Scan barcode
wallpaperdress's review
4.0
Having been a fan of the Secret History of Twin Peaks, I had high expectations for this book's ability to traverse and link; cataclysmically closing a television series unlike any other in a literal shroud of darkness, rotated by the shrill Laura Palmer scream we should never forget, this book enters from there into a literal fog, and a deepening fog, that answers what fans would think unanswerable prior. Unlike its forerunner, I do not advise reading this without a love for the television series (and prior book), because it almost exclusively deals in the character development, fan questions, and tampering of time interred with the third season. The remainder of this review will include spoilers. Please advise!
We can't talk about this book without talking about Twin Peaks: The Return. I already presupposed the third season creates a permissable evil, as much as we want to champion Special Agent Dale Cooper for what was his apparent Laura Palmer murder reversal. What is so successful about this, apart from the dingy, cheeky, and fun echoes of characters loved and lost at the curtain call, was a reader's growing awareness of this evil. Questioning its success, existence, and, as Tammy Preston writes, memory, we retain subtle hints of ancient lore, of the sexual communion that brings world darkness and destruction, and an inevaporable explosion of filth. It leaves me with a lot of questions--- the potency of the explored locations (New Mexico/Twin Peaks) in terms of their haunting proprietress. When we meet "JUDY," and we do meet "JUDY," it is clear that there is a rubber band of evil vibrating, statically, along this story line, and that is consumptive and brutal. I am fascinated, again, with this book's ties to otherworldly opinion. It can serve companioned to research. Or, you can take it for a slice of cake: pure and delicious entertainment. I think this balance fares well and we can close Twin Peaks at the Blue Rose ending title page that illumines in its perhaps-total-darkness: a proper bookend to an artistic creation that so sweetly convinces you that you understand, but yet you're still so sure there's more going on than you're ever meant to. A concussive success. Mind-bending, or familiar. The juxtaposing of flaky crusted cherry pie, and the Arm, for example. You've got that here again in this book.
Some of my favorite tell-all surprises include: the aggressive answers to Sarah Palmer's history, a fierce re-peak into her hollow, suckered, toothy smile; Where's Annie?, regurgitated and paired with that staining image of Bad (?) Coop cackling at the broken mirror; further information on tulpas, and the stamp of evil and reversal, hearkening to the motel, crossing the lines of realities; and, at last, confirmation at least about Audrey's son, but not her mental, literal, dreaming, or other-wise otherworldly imprison/enlightenment.
There is a lot to be seen here for fans, and it gave me that fifth grade feeling --- the kind where you want to learn, rapidly, and head to the library for all the topical books you can find. Twin Peaks this, and Twin Peaks that. I want to think about it forever! I am a glowing believer in its artistic execution. This book serves its end.
We can't talk about this book without talking about Twin Peaks: The Return. I already presupposed the third season creates a permissable evil, as much as we want to champion Special Agent Dale Cooper for what was his apparent Laura Palmer murder reversal. What is so successful about this, apart from the dingy, cheeky, and fun echoes of characters loved and lost at the curtain call, was a reader's growing awareness of this evil. Questioning its success, existence, and, as Tammy Preston writes, memory, we retain subtle hints of ancient lore, of the sexual communion that brings world darkness and destruction, and an inevaporable explosion of filth. It leaves me with a lot of questions--- the potency of the explored locations (New Mexico/Twin Peaks) in terms of their haunting proprietress. When we meet "JUDY," and we do meet "JUDY," it is clear that there is a rubber band of evil vibrating, statically, along this story line, and that is consumptive and brutal. I am fascinated, again, with this book's ties to otherworldly opinion. It can serve companioned to research. Or, you can take it for a slice of cake: pure and delicious entertainment. I think this balance fares well and we can close Twin Peaks at the Blue Rose ending title page that illumines in its perhaps-total-darkness: a proper bookend to an artistic creation that so sweetly convinces you that you understand, but yet you're still so sure there's more going on than you're ever meant to. A concussive success. Mind-bending, or familiar. The juxtaposing of flaky crusted cherry pie, and the Arm, for example. You've got that here again in this book.
Some of my favorite tell-all surprises include: the aggressive answers to Sarah Palmer's history, a fierce re-peak into her hollow, suckered, toothy smile; Where's Annie?, regurgitated and paired with that staining image of Bad (?) Coop cackling at the broken mirror; further information on tulpas, and the stamp of evil and reversal, hearkening to the motel, crossing the lines of realities; and, at last, confirmation at least about Audrey's son, but not her mental, literal, dreaming, or other-wise otherworldly imprison/enlightenment.
There is a lot to be seen here for fans, and it gave me that fifth grade feeling --- the kind where you want to learn, rapidly, and head to the library for all the topical books you can find. Twin Peaks this, and Twin Peaks that. I want to think about it forever! I am a glowing believer in its artistic execution. This book serves its end.
flavourlessquark's review against another edition
dark
emotional
informative
mysterious
fast-paced
3.0
saintdoormatius's review
3.0
I'm so torn on this book: for starters, I blew through it in under twenty-four hours. Unlike Frost's previous book, The Secret History of Twin Peaks, which was structured for a slower, deep dive, this book is set up to be read as a straight narrative (and the "author," Tamara Preston, even states this outright in the introduction). It's very compelling...BUT, how you feel about this book will ultimately hinge on what you want from it. If you're looking for explanations to the multiple mysteries still remaining from Twin Peaks: The Return, this offers them. Almost too many mysteries are solved, and solved very tightly, almost curtly. So, if that is what you want, I strongly recommend this book. On the other hand, if you are wanting something similar to what both The Secret History and the new season offered - mysteries solved and then new ones unfolded, like lotus petals- this book will only frustrate and anger you. I also feel that Frost and Lynch have two very different interpretations of Agent Preston as a character, and while Frost makes some effort to resolve it here, it does not quite work.
All in all, this book redeemed what I suspected when I first saw it listed for publication: that as the "final dossier" there really is not meant to be another season of the show - the ending is what it is, and this book is clearly meant to tie up many (but not all) of the loose ends.
All in all, this book redeemed what I suspected when I first saw it listed for publication: that as the "final dossier" there really is not meant to be another season of the show - the ending is what it is, and this book is clearly meant to tie up many (but not all) of the loose ends.
sanlula's review
funny
informative
lighthearted
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.5
jakewritesbooks's review
4.0
Started out as a “Where are they now?” Tale and dovetailed into something…else. By the end, the vibes were appropriately weird and now I’m ready for the new season.
neilrcoulter's review
1.0
This is just really bad fan fiction. Yes, it’s written by the co-creator of the series, but it only shows that Mark Frost doesn’t understand the story he co-created. At least, he doesn’t understand it the way David Lynch and most of its fans do. Twin Peaks is not about connecting all the dots and answering all the questions (though there are many moments, especially in season three, when answers to certain questions would be most welcome). Rather, it’s more of a narrative doorway to many different possibilities and musings. This is particularly true throughout the brilliant, dark, infuriating third season, when the possible interpretations crash in on one another in sometimes frustrating ways. The final episode seems almost disconnected from the rest of the story, and rather than answering any questions, or even leaving a cliff-hanger that makes any sense, it suggests that maybe every story we think we know is always in motion, always ready to yank us into a parallel story. I don’t know if this explains why our own stories seem so fractured and complex, or if it just makes everything feel more that way, regardless of the logic we think we see around us. Can there ever be a world in which Laura Palmer is happy? Is there a lesson Cooper needs to learn, or is he stuck with his misguided self-confident arrogance, which will keep throwing him into story after story but will never give him a resolution?
These are interesting questions. Wondering what Dr. Jacoby was up to in the 25 years between the original series and the third season is not. At least, it’s not worth a chapter of a book. The Final Dossier is different from the also-bad Secret History book in that it’s not “archivist” documents but instead is all memos written by Tammy Preston to Gordon Cole, trying to tie up loose ends from the investigation. This is a problem, because in the show, Agent Preston is a boring minor character who says about 15 words total. Now we read a book written by her in which she is over-the-top chatty and sarcastic. Where did this come from? The voice is also inconsistent, and some of what she reports from historical documents (Albert used the phrase “trigger warning” in 1989?) is odd.
A lot of the book seems to want to retcon details that don’t obviously fit in anywhere. Some of it is trying to fix things that Frost got wrong in the previous book. One entire chapter is an enormously convoluted retcon that tries to cover up the fact that in the earlier book Frost forgot that Norma’s mother didn’t die in the 1980s. What Frost comes up with is so much worse than just admitting that the previous book was wrong (as any fan of the series could have told him). More embarrassing is that this book refers to the Log Lady as “Margaret Coulson,” mixing up the name of the actress (Catherine Coulson) with the name of the character (clearly given as Margaret Lanterman in the series). Nobody caught this before the book was published?
There are no answers to more pressing plot-related questions, such as when, how, and why Ray Monroe started working for Philip Jeffries, why Jeffries is now inside a large tea kettle in an old motel room, why the Arm now looks like a cheap plastic tree instead of a small man in a red suit, the origins of Janey-E and Sonny Jim, whether Miriam recovers in the hospital (okay, that’s not so pressing; but I’m still curious). Sadly, there’s no further background on the Mitchum brothers and Candie, Sandie, and Mandie. Not urgent, but I love those characters and would actually like to read more about them.
There’s quite a bit about Audrey, but that’s a huge area where Frost’s retconning is unneeded. At the end of the original series, Audrey (much as I love her) is obviously dead. The fact that she reappears in season three is problematic, but Lynch leaves it relatively open for us to assume that she is, in fact, dead and either in the Black Lodge or hell. At the very least, she’s in a mental institution, locked in her own imagination. (The difficulty here is Richard; I don’t know any good way of explaining him.) So when Frost comes up with a backstory where Audrey opened a hair salon in Twin Peaks . . . please, no. That is not the way it happened.
There’s some explanation of where Annie is now, but it doesn’t make a lot of sense. Omitting her from the third season was a very strange choice.
The series, though I love it, certainly has its continuity problems, but Frost’s books are so off the mark (ha ha), it’s really disappointing. This is a case where the TV series just is a TV series, and it doesn’t translate well to any other medium.
These are interesting questions. Wondering what Dr. Jacoby was up to in the 25 years between the original series and the third season is not. At least, it’s not worth a chapter of a book. The Final Dossier is different from the also-bad Secret History book in that it’s not “archivist” documents but instead is all memos written by Tammy Preston to Gordon Cole, trying to tie up loose ends from the investigation. This is a problem, because in the show, Agent Preston is a boring minor character who says about 15 words total. Now we read a book written by her in which she is over-the-top chatty and sarcastic. Where did this come from? The voice is also inconsistent, and some of what she reports from historical documents (Albert used the phrase “trigger warning” in 1989?) is odd.
A lot of the book seems to want to retcon details that don’t obviously fit in anywhere. Some of it is trying to fix things that Frost got wrong in the previous book. One entire chapter is an enormously convoluted retcon that tries to cover up the fact that in the earlier book Frost forgot that Norma’s mother didn’t die in the 1980s. What Frost comes up with is so much worse than just admitting that the previous book was wrong (as any fan of the series could have told him). More embarrassing is that this book refers to the Log Lady as “Margaret Coulson,” mixing up the name of the actress (Catherine Coulson) with the name of the character (clearly given as Margaret Lanterman in the series). Nobody caught this before the book was published?
There are no answers to more pressing plot-related questions, such as when, how, and why Ray Monroe started working for Philip Jeffries, why Jeffries is now inside a large tea kettle in an old motel room, why the Arm now looks like a cheap plastic tree instead of a small man in a red suit, the origins of Janey-E and Sonny Jim, whether Miriam recovers in the hospital (okay, that’s not so pressing; but I’m still curious). Sadly, there’s no further background on the Mitchum brothers and Candie, Sandie, and Mandie. Not urgent, but I love those characters and would actually like to read more about them.
There’s quite a bit about Audrey, but that’s a huge area where Frost’s retconning is unneeded. At the end of the original series, Audrey (much as I love her) is obviously dead. The fact that she reappears in season three is problematic, but Lynch leaves it relatively open for us to assume that she is, in fact, dead and either in the Black Lodge or hell. At the very least, she’s in a mental institution, locked in her own imagination. (The difficulty here is Richard; I don’t know any good way of explaining him.) So when Frost comes up with a backstory where Audrey opened a hair salon in Twin Peaks . . . please, no. That is not the way it happened.
There’s some explanation of where Annie is now, but it doesn’t make a lot of sense. Omitting her from the third season was a very strange choice.
The series, though I love it, certainly has its continuity problems, but Frost’s books are so off the mark (ha ha), it’s really disappointing. This is a case where the TV series just is a TV series, and it doesn’t translate well to any other medium.
mattflip0309's review
Mark Frost managed to make sense out of the craziness that was the Twin Peaks revival, and God bless him for that
sarahdenn27's review
3.0
Ooooomg I’m finally done with the Twin Peaks revival and honestly, I coulda done without. Like, we didn’t need this at all. I’m just glad that this book helped elucidate some of what happened. But it can’t give me back the 18 hours I spent watching it