Harold Pinter: Faber Critical Guides- The Caretaker, The Birthday Party and The Homecoming

Pinter is an over-hyped, smug git, but at least this book is helpful if you have to churn out pointless pretentious garbage for some ill-conceived English Literature exam.

Fab for when reading the plays as a bit of a helping hand with them!

Useful analysis, clearly written. Would recommend.

I intended to buy Pinter's plays.Did a search on Amazon: "Pinter plays".This book was among the first found items.On the image of the book cover it is written with large letters 'Harold Pinter'and bellow in smaller letters the list of the plays.So don't get caught by this advertisment trick: make a book sold in large quantities while mentioning famous author name in big letters (while this is not his book).

This guide provides clear and accessible information on the genre and context of 'theatre' when Pinter was writing. I only read the information on 'The Caretaker' and found that Naismith does not confound the reader with elaborate jargon but identifies the key elements of setting, character and langage, explaining their significance in the play, especially the language. The overview of Pinter's life is useful too. There is explanation of key scenes but if you're looking for a comprehensive guide similar to York notes then this is not for you. I actually enjoyed reading this because it was so interesting.

Harold Pinter is not the easiet playwright to understand-he never explains anything in his plays. Therfore I found this commentry esential for understanding what was actually happening! Although I gave this commentry 5 stars, I don't know what one would get from this commentry without the texts of the plays

Studying pinter is not easy, and this book provides everything that one could hope for in a critical guide; literary style, context, textual analysis, and lots more. Whilst it is not as broad as the other series i have used, such as Cambridge Companions, this is miles more conscise, and when you are studying Literuature, sometimes it helps just to be to the point!I highly commend this book for anyone studying any one of these plays, or infact any play in the post WW2 period. Especially for English Lit. Students!