W. D. Howells in the News
Thursday, February 17, 2005
Howells as authority for Deadwood language
From "The Misfit," Mark Singer's profile of David Milch of NYPD Blue and Deadwood, in The New Yorker (Feb. 14 & 21, 2005), p. 203:
Carolyn Strauss, of HBO, told me, "Early on, the issue of language came up a lot. We asked David, 'Are you obscuring your message or the over-all acceptability of the piece in a way that may not be necessary?' He felt strongly that it was necessary. He'd done a lot of research." At Strauss's urging, Milch wrote an essay on the subject--five single-spaced pages, followed by four pages of bibliography--defending realism and freedom of expression as indispensable correctives to the varnished mythologies of the West perpetrated by Hollywood. After quoting from oral histories as well as authorities like H. L. Mencken, Daniel Boorstin, and William Dean Howells, he concluded . . . " If [these words] would have been in common usage in the time and place in which 'Deadwood' is set, then, like any words, in form and frequency their expression will be governed by the personality of a given character, imagined by the author with whatever imperfection, as the character is shaped and tested in the crucible of experience. The goal is not to offend but to realize the character's full humanness."
