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The Red Cover: The Original Editions of “The Secret Diary of Laura Palmer” and “Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland”

When you compare side-by-side the original 1865 published book of Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland by Lewis Carroll, and the original 1990 published book of The Secret Diary of Laura Palmer by Jennifer Lynch, you can see similarities from the very first glance.

They are both red with gold accents, and both encircle their main character on the front cover with a gold ring. And if you take the titles and compare them, both titles suggest that, as readers, we are going to live vicariously through the evocative experiences of a female character. And it’s true – in both we discover the thoughts of these young ladies. In both, there are quite a few poems. In both, the girls talk to themselves, think, and dream. Both girls start out innocent – and then have some pretty insane interactions with otherworldly creatures.

We can look into the world of Twin Peaks for comparisons to Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland as well. In Season 2, Episode 5 of Twin Peaks, Donna and Maddie plan to steal Laura’s diary from Harold Smith, a friend of Laura’s who refuses to turn the diary over as evidence. Notice that Harold could hide the diary anywhere in the house, but he keeps it in his bookcase. This likens Laura’s diary to a book/a fiction/a story… much like Alice.

But the comparison that really jumps out, is when Donna points out to Maddie that “all the notebooks look the same, except for Laura’s.” She says, “Hers is smaller with a red cover.”

Jumping back to 1864, according to the earliest known letter that survived between author Lewis Carroll and his publisher Macmillan, Carroll insisted that his book Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland differ from the usual Macmillan green, and that his book be covered in “bright red”.

So (to really drive this point home) in the mid 1860s when Alice’s Adventures In Wonderland was printed, you could have said, “All children’s books look the same, except for Lewis Carroll’s… His has a red cover.”

Go further down the rabbit hole with my previous posts.

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Titles in text of the works of David Lynch...

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Note the cat statuette in: TWIN PEAKS, S2E7 (1990, dir. Lynch, wr. Frost) x LOLITA (1962, dir. Kubrick, wr./adapting Nabokov) x THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY (1945, dir./wr. Lewin, adapting Wilde) A short post on this point of influence, which I haven't seen discussed before...

These scenarios are roughly parallel: in each case, the pictured character (villain) is contemplating a monstrous course of action: Leland, killing Maddy; Humbert, killing Charlotte; Dorian, giving up his soul in exchange for a conscience-avoidant "foul dream[] of sensual life."

While the cat statuette has no role in Wilde's novel, the film quotes a Wilde poem to explain its use of the statuette as a kind of mystical totem gifting Gray eternal youth in exchange for his soul, awakening a "bestial sense" that leads him to discard any moral scruples...

As a result, all of Gray's increasing moral degradation is made visible in his portrait, while he himself remains spotless, eternally young & beautiful. The portrait thus arguably acts somewhat as BOB does for Leland in TP: as a kind of moral alibi, a displacement of conscience.

Meanwhile, in LOLITA, a similarly conscience-avoidant role is arguably played, in part, by the character of Quilty. As in GRAY, LOLITA's story ends with the destruction of this figure—and fittingly, Quilty is killed behind a portrait, making the analogy to GRAY even stronger...

And, of course, much can been said about the links b/w TWIN PEAKS & Kubrick's LOLITA, a film Lynch has often cited as a favorite. Leland & Humbert: apparently "normal" patriarchs abusing their (step)daughter, guilty of murder, & subjectively displacing their culpability. But that's a subject for another time...

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#TwinPeaks #LauraPalmer #SherylLee #BehindTheScenes

Sheryl Lee Twin Peaks Fire Walk With Me 1992

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Lynchian Rooms

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Kiefer Sutherland on the set of Twin Peaks Fire Walk With Me 1992

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Source: thedodo

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omg i’m crying

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Sheryl Lee as Karen Stern in Cafe Society (2016) dir. Woody Allen.

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#Phantogram  #FallInLove

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Cinematographer Caleb Deschanel with his daughters Emily and Zooey.

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There are many stories in Twin Peaks — some of them are sad, some funny. Some of them are stories of madness, of violence. Some are ordinary. Yet they all have about them a sense of mystery — the mystery of life. Sometimes, the mystery of death. The mystery of the woods. The woods surrounding Twin Peaks. To introduce this story, let me just say it encompasses the All — it is beyond the “Fire”, though few would know that meaning. It is a story of many, but begins with one — and I knew her. The one leading to the many is Laura Palmer. Laura is the one.

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Kyle MacLachlan and David Lynch on the set of BLIE VELVET (1986)

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