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Must You Go?: My Life with Harold Pinter by…
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Must You Go?: My Life with Harold Pinter (edition 2010)

by Antonia Fraser

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3531172,975 (3.61)39
A moving testament to one of the literary world's most celebrated marriages: that of the greatest playwright of our age, Harold Pinter, and the beautiful prize-winning biographer Antonia Fraser. In this memoir, Fraser recounts the life she shared with the renowned dramatist. In essence, it is a love story and an insightful account of their years together, beginning with their initial meeting when Fraser was the wife of a member of Parliament and mother of six, and Pinter was married to a distinguished actress. Over 33 years together, they experienced much joy, a shared devotion to their work, crises and laughter, and, in the end, great courage and love as Pinter battled the illness to which he eventually succumbed on Christmas Eve 2008. Fraser's diaries--written by a biographer living with a creative artist and observing the process firsthand--also provide a unique insight into his writing.--From publisher description.… (more)
Member:yaele
Title:Must You Go?: My Life with Harold Pinter
Authors:Antonia Fraser
Info:Nan A. Talese (2010), Edition: First Edition, Hardcover, 336 pages
Collections:Your library
Rating:****
Tags:autobiography, writers, United Kingdom

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Must You Go?: My Life with Harold Pinter by Antonia Fraser

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» See also 39 mentions

Showing 1-5 of 11 (next | show all)
very sad ending. ( )
  mahallett | Jan 22, 2022 |
I've read several historical biographies by her (and her mother) but know very little about him. It's an account of their life together and since they know all sorts of interesting people in the arts, I'm enjoying what she says about that. She has a witty British sense of humor that I like. ( )
1 vote piemouth | Oct 17, 2018 |
I loved this. Yes, they are fancy and it is name-droppy and it's a little funny when Lady Fraser makes it sound like they are just plain folks having the Soros grandchildren over for dinner. But it's a very tender story with some insight into Pinter's work as well as her own. And a beautiful love story to boot! ( )
1 vote laurenbufferd | Nov 14, 2016 |
Thought I'd love it, but I got bored with it all. ( )
1 vote ReneeGKC | Jan 30, 2014 |
Memoir of a marriage between two people at the top of the literary game who had spouses, six children between them when they met, but cared more for each other than them. After their first meeting Pinter said to the author, "Must you go?" and the lust became an affair became marriage. 33 years of being in love, not just loving.

True love sometimes involves hurting others, when should we do our duty and when should we be true to ourselves? Antonia Fraser never addresses this or any other question that requires any depth to an answer. She writes only of their lives mixing with the glitterati of the literary, film and theatre world and of their love, always of their love for each other.

It is a lovely book, a deeply romantic read but in a real sense, not romance-novel at all, but it has to be said, it is shallow. I would have expected more of an author known for her deeply-penetrating and well-researched historical biographies. Perhaps love that deep needs no reflection, it just is two people as one and no questions, it's all an answer to the heart's quest in itself? I've never experienced that kind of love, but *I'd like to.


*Want my phone number? Send me your life cv first ;-)
( )
1 vote Petra.Xs | Apr 2, 2013 |
Showing 1-5 of 11 (next | show all)
Fraser describes this account, based on her diaries, as “in essence…a love story”, and Must You Go? ­certainly has at times a bosom-heaving, lace-handkerchief-fluttering quality.
 
"No flowers on my grave," he hissed after seeing dead cornflowers on ­Larkin's. His wishes have been honoured in this book, which is less flowery than most elegies have a right to be, one year on. He had already approved the diary entries he'd read as "a great record of – us". Still, he couldn't have known that Fraser would include his poems to her, including the last one, written 18 months before he died, which begins: "I shall miss you so much when I'm dead".
 
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I first saw Harold across a crowded room, but it was lunchtime, not some enchanted evening, and we did not speak.
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A moving testament to one of the literary world's most celebrated marriages: that of the greatest playwright of our age, Harold Pinter, and the beautiful prize-winning biographer Antonia Fraser. In this memoir, Fraser recounts the life she shared with the renowned dramatist. In essence, it is a love story and an insightful account of their years together, beginning with their initial meeting when Fraser was the wife of a member of Parliament and mother of six, and Pinter was married to a distinguished actress. Over 33 years together, they experienced much joy, a shared devotion to their work, crises and laughter, and, in the end, great courage and love as Pinter battled the illness to which he eventually succumbed on Christmas Eve 2008. Fraser's diaries--written by a biographer living with a creative artist and observing the process firsthand--also provide a unique insight into his writing.--From publisher description.

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