I still refer to these as book reviews when if we’re all honest they’re probably something else. What they actually are I’ll leave to the annuls of history to decide but in the meantime and for the sake of form they’ll continue to be book reviews. I am reviewing plays seemingly more regularly than books too, although a play is still arguably a book, but with One For The Road by Harold Pinter being a one act play, only sixteen pages long, it’s more of a pamphlet than anything else. It’s so short in fact that when I finished reading it I decided to read it again, just because, well, why not.
One For The Road is set in what I assume is some kind of headquarters of the secret police under a totalitarian regime. The man in charge refers to patriots so you can imagine nationalism plays a role but he refers to god more often which makes me believe this is some Christian fundamentalist regime on par with Margaret Atwood‘s The Handmaid’s Tale. That probably just exposes my ignorance of a better relatable example and a sign of my being lazy. It also ignores the general complicity of the Church in right wing totalitarian states in our history so it could just be a simple case of something along those lines.
The story revolves around what can be classed as interviews between someone of importance, potentially the head of the secret police, and individually the three members of a family taken in for interrogation. The father / husband, wife / mother and their son. The man is beaten and while he challenges his interrogator slightly he generally remains silent and passive. It is likely they have all been arrested because of his political activity. The woman talks more, although there are more direct questions and it is revealed she is being repeatedly raped. Her father is also revealed to be a national hero, a heroic soldier who fought and died in some war that presumably led to the establishment of this state. While the boy who is only seven we discover spat at and kicked the arresting soldiers when they came to his house. At the end he is referred to in the past tense. The interrogator is constantly pouring himself drinks and suggesting it’s one for the road but the implications are more that this will be one for the road before they are released. This of course doesn’t come and there is something chilling in this psychological torture too. That is basically the story, which I’ve now given away but in such a crude manner I’ve not gone near to doing it justice.
I know very little about Harold Pinter beyond his name. I did study Drama for my A-Levels at school but like everything was left incredibly unimpressed by any teachings provided, although my lack of effort and involvement mustn’t be discounted. It is only now as I get older that I start to understand that these things can actually be enjoyable. It is short and I would be curious how and in what circumstances the play would be performed. There are a lot of pauses so potentially they would make better use of them than I did but it was a good introduction to his work. I look forward to reading some more, maybe even a full length one next time. He certainly appears to be someone I could get into.
Observations and Misunderstandings 