis is placed on certain types of work, or even that much could be accomplished by fostering collaboration instead of cutthroat competition, constitutes interesting and legitimate metacritical commentary. But to ask people to act more «responsibly," as Merritt does on several occasions, may be seen as condescending by many readers. It is perhaps ironic that Merritt's emphasis in her final chapter is on the ability of the newlycreated Pinter Society to "foster greater collegiality among Pinter critics" and to strengthen relations between Pinter scholars and Pinter himself (267). Yet the very clubbiness of this arrangement raises some interesting issues. Is it always good for scholars to proceed collaboratively, or is not intellectual conflict sometimes the most enlightening form of interaction? And what downsides might emerge from critics being, or even being perceived to be, "in bed with" the object of their criticisms? In the end Merritt concludes only that "we need to recognize the importance of both individual and community - and their simultaneous interactions" (271). Such a conclusion is hardly groundbreaking, and at the end of a book that has very little positive to say about individualism, is somewhat suspect as well. Pinter in Play is a very interesting book, useful for the encyclopedic functions it serves, and innovative in discussing its metracritical concerns. If one does not agree with all of Merritt's positions, one can still gain much from interacting with her ideas. For that, Pinter in Play can prove very educative for those interested in either Pinter, criticism of his work, or both. ROBERT BAKER·WHITE, TRINITY UNIVERSITY MARTIN S. REGAL. Harold Pinter: A Question a/Timing. New York: St. Martin's Press, inc., 1995. Pp. 169. $45.00. A perfectly competent book on the treatment of time by Harold Pinter in his dramas really takes off in the last half, say, from about page 83 to the end of the book. Until that point in his study, Martin S. Regal seems most interested in tracking ways that Book Reviews Pinter's treatment of time undermines the naturalism that marked so much pre-Beckett and Pinter drama. Moving from period to period of Pinter's works and from play to play, Regal's major points include the treatment in them of the past as "primarily fiction" and the ways in which time "progresses subjectively and at disturbingly varying rates" (3). Charting Pinter's use of pause and silence, Regal begins with a chapter on the early plays in which Pinter, he suggests, introduces distorted temporality into traditional time schemes. In Chapter 2 he investigates ways in which the media of radio and tele- . vision allow for further experiments with distortions in the treatment of time. Returning in Chapter 3 to the plays, he investigates those that dwell on memory, such as Old Times, Landscape, and Silence, considering The Homecoming as well in that context. While his observations are meticulous, they do not much advance the critical body of work on Pinter; nor do they illuminate the plays in any very fresh ways. We learn about The Room, for example, that its "general lack of clarity...