The Secret History of Twin Peaks

[N. Needleman]

Call it a hunch, but I think the FWWM-esque furor over SHOTP may be the most action we get for awhile. Everybody's gotta play it cool in the Spoilers thread.

Whether the book is what it seems or not, it's still a grand read.

[Ross]

What if Frost just comes out and says that after 25 years he just didn't want to be a slave to continuity? That it just wasn't a priority?

[N. Needleman]

Frankly that is exactly what I anticipate, and I am mostly okay with it.

As I said, I think the major gaffes (relating largely to subplots and background) are easy enough to shrug off and replace with what is onscreen vs. the errors in the text. For example, by whatever measure Ben may turn out to have reverted to bad since March of 1989, the end result will likely be the same. AFAIC "Good Ben" still absolutely happened and is canonical. This does not render the bulk of the book inconsequential to me.

I think it was BEARison who said that in a lot of Peaks what seems to matter more is not the letter-perfect continuity but the characters and textures, and also for me the ideas and the rich storytelling. While some of it may not always add up perfectly it is about the overall tapestry. This book adds a tremendous amount to it.

[BEARisonFord]

What if Frost just comes out and says that after 25 years he just didn't want to be a slave to continuity? That it just wasn't a priority?

That wouldn't bother me, at least in the cases that have been presented in the book, which I personally think are fairly trivial. The only slightly eyebrow-raising one for me was Ben Horne/Audrey, but that was a fairly inconsequential plot thread to me on the show. If some of the continuity errors were larger or more severe in nature, I'd probably be singing a different tune, although I would still try and be open-minded.

[Ross]

That's my guess as to what his response will be. But we shall see.

[Mr. Reindeer]

As promised earlier, my review of the book:

The Secret History of Twin Peaks takes the TP storyline firmly into the worlds of conspiracy fiction and sci-fi, both realms which the original series skirted the edges of but never really entered. Given the book’s single-minded focus on these two genres (much more traditionally the realm of The X-Files than TP), it’s incredible how “of a piece” the book feels with the series. All of the revelations and additions somehow feel very much like a natural outgrowth of the show, even though they actually have very little to do with the existing mythology (at least at face value). It will be interesting to see how much of this stuff will end up being a major focus during the new series. One can easily imagine S3 latching on to the “conspiracy” angle—we all know that Lynch and Frost, patriotic as they are, are skeptics at heart and rather distrustful of authority (their first, aborted project together was a script about RFK murdering Marilyn Monroe). Frost really shines on this stuff, particularly during the Merriwether Lewis passages, a terrific way to open the book. From an historical standpoint, Frost has done his homework (as least, based on my Google research), and in the early chapters, seamlessly interweaves real historical documents, plausible real-world conspiracy theories, and a smidge of TP mythology (the ring and the “silent man”—presumably the Hooded Figure, based on Briggs’s later reference). The resulting chapter blows the TP mythology wide open into bold new territory while also teaching the reader a truly fascinating history lesson about a great, tragic figure.

The introduction of TP mythology feels a little more artificial in the other major “historical” chapter, focused on Chief Joseph. The sole, tenuous reason for this chapter to be in the dossier is an alleged top-secret pow-wow Joseph had with some spirits (obviously meant to be the Lodge Crew). Still, the material presented is very moving, and a very necessary reminder that our nation was founded on blood and wrongful takings of property. The woods (and the Lodge Spirits’ relationship to them) were a major motif in the original series, and several portions of this book seem to imply that modern society’s loss of spirituality and indifference toward preserving the environment will be major themes in S3. In this context, the prolonged focus on our government's mistreatment of the Nez Perce makes perfect thematic sense (and, one hopes, could be setting up a prominent storyline for Hawk).

Tougher to imagine is the sci-fi angle taking center stage in the new season. We all know that Lynch dislikes sci-fi. While the original show toyed with Project Blue Book, it ultimately landed on the idea that the really scary stuff is coming from the planet Earth, and specifically from within us—NOT from outside. That’s a focus that I would hate to see the series lose. Fortunately, while Frost spends the largest chunk of the book by far focusing on alien encounters, Dougie Milford ties things back to Earth at the end by implying that, while they may originally have come from space, the “other” entities who pose a threat have been here with us since the dawn of humanity. It’s not quite clear how Bob and company will tie in to the more traditional depictions of aliens seen through The Secret History: the descriptions of alien crafts, and the one actual sighting of a “grey,” are depressingly similar to generic depictions in B-movies and Halloween costumes over the past seventy years. (I’m also not thrilled that Frost has seemingly canonized the cringeworthy name “Unguin’s Field Observatory” from the Access Guide—although he mercifully chooses to refer to it by the alternate name LPA most of the time.) It is implied at one point that traditional aliens are merely “messengers of the gods.” The “close encounters” section of the book thankfully doesn’t spend much time on actual alien encounters, choosing instead to focus on the far more interesting ground of (once again) government conspiracy. Frost does a nice job of tying together many, many crackpot theories (which are far less convincing than the Merriwether Lewis stuff, but no less fun), depicting all manner of intra-government cover-ups and incompetence, with many factions within the government working against each other and preventing any branch from getting a full picture. At the center of all the paranoia and conspiracy is, naturally, one Richard Milhous Nixon (who surprisingly comes off as a sympathetic figure, at least in comparison to most of the other lunatics he’s working against—but HOW PERFECT is it that Nixon had the Owl Ring when he was in the White House?). The highlight of this portion of the book is definitely a spotlight on rocket fuel inventor and sex-party-loving occultist Jack Parsons, a truly interesting figure (again, pretty much everything Frost writes about him seems to be true, with two exceptions: 1. I can’t find any support for Frost’s assertion that Parsons’s Moonchild ceremony occurred right before the Roswell incident, although he did perform such a ceremony during that general time; and 2. Parsons was actually too crazy even for Aleister Crowley, who disavowed Parsons when he heard he was trying to birth the Moonchild). Instead of using Parsons as comic relief or a straight villain, Frost actually turns him into a sympathetic figure, and the (true life) double-cross by L. Ron Hubbard is both tragic and darkly hilarious with the hindsight of our modern viewpoint.

You’ll notice that I haven’t mentioned a single TP character yet. Frost manages to keep the reader's interest despite the fact that the majority of the book has nothing much at all to do with the town or the residents of Twin Peaks, with the exception of—of all people—Douglas Milford. Douglas turns out to be a truly colorful rogue, and I love the irony of one of the goofier post-Laura Palmer TP characters turning out to be absolutely essential not only to the series mythology, but to our government’s (and our species’) history. Admittedly, the final pages of the book (which transition Douglas from deep cover man of mystery into his one actual storyline from the original series) feel very, very abrupt. Frost might have layered in Milford’s womanizing and some of his other eccentricities earlier in the story to ease this transition. Other than that, though, the focus on Milford works like gangbusters. We’re given enough of his early life to understand the kind of man he is, and then for the rest of the book he acts as both sinister shadowy presence AND audience POV character simultaneously—a bizarre contrast that Frost somehow pulls off perfectly.

Other than Dougie, the most prominent series character is Major Briggs, although this isn’t revealed until the end. I had some issues with the narrative structure of the book, which can be addressed at this point as well as any. First of all, for the majority of the book, Garland just doesn’t sound like himself. Once the big reveal happens—very near the end—the prose suddenly takes on an appropriately flowery Briggsian tone, and I could hear the late great Don Davis in my head saying the lines. However, prior to that, the Archivist sounds a WHOLE lot like…Mark Frost (I surmise). In particularly, snarky references to “hot young girlfriend”s and “hall[s] of shame” feel distinctly un-Briggsian. A nitpicky point, perhaps, but I was looking forward to having Garland (a personal favorite) act as my spirit guide (perhaps literally, if the book is hinting at the tragic fate it seems to be). Unfortunately, for the most part, I rarely felt like I was reading Briggs’s words. Similarly problematic is the “TP” device, which I don’t feel served much of a purpose. Sure, it was narratively useful for Frost to occasionally present a second, more skeptical opinion on some of the wilder conspiracy theories. But Tamara never felt like a developed character to me (aside from her film choices, which I wholeheartedly endorse), and Frost got his wires crossed between Garland and Tamara more than a few times (one example of several: Tamara is the one who tells us about Jeffries’s disappearance, but Briggs later says that he had referred to it earlier. He hadn’t). I think the double-blind narrator device gummed up the works more than it helped, and furthermore, by the end, Agent Preston seems borderline incompetent (as does Cole). Her only task is to determine the author of a dossier in which the author OPENLY identifies himself, if you just read to the end. (One can presume that this “task” was a ruse on Cole’s part to get Preston asking questions—but it still seems pretty silly that she’s scrawling [largely redundant/obvious] notes in the margin throughout, only to “solve” the mystery by READING the answer in the text. One would think that she would have simply read the whole thing through once before truly delving into her research.) Most of Preston’s annotations seem to be there largely to spell out things that astute readers should be able to figure out for themselves.

Other than Dougie and Garland, TP characters only really play a prominent role in the (already infamous) mid-section of the book, which seems to almost gleefully ravage the existing continuity. While this section of the book will likely become notorious in certain circles (and I myself am not thrilled with a lot of the inconsistencies—both between the book and series and even within the book itself), there is truly a lot to love here. Ed’s tragic character flaw, reluctance to act on his emotions, is beautifully rendered in documents penned by Cooper and Hawk (and, unlike many of the Briggs narrations, Coop and Hawk’s voices are perfectly clear and distinctive here—reassuring us that Frost still knows these characters like the back of his hand, even if he is a little hazy on their backstories). Jacoby comes off as a shockingly sympathetic figure (admittedly, the book conveniently glosses over his infatuation with a high school student and boosts Laura’s age a year to ameliorate his malpractice). The book puts his kooky demeanor and obsession with Hawaii, previously just zany gimmicks, into believable and sympathetic contrast. He is revealed as a product of a broken home, a mama’s boy searching for peace, raised around natives and disgusted with the modern world’s losing touch with self and nature. While Tamara derides his drug use and hippie-dippy prose, I truly think that Frost meant to present Jacoby in a positive light, using him to voice many themes that are central to the book and (presumably) to the coming season.

A real highlight of this section of the book (and one of the few character backstories that doesn’t contradict the series at all) is a record of Josie’s past, which finally gives some depth to a character who always came across as a half-realized enigma on screen. While I doubt that much of this backstory was planned back in 1990, I’m excited to rewatch the show with this information in the back of my head. Even Norma, who receives the roughshod retcon treatment worse than any other character, also benefits from the book: for the first time, I understand why she left Ed for Hank. I always found it rather strange that one of the kindest, most decent characters on the show would end up with a homicidal lunatic like Hank. Turns out that it was the one-two punch of Norma’s low self-esteem and Ed’s inability to articulate his feelings. While I dislike the retcon of the Episode 8 story, viewed on its own, this version of the story is a terrifically-realized tragedy, and feels completely true to the characters. (Norma’s low self-esteem and self-doubt fit perfectly with how—despite her great beauty and intelligence—she is always soft-spoken, and oddly demure to Hank. It also brings new context to her mission to help Shelley overcome similar self-esteem issues and break away from Leo.)

The last portion of the book brings us essentially up to date with the original series, and once again incorporates characters from the series. This section is a little schizophrenic. Much of Briggs’s narration in this section feels like Frost playing some very fast-paced catch-up ball, tying in several major plotlines from the series that he presumably felt should be mentioned in the dossier, without much context. While I can imagine comfortably reading most of the book without having seen the series (the mark of any good work, I think), in the closing 40 pages, a lot of stuff feels shoehorned in just to make this a proper tie-in (similar to the wisely-deleted scenes of many townspeople from FWWM). On the other hand, scattered throughout this section are some of the most heartfelt passages in the book: Robert’s bio of Margaret, Margaret’s eulogy for Robert, Jacoby’s "case notes" about Laura, Garland talking about his relationship with Bobby, and the Doug Milford-Garland Briggs debate about mysteries (I can’t be the only one who thinks that the latter dialogue sounded like it could have been an actual conversation between Frost and Lynch—Lynch as Briggs, of course).

So there we are. A maddeningly imperfect work, at turns wildly entertaining, informative, occasionally touching, and often thought-provoking; painstakingly researched as to historical narrative, yet seemingly lackadaisical or outright dismissive as to existing continuity of the author’s own work. Yet, for all of its frustrating flaws, it is, as a good friend of Mr. Frost’s might say, a beautiful thing.

[krishnanspace]

And Briggs gets information on the fbi events where?

It's not specifically stated, but I would assume from the network that Dougie built up(even Tricky Dick was an informant of his at one time, at least such seems to be the case and is posited by Agent Preston). It would also appear the Nixon hooked up Cole and Dougie. Briggs is Dougies protege and picks up and fills in the dossier, but most of it is actually put together by Dougie.

This is enforced because Carl Rodd sends a letter to the editor about the Unguin Field/Listening Post Alpha additions and construction and Dwayne promises to look in to it. Dougie volunteers his service and shortly after Gordon Cole contacts Dwayne.

The rest of the FBI info mentioned is this thread is filled in by Agent Preston's notations.

Knew that Cole was much more multi-levelled than what we were shown - just to remember what he was doing with shelley, a full-fledged erotoman in the middle of a day if there ever was one. Makes one think that we may be not seeing owls for what they seem (edtd mordeen beat to it above), i,e. an entertainment-oriented, mystery-enriching writing - within this debate; not to say obviously that there's not more to it (and hence at least part of accomodating alterations) given who's behind and enlivening Cole. Christ's sakes, it was only this year that Mlmt's ominous mood and what it does to a whole understanding of the show, really got to my brain, oh well ..

With new books and seasons, personally was hoping for black holes, and gravitational discoveries, and further dives into quantums apart from native american/corn-e.t. stuff with this, and it seems that ... getting there actually. Book will be considered 'latest partial' canon at worst - and bear in mind that this year shown world much more extreme Trumpeted canons, which all have to be indeed considered canon and legit at the end of the day. Just like all other TP books containing actual plots and written indeed in parallel with production did, book will do just fine in overall state of things

That's would make twin peaks too Sci-Fi

[BEARisonFord]

We all know that Lynch dislikes sci-fi.

...we do?

[Mr. Reindeer]

We all know that Lynch dislikes sci-fi.

...we do?

Well, maybe we don't. But he said as much while he was in the process of making a science fiction film: "Well, I – here we’re making DUNE, but I don’t really like science fiction. I don’t like going to another planet so much as I like being right here..."

[N. Needleman]

I would suggest looking to the Original Season 3 Plans thread for a glimpse at what Frost may be dealing with here.

I have always assumed that most if not all of the UFO/Blue Book-related stuff in the show (and in the new book) actually pertains to investigating the woods/the Black Lodge - the inner world. But there are definite insinuations of alien or otherdimensional life in the origins of the Lodge spirits that Engels, etc. allegedly planned to explore either in the original Season 3 or in early versions of FWWM, with Lynch at the helm. The idea being: The Lodge beings at the very least came here from "another place," be it a planet or more likely, IMO, dimension.

[BEARisonFord]

Well, maybe we don't. But he said as much while he was in the process of making a science fiction film: "Well, I – here we’re making DUNE, but I don’t really like science fiction. I don’t like going to another planet so much as I like being right here..."

huh, interesting, especially since Ronnie Rocket seems drenched in sci-fi.

[Mr. Reindeer]

I would suggest looking to the Original Season 3 Plans thread for a glimpse at what Frost may be dealing with here.

I have always assumed that most if not all of the UFO/Blue Book-related stuff in the show (and in the new book) actually pertains to investigating the woods/the Black Lodge - the inner world. But there are definite insinuations of alien or otherdimensional life in the origins of the Lodge spirits that Engels, etc. allegedly planned to explore either in the original Season 3 or in early versions of FWWM, with Lynch at the helm. The idea being: The Lodge beings at the very least came here from "another place," be it a planet or more likely, IMO, dimension.

Completely agree. Still, the book spends a large amount of time on SEEMINGLY traditional Roswell / close encounters stuff (while hinting at something more nuanced underlying all the familiar trappings). I am excited to see where this goes on the show.

[Mr. Reindeer]

Well, maybe we don't. But he said as much while he was in the process of making a science fiction film: "Well, I – here we’re making DUNE, but I don’t really like science fiction. I don’t like going to another planet so much as I like being right here..."

huh, interesting, especially since Ronnie Rocket seems drenched in sci-fi.

I think Lynch is probably talking more about traditional Star Wars type stuff (remember, he had also just recently turned down Return of the Jedi). While RR definitely has a sci-fi element to it, to me, it feels more like noir filtered through Lynch's obsession with electricity and machinery. While one could certainly call such a concept "sci fi," it's very different from more traditional genre stuff about aliens and other worlds.

[N. Needleman]

If I really thought the alien stuff in the show or book was traditional X-Files grey aliens I'd be more concerned. But I have always thought of the stuff there as being of the same piece as the plot reveal in the latter half of S2: That what the audience was associating with outer space and aliens, actually came from our inner space, in the forest, with the extradimensional beings of the Black Lodge. Whatever their initial assumptions, this is what men like Milford and Briggs investigated for years.

[BEARisonFord]

This is why the alien scene with Milford, Nixon, and Jackie Gleeson didn't quite work for me. Sorta wish it was left a little more ambiguous as to what happened. It's kind of impossible for me to take any little grey alien stuff seriously at this point, culturally speaking.