The Dwarfs: A Novel (Pinter, Harold) [Paperback]

Harold Pinter (Author)

Book Description

Series: Pinter, Harold | Publication Date: January 21, 1994

Originally written in 1950, then revised and first published in 1992, The Dwarfs is Harold Pinter's only novel. Set in postwar Britain, The Dwarfs describes the intertwined lives and concerns of four young Londoners: Len, working at the Euston train station but fascinated by abstract mathematics; Mark, a sometime actor; and Virginia and Pete, a young couple trying to define their relationship amid the powerful, sometimes destructive forces at work among the four. In the evolution of this quadrilateral friendship and the strains it creates, Harold Pinter explores how ordinary lives are molded by the limitations and boundaries of sexuality, intimacy, and mortality. It is a world populated by dwarfs — young people who have departed, only to leave emptiness.

Funny, vivid, and haunting, The Dwarfs is a brilliantly intriguing and chillingly perceptive novel by a writer whose imagination has shaped our lives.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

British playwright Pinter's semi-absurdist novel of stunted lives in 1950s London is a story of friendship, love and betrayal. As in his plays, the characters often talk past one another into an existential void. The precarious equilibrium of a trio of male friends is disrupted when one of them, Pete, falls in love with Virginia. He puts her on a pedestal or, alternately, treats her as a slut or boyish pal. Advising him are Mark, a frustrated actor who blithely accepts that "everything's a calamity," and Len, who escapes his dull job in a train station through abstract mathematics and playing violin to his cat. Written in the early 1950s, Pinter's only novel was the genesis for his play of the same title; revised in 1989, the work is being published for the first time (had it been issued earlier, it would not have made his reputation). As the foursome oscillates between mistrust and communion, the dialogue veers from minimalist chatter to booming Shakespearean eloquence, with an occasional glowing line and lambent lyricism relieving long stretches of soul-searching angst.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

This is a novel clearly poised on the edge of drama. It is Pinter's only novel, written in the early Fifties just before he began writing the plays for which he is so well known. (This novel was, in fact, turned into a play that was first produced in 1960.) It is a fascinating text, revolving around the lives and worries of its three main characters, and operates as a kind of study of Pinter from his own hand, as true and accurate a chronicle of his development and method as any biography could be. It is sometimes difficult to follow because it is so very "play-like," not always cluing the reader in to who's talking to whom, who's responding, etc. Yet the dialog is brilliant, cranky, and eccentric, and the narrative passages are some of the most thrillingly imaginative ever written.
- Jessica Grim, Univ. of California at Berkeley Lib.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 192 pages
• Publisher: Grove Press (January 21, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0802132669
• ISBN-13: 978-0802132666
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.5 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,967,062 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Clueless Fascination, May 15, 2005

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Mark Eremite "This Is A Display Model Only" (Seoul, South Korea) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Dwarfs: A Novel (Pinter, Harold) (Paperback)

A well-established member of the Absurdist Theatre tradition, Pinter pulls no literary punches in this, his only novel. For those who know of his plays' stark ambiguity and pointed pointlessness, this novel will be nothing too new. Pinter is a man of thematic contradictions, someone who elucidates the morals and meanings of senseless with the tools of obsfucation and slyly crafted symbolism. He has a point -- he always does -- but those points are always disguised, usually as themselves, and so his work is never what it seems to be.

You either have patience for Pinter, or you don't, and part of what most lovers of Pinter go for is the translation of his work onto the stage by living actors with some measure of skill. Pinter's work is of life, despite how surreal it always may seem, and it finds its greatest expression in the medium of flesh and blood.

Therefore, this novel falls short in some ways, most notably in that it is only alive as much as the reader's own imagination is, and given the smoke screens and philosophical fogginess that permeates the text, it is likely that readers will run high on impatience before they do on understanding.

However, for those careful and delicate literature lovers with the time and focus necessary for the task, Dwarfs is a densely layered and methodically crafted tale of common lust and betrayal mixed with some rather heavy-handed but finely wielded philosophy. Sometimes the writing delves into repetitious, monochromatic, self-aggrandizement, but this is usually just the knee-jerk aspect of Pinter's play-work marring the novelistic medium. In general though, he gains a lot of ground with this book, even if, by the time you're done reading, you're not sure where you've ended up.