Harold Pinter's early writing for the stage was correctly described... as "the theater of the absurd." But it has been left to the selectors of the Nobel in literature to make that definition postmodern and thus to drain it of all irony. Their choice of Mr. Pinter is a selection of absurdity quite detached from drama: a straight and philistine preference for the grotesque. "I have no idea why they gave me the award," said the playwright when the news was brought to him. This justified incredulity showed a brief flash of his old form. ...Just as with the selection...