Subject: Re: Cooper's Diary (Was: Re: Dark Side [Coop]) From: hist1261@waikato.ac.nz Date: 1992-06-14, 16:55 Newsgroups: alt.tv.twin-peaks In article <1992Jun13.121121.14869@ucc.su.OZ.AU>, timh@extro.ucc.su.OZ.AU (Timothy James Hatfield) writes: > > > > In article kwh@CS.CMU.EDU (Kevin Hartmann) writes: >> >> >> >>Robert Hooker writes: >> >> >>> >>> For those that have read the Coop diary [is there a fan who HASN'T read >>> >>> it?], >> >> >> >>I'm a fan and haven't read it. I've seen every episode at least 3 times each, so >> >>I might even call myself a big fan. Who wrote the diary? Lynch? Frost? >> >>Has Lynch given it his blessing (so to speak)? > > > > It was written by Scott Frost, who I presume is Mark Frost's son - a similar > > arrangement to Jenny Lynch (David's daughter) writing the Diary. It seems > > fairly "official" to me. > > > > Seriously though, you should read it. It is very revealing (about Coop's past > > and showing how his character developed), very interesting, and very, VERY > > funny in a lot of places. I have never read another book that was so brooding/ > > depressing on one page and hilarious the next. And, as I also said, it is great > > background reading in improving one's understanding of the show. > > I'm pretty sure that Scott Frost is Mark Frost's brother. There was an article on him in the "New Zealand Listener" a few months back in which he described the circumstances in which the book was written - basically he had a free hand, with Lynch and his brother perhaps providing some initial ideas and (I presume) checking the final copy before it went to press. All this is from memory however - I'll have to track down the original article later. I've just finished reading both "Twin Peaks books". While I agree that they are imaginative and alternately scary and amusing, I wonder what stock we can put in them in terms of interpreting the series or the film (an issue which begs a few theoretical questions). I doubt very much whether the version of the Teresa Banks inquiry in Cooper's "autobiography" will be consistent with the "Fire Walk With Me" account. The books are themselves a variation on the television series - interpretations "as seen by Jennifer Lynch" and "heard by Scott Frost" - rather than an integral part of the visual texts. Both the "Star Trek" television series and the "Star Wars" films have produced similar literary spin-offs, books and stories that have never (to the best of my knowledge) influenced later cinematic followups (which are themselves not always consistent with the earlier films/series). "Splinter of the Mind's Eye" did not influence "The Empire Strikes Back" and nor, I suspect, will "The Secret Diary of Laura Palmer" provide a blueprint for "Fire Walk With Me". Richard.