Man, I Hate Those Pinkertons

I quit reading the newspaper. No more online news. No more tv news. Magazines are out, too. NPR? Buh-bye. I am in an information-free zone. My ignorance of world events is downright Presidential in scope.

And apart from a gnawing anxiety that we might be at war with Canada now, I'm pretty happy.

The only problem with my little info-hiatus is a slight case of wonk-withdrawal. Not to mention self-satisfied indignation withdrawal. Luckily, I have Deadwood. I am getting so worked up about Deadwood politics that I almost sat down to write a lengthy denouncement of the Pinkertons' strike-busting. Not to mention the monopolist machinations of Hearst. And don't even get me started on those cocksuckers in Yankton.

God, I love this show. It has taken me 13 months to watch 18 episodes (thanks Netflix and your no-late-fees policy!). I sometimes take a disc to work and eat lunch in my office and watch 15 minutes or so.

Before I started watching, people kept telling me that it was "Shakespearean," which of course made me hate the show. I hate things that are described as Shakespearean. Because they inevitably aren't. And they're usually pretentious to boot.

But Deadwood really is. Not only does the dialogue make vertiginous dips in register (often in the same conversation; sometimes in the same monologue), but it manages the incredibly rare feat of being non-naturalistic but still feeling authentic.

Deadwood also manages a kind of Shakespearean meta-fiction without lapsing into the dull and cliched "hey look, this is art that is calling attention to the fact that it's art." Yawn. If it's just done for cleverness, this inevitably falls flat. But in David Milch's drama, as in Shakespeare, the meta-fiction is organic--it has ethical, as well as aesthetic implications. Al Swearengen is the new Duke of Dark Corners, acting his part and trying to stage manage the rest of the community for his own private ends.

It is in the opacity of the characters that Milch achieves his greatest (and most Shakespearean) effects. "The motive-hunting of motiveless malignity" was how Coleridge described Iago in the margin of Othello. But it's not just Shakespeare's villains whose motives remain mysterious. Hamlet is perhaps the most obvious example, but no Shakespeare character is fully transparent. Ditto Deadwood.

There's scarcely an ounce of backstory. Nothing's telegraphed and nothing's explained. Very little judgment is explicit.

I think that's why I am so into Deadwood's politics (that, and apparently a need to get pissed off at politicians, even if they're fictional). The issues are complicated and the characters are short-sighted. Just as we are all short-sighted in our own moment. And this short-sightedness is also wonderfully akin to Shakespeare.

Like Shakespeare's history plays, and especially the Roman plays, there is a sense of irony about the whole Deadwood enterprise: the characters don't know how things will play out but the audience does. They are acting a part in a historical narrative they misunderstand. But there's something heroic about trying to shape a narrative, even if it doesn't turn out the way we expect.

If I keep on pace, I'll finish watching the series in January 2008. I wonder if I can hold out on reading a newspaper that long.