Must You Go?: My Life with Harold Pinter [Paperback]

Lady Antonia Fraser has written an interesting account of her life with playwright Harold Pinter. They met, while married to other people, in their mid-40's and fell head-over-heels in love. After leaving her husband - Hugh Fraser, with whom she had six children - Antonia lived with Pinter while they waited for their respective divorces to become final. They married a few years later. All in all, they were partners for 33 years until Pinter's death in 2008.

Fraser was a famous author of historical biographies and novels when she met Pinter. She kept a diary - referred to in her memoir - and supplemented the entries with updated notes. As with any autobiography/memoir, the reader can only suppose the author is being truthful in her writing. Fraser writes about working, traveling, keeping a home, and socialising with Pinter. During their time together, Pinter wrote about 10 plays, and he also acted in movies. Theirs was a full-throttled pace - and Fraser is not shy about naming names of the famous people with whom they associated. Pinter and Fraser were active in liberal politics and liberal social issues, both in the UK and outside it. Traveling to Mexico, Central America, Eastern Europe, and Israel, they participated in peace rallies and other social protests.

I enjoyed the book but I'm not sure in the end if it wasn't a recitation of places, events, and people. I "know" because I was told how much Fraser and Pinter adored each other and made a wonderful life together, but the knowledge comes from facts and not feelings as expressed by Fraser.

I enjoyed this glimpse of Harold Pinter and Antonia Fraser's life together. It was at heart, a simple love story, told graciously and openly, yet discreetly and with dignity. While their story was intriguing in itself, as interesting was the life they led, the friends they had and the views they held. What was missing for me, was a little more about the impact of their love story on the people around them. How did Antonia's children take the breakup of her first marriage? What about the practicalities of access to the children after the break-up? Yet, the book doesn't claim to be an autobiography, so I guess there was a logic to these omissions. But, yes, I'm glad I read it and I enjoyed it.

"Must You Go?" is by Lady Antonia Fraser, British author of many popular biographies of historical, frequently female figures, best-known, perhaps,Mary Queen Of Scots and Marie Antoinette; and a brief detective series featuring Jemima Shore, television news presenter. Lady Antonia is the daughter of a well-known literary family, known as, alternatively, the Pakenhams, or Longfords, who are almost as famous as the Mitford sisters of the 1930s. The book at hand is a memoir of her unlikely 33-year love affair/marriage with Harold Pinter, CH, CBE, internationally known British actor/playwright/screenwriter/theater director/left-wing activist and poet.

Pinter was among the most influential British playwrights of the twentieth century. In 2005, he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature: Lady Antonia says within this book that he turned down a knighthood. His writing career spanned over 50 years; he produced 29 original stage plays, 27 screenplays, many dramatic sketches, radio and TV plays, poetry, one novel, short fiction, essays, speeches, and letters. His best-known plays include "The Birthday Party" (1957), "The Caretaker"(1959), "The Homecoming" (1964), and "Betrayal" (1978), each of which he adapted to film. His screenplay adaptations of others' works include "The Servant" (1963), "The Go-Between" (1970), "The French Lieutenant's Woman" (1981), "The Trial" (1993), and "Sleuth" (2007). He also directed almost 50 stage, television, and film productions; furthermore, he acted extensively in radio, stage, television, and film productions of his own and others' works. Mind you, his works were widely considered avant-garde, not particularly easily accessible, and were not necessarily universally beloved. At any rate, Pinter died on Christmas Eve, 2008.

An unlikely romance? Pinter was Jewish, an East End boy, son of immigrants, and Antonia was very much a daughter of the establishment. And, when they met, each had been married for eighteen years: he to Vivien Merchant, widely-esteemed actress, they had one child. She, to Hugh Fraser, Scottish Member of Parliament, they had six. But the couple clicked immediately, and went on to make a life together, enjoying each other's work, their battles to better the world, their international travels. "Must You Go?" based on the diaries the author kept during the time, is funny, tender, intimate: a love story, a sketch of two creative artists at work, and of British bohemian high society.

The largely chatty, informally-written book surely drops a lot of names, mostly without explanation, unfortunately. Few will likely be known on my side of the Atlantic; even fewer to those substantially younger than the author, on both sides of the Atlantic. The author, Lady Antonia - and, in the book, she explains why she should be so addressed, not as Lady Fraser, or Pinter, or whoever--argues that she is not an establishment figure. She says she was raised in North Oxford - her father taught at the university there, Oxford, until he unexpectedly inherited family estates and a lordship. She did not, therefore, pick up the title of "Lady," until she was 30, she says, and adds that, by that age, she had been supporting herself in journalism and publishing for nine years. I've read at least Quiet as a Nun (Jemima Shore Mystery), her first Jemima Shore book, and found it too mild for my taste. If you are interested, it was filmed for British television, and is buried in ARMCHAIR THRILLER, SERIES 10. JEMIMA SHORE INVESTIGATES was a 12 episode TV series, also quite mild, made in 1983. Each is only spottily available. Sofia Coppola based her recent film Marie Antoinette [DVD] [2006] on Lady Antonia's book of the same name.

Of course, as Lady Antonia reaches her husband's final, long illness, which he bravely fought, her memoir gets much more serious and moving. But earlier on, she does quote a charming little poem she wrote to him, about the game of bridge, which they mutually loved:

FOR MY PARTNER

You're my two-hearts-as-one
Doubled into game
You're my Blackwood
You're my Gerber
You're my Grand Slam, vulnerable
Doubled and redoubled
Making all other contracts
Tame.
November 27, 1983.

Well, more years ago now than either Lady Antonia or I would like to recall, well before Pinter was in her life, I did interview her for an American newspaper, and found her, as you can surely guess, attractive, charming, and personable. And she gave me a great line that I suppose she'd successfully used before, that resulted in the interview's selling itself to further publications, including "Readers' Digest." She found, she said, that she benefited from the "after all" theory. People would say that perhaps her books were not the greatest. But, after all, she did have six children. Others might say that the six children were not the best-behaved; but after all, she did write books. Lady Antonia has raised six children and written many books. This one, I'm told, has been a best seller in the United Kingdom; it may not be that widely-appreciated on my side of the pond, but by all means read it if you like this kind of thing.