I recently finished watching the full six years of The Sopranos TV series a couple of weeks ago, in sequence in my living room on Netflix DVDs. Through the last weeks with the famous "Mafia" family, I had come to dread the inevitable end of the disks, so great was my attachment to these people.
I even did that dumb thing that people do--that I thought I'd never do--when someone close is dying. I started to withdraw in advance, in order to ward off the full impact of the blow.
I was surprised at myself. If there ever an example of "cowards die a thousand times before their deaths, the brave but once" or whatever that quote is*, this was it. And provoked by nothing more serious than the loss of fictional characters I can always rent again.
Ideally, one stays involved full-tilt to the end, even with fictional people. At least that's what I think. That strikes me as the boldest and most satisfying approach. No numbing out, no missing of the final intensity. That's what I mean to do should I ever face another such loss.
But I can't even imagine it. I agree with New Yorker editor David Remnick: The Sopranos were the best thing that ever hit TV. I also think the show was the best characterization I've ever seen on film. I'm pleased that this particular piece of art unfurled in my lifeime.
Surely that deserves full engagement.
I'm doing one thing right in this process though. I thought about immediately starting to rent The Wire or My So-Called Life or some other series. But I'm not yet ready for another relationship. First I need time.
*
Cowards die many times before their deaths;
The valiant never taste of death but once.
Of all the wonders that I yet have heard,
It seems to me most strange that men should fear;
Seeing that death, a necessary end,
Will come when it will come.
from Shakespeare's Julius Caesar
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