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michael_dupp 's review for:
The Mystery of Edwin Drood
by Charles Dickens
Whether by ideological or compositional opposition or tonal and formal similarities, The Mystery of Edwin Drood replicates or preempts Twin Peaks with astounding accuracy. In no other novel by Dickens is his extra-textual mortality more potent and present - how can they be? Yet in several mysterious ways, his own death can be interpreted as the inspiration for Twin Peaks, only created 122 years later.
The ideological impetus behind Twin Peaks is to combine forms - the soap opera and the murder mystery. This amalgam created certain necessary parameters, many of which refuted the industry's expectations of seriality. Is it possible to tell a murder mystery without revealing the identity of the murderer? Is it possible to tell a soap opera without doing so? It is common knowledge that David Lynch abandoned the project when it was clear that his overseers would not compromise. Returning to the show (with the final episode of season 2, the criminally underrated Fire Walk With Me and the triumphant The Return in 2017), Lynch could only salvage the story by reminding the audience of the true villainy in Twin Peaks; forces of abject and unknowable evil. One striking similarity or echo of Edwin Drood is the embodiment of evil; Leland Palmer is the second coming of John Jasper (the incestuous, scheming and invisibly evil older family member, possessed by madness disguised as desire). Indeed, John Jasper's love is "madness" (Shadow on the Sun-Dial, p. 228). Leland Palmer is the puppet of Bob, the personification of Evil, whereas Jasper is made the puppet of his immoral desires.
The question of seriality pertains to both, and in both cases the serial is interrupted (although in Twin Peaks' case, thankfully resumed and completed). This is a clear formal similarity. The audience has expectations of form for the purpose of subversion. This is the characteristic of genre writing - to subvert is to make novel and to renew. Dickens obviously never finished "The Mystery of Edwin Drood", and it is my understanding that even if he had, he would have contradicted himself. A completed murder mystery is no longer a mystery, something that Lynch knew well. Dickens' death is a central theme of scholarship on Drood, but as an extra-textual device, it is part in parcel. That is to say, that his death has necessarily become a narrative function within the book. The reader can feel his time running out, as the pages become fewer and the narrative continues to surge forward. My argument is that this propels elements of genre in perpetuity - and that to have finished the novel would have been to have failed. There is no ending; just as in Bleak House and life generally, there is no simple answer. Dickens' death is its own narrative force that takes over in his stead. The following passage is eerily prescient:
"And you must expect no miracle to help you, Neville," said Mr Crisparkle, compassionately.
"No sir, I know that. The ordinary fulness of time and circumstance is all I have to trust to."
"It will right you at last, Neville."
"So I believe, and I hope I may live to know it."
As his physical death is central to the novel, evidence such as this passage can be magnified to become prophetic. This is evocative of the obsessive data analysis of detectives, amateur or professional. There is no ending, just as there is no beginning. We are given no insight into Drood the character's beginning, and subjective glimpses and rumours about his demise.
Opium as a portal to dream-logic operates in a similar way in Drood to Twin Peaks, something that Lynch is very candid about. The logic of the dream is not analogous to reality, but they overlap. When this occurs, the dream-logic can often be more informative about reality than vice versa. This is tantalisingly kept until the final pages of Drood, where Princess Puffer, opium-den-matron, finds the single loose thread in the mystery (that we know of); Jasper's subjectivity. As he crosses the barrier between reality and dream, his assiduous pursuit of the 'murderer' is relaxed, and he almost confesses to the crime. If only we were given more evidence about this transit and its place in the mystery. At the very least, its having ended the novel creates a taste of where the narrative could have gone, despite its irrevocable and unavoidable resolution.
I loved the anecdote about his having offered a sneak-preview to the queen, but that she refused.
The ideological impetus behind Twin Peaks is to combine forms - the soap opera and the murder mystery. This amalgam created certain necessary parameters, many of which refuted the industry's expectations of seriality. Is it possible to tell a murder mystery without revealing the identity of the murderer? Is it possible to tell a soap opera without doing so? It is common knowledge that David Lynch abandoned the project when it was clear that his overseers would not compromise. Returning to the show (with the final episode of season 2, the criminally underrated Fire Walk With Me and the triumphant The Return in 2017), Lynch could only salvage the story by reminding the audience of the true villainy in Twin Peaks; forces of abject and unknowable evil. One striking similarity or echo of Edwin Drood is the embodiment of evil; Leland Palmer is the second coming of John Jasper (the incestuous, scheming and invisibly evil older family member, possessed by madness disguised as desire). Indeed, John Jasper's love is "madness" (Shadow on the Sun-Dial, p. 228). Leland Palmer is the puppet of Bob, the personification of Evil, whereas Jasper is made the puppet of his immoral desires.
The question of seriality pertains to both, and in both cases the serial is interrupted (although in Twin Peaks' case, thankfully resumed and completed). This is a clear formal similarity. The audience has expectations of form for the purpose of subversion. This is the characteristic of genre writing - to subvert is to make novel and to renew. Dickens obviously never finished "The Mystery of Edwin Drood", and it is my understanding that even if he had, he would have contradicted himself. A completed murder mystery is no longer a mystery, something that Lynch knew well. Dickens' death is a central theme of scholarship on Drood, but as an extra-textual device, it is part in parcel. That is to say, that his death has necessarily become a narrative function within the book. The reader can feel his time running out, as the pages become fewer and the narrative continues to surge forward. My argument is that this propels elements of genre in perpetuity - and that to have finished the novel would have been to have failed. There is no ending; just as in Bleak House and life generally, there is no simple answer. Dickens' death is its own narrative force that takes over in his stead. The following passage is eerily prescient:
"And you must expect no miracle to help you, Neville," said Mr Crisparkle, compassionately.
"No sir, I know that. The ordinary fulness of time and circumstance is all I have to trust to."
"It will right you at last, Neville."
"So I believe, and I hope I may live to know it."
As his physical death is central to the novel, evidence such as this passage can be magnified to become prophetic. This is evocative of the obsessive data analysis of detectives, amateur or professional. There is no ending, just as there is no beginning. We are given no insight into Drood the character's beginning, and subjective glimpses and rumours about his demise.
Opium as a portal to dream-logic operates in a similar way in Drood to Twin Peaks, something that Lynch is very candid about. The logic of the dream is not analogous to reality, but they overlap. When this occurs, the dream-logic can often be more informative about reality than vice versa. This is tantalisingly kept until the final pages of Drood, where Princess Puffer, opium-den-matron, finds the single loose thread in the mystery (that we know of); Jasper's subjectivity. As he crosses the barrier between reality and dream, his assiduous pursuit of the 'murderer' is relaxed, and he almost confesses to the crime. If only we were given more evidence about this transit and its place in the mystery. At the very least, its having ended the novel creates a taste of where the narrative could have gone, despite its irrevocable and unavoidable resolution.
I loved the anecdote about his having offered a sneak-preview to the queen, but that she refused.