Harold Pinter: The Artistic Prayer

Photograph by Colin McPherson/2002

Interview with the Author

By Telephone

1997

And now safety is a sacrament. Of course we want homes without peril; warm beds; loving arms to greet us after the day out and hunting. Now we want safety in our minds, in our very brains. Do not jostle me, please. Please let all of my music contain strands of those composers and singers and times I can recall; times when I was young and hopeful. Present nothing new to me.

Let the plays remind me of other plays and other times, and let the actors allow me to believe that I am seeing some other actor, someone I might have known or once looked like or once craved. Present nothing new to me.

Let the novels feel like that warm bed I'm heading toward: safe and soft and familiar. Do not rattle me, please.

I've been through a lot. Surviving is so difficult these days, you know. Draw me a warm bath and let me call it art.

This, sadly, is the artistic prayer that I hear all over the world, from every corner.

You can imagine that this is not my prayer.

© 2014 James Grissom

From Artistic Suicide