Hey folks, have at it!  I will post my own comments here soon, as I have some things I need to do first today... in the meantime, I wanted you all to have the opportunity to start without me. 

For now, let's stick to the first 50 pages or so (dates listed in the subject) of the diary.  More in the weeks to follow.  Have fun. 

-geo

Well, first let me say Geoff that I think this is a great idea for discussions and I'm on it, man... Two thumbs up... I've finished reading those first pages just a moment ago and I'm ready to write my impressions...

To me the highlights of this first part of the diary are the meeting of Laura and the Log Lady, which is short yet enigmatic enough and above all the very erotic part about those boys, Rick, Josh and Tim. It's much better described here that in the series by Donna, very well written, sexually charged but according to what a 13 years old girl (Laura or not) would write. I don't like much the inclusion of "cameos", and that goes for the whole diary, Big Ed, Truman, Nadine; I know it's a nice connection to the series, they live after all in TP so it's understandable that they appear in the diary, but sometimes it feels forced.

Marvellous how BOB is introduced, being just mentioned, could be anybody... I love how she mentions she's happy and hopes BOB doesn't show up. If we could put ourselves in the position of reading the book without knowing anything about the series then this would become a very intriguing aspect. Who's BOB? Bobby Briggs, the bad boy from school?

IMO the book gets better later but this is a very good beginning, yep...

More later...

as well, the diary is very well written for a 12/13 year old.[i realise, of course, that it wasn't actually written by a kid that age, but instead by mabey david lycnh's wife? perhaps some one could confirm this for me].

it was nice to read that the young men with whom donna and laura fooled around were very gentle and nice to them.

it was interesting to note that laura found audrey to be kind of mean. as well, it was interesting to read that Ben horn had a great deal of interest in laura when she was a child.

oh, man, my comments here are goofy, but i can't think of much to say at the moment.

it's pileated, isn't it?

There's something very troubling about the way Ben fawns over Laura in the diary, as if were on one level in love with her and on another replacing Audrey with her.  Daughter and love interest intermingle.  The weird undercurrent of incest-by-proxy (which does almost come to a head between he and Audrey in One Eyed Jacks) makes Ben seem even worse than just a scoundrel.  It's understandable why Audrey not only mistrusts but hates him, which makes her becoming his right hand in the second series seem all the more forced in retrospect.

I always thought it was interesting how the two one-time partner killers have the same names as Laura's and Donna's high school boyfriends. 

Got up early, found something's missing/ My only name/ No one else sees but I got stuck/ And soon forever came

In the Jen Lynch video I posted on the 1st secret diary thread (not on explorer so I can't link it,) she brought up that she thinks TP fans should see the heavy-handed clues about whodunit in the book, so I'm looking for those now. So far, none- except the foreshadowing of the lie about who really gave LP Troy.  Also, that the diary itself was a birthday present from Leland (and Sarah.) Hmmm....

I love that Ben/Laura relationship. It reminds me of Lolita. I could definitely envision a subtext of mutual attraction developing as Laura's libido began to run wild. In ep 2, of course, Audrey tells Donna "he used to sing to her."  Cooper builds his case against Ben from these clues in the diary, too.

These early bits are so authentic and remind me of my girlfriends and I trying to be cool and naughty by hanging out with older guys, smoking. 

We don't ever find out in the series that Maddy's four years older, right? 

Got up early, found something's missing/ My only name/ No one else sees but I got stuck/ And soon forever came

Snog - Jennifer Lynch, who wrote the diary is actually David's daughter. :-)

I agree with Gordon about this being an EXCELLENT idea and kudos to Geoff!

This is gonna be grrreat!

Anyway...

It's been great re-reading part one, considering I haven't done so in about 3 years.  I'm appreciating it so much more this way.  Having to be quite self-disciplined to stop there actually, but I managed hehe.  Anyway, Geoff said for us to feel free to start without him so I have some questions if that's ok maybe we could ponder 'til he gets back. (Hope you don't mind Geoff, if so obviously feel free to remove them/shut me up lol.) 

1) Who do we think the man singing Waltzing Matilda to Laura in Sara's voice is?  Could it be Mike?  It can't be BOB because Laura has already established his presence earlier in the diary, so surely she would have said "BOB was singing Waltzing Matilda" but I just get the feeling it could be Mike because

A) Like BOB, he is an inhabiting spirit, so therefore could still be in Gerard's body, but have inhabited Sarah's voice while she was sleeping or something, or recorded her voice when she originally sang it to Laura and then mouthed it back?  Does that make sense?  The reason I kinda am thinking that now as a pose to in the past is because of the Mulholland drive "It's all a tape recording" line.  Sorry if that sounds like I'm going off topic, but it seems all relative to me somehow..

B) She just says that he is strange and sings it in a scary voice - who else would do that other than BOB or Mike?  

2) Who do you think the man/pervert making the circles with the long hair is?  I don't believe that can be BOB either because again, why wouldn't she just have said "BOB".  She just talks about the wind and her legs burning and snapping because she couldn't keep them closed (lol) and the woods talk in this early part of the diary I find fascinating..

I also find fascinating, and very sad in a way, the difference in Laura's relationship with her best friend Donna at the start.  I mean she REALLY loves her in the beginning and cherishes her, treats her like you should treat your friends all through this section, like she'd be totally lost without her, so it's so nice to see, but sad in a way, knowing what happens to them later.

Yeh, I think it has already been established that Maddy's age was not verified in the series. You would think Donna would remember her, but then, considering she only knew her from 4 days 5/6 years ago I guess they could forget...I never forget anything like camp outs with friends when I was that age, but some people have better memories than other I guess.  It was interesting to me also, how, when Maddy is in the diary, in the early part of it, it's like she comes across as Laura's role model "ooh Maddy talked about French kissing! Did this did that wore sexy clothes blah blah" and Laura really seems to idolise her, yet the Maddy later on, seems to be like the "good" Laura and pretty geekish, nothing like we see in the diary, so it also makes me wonder what changed her and what her dreams in the woods were about.  Maybe she had premonitions of what would happen to her cousin so it made her see things differently. 

One last thing I find very interesting and I think could be seen as a clue of sorts...when Laura finds out it was Ben that bought Troy for her rather than Leland and she talks about how this makes Leland "less of an honest man." Does this mean that after this she starts to distrust/be wary of him? 

"watch out for my cousin.."

 / L 

~Night time is my time~

MSN: lilla_laura_palmer@home.se

Good call, Maddy. Snog, you should also check out Jennifer Lynch's other work to date, the film Boxing Helena.

The woods talk is so great here.

a) Like the spell Laura is under, "It was like the woods got us acting all crazy, like the trees and the fact that it had gotten dark made us forget anything else existed." It's as if BOB's (and the owls') realm, the "pleasures," as Mike says, "appetite... satisfaction," is the woods and not even her first happy, sexual discoveries are safe from him there :( And her poem that talks about the trees trying to cry and speak to "lead the world to the one that made the hole."

b) The Log Lady gives her warnings about the woods as a place for gaining good and bad knowledge. and says "Children are prey sometimes." Is this Secret Diary an allegory for child abuse? Then she tells Margaret that things happen to her in the woods "when it is very dark" that she isn't sure are real. That's so creepy.

She also really loves her mom. They seem so close, like Sarah's goodnight to Laura must have been just that sincere. (In the series, it seems when Maddy says goodbye and 'I love you' to Sarah and Leland she really means it, too.)

Also the rat dream foretells what she is going to do to avoid being taken by BOB.

 I used to wonder this too. But what if Laura didn't see Leland as BOB at first. She would've been creating BOB in to her because she couldn't handle the fact that her father was abusing her sexually. At first it would only be about changing the name of the abuser and later on actually seeing him as the strange man from her dreams. Also, if we think BOB as a supernatural inhabiting spirit, he might have said his name, BOB, to Laura. And Laura would only hear his name but not see his face.

It really sounds like he would be BOB in the dream. It fits to BOB perfectly.

I've also wondered that Laura said BOB has been having here since she was 12, but she got the diary at that age and she mentions BOB very early. If BOB would've been having her since she was 12, it would've started at the same day she got her diary. Now, then it would be odd to hope that BOB wouldn't come because she couldn't actually have seen him if we think that what Laura told to Harold in FWWM is true. This could be an inconsistence, but if we think that Laura began to see BOB, or began to create BOB to forget that it's her father who is doing it to her, then we could say that BOB really did start to have Laura ever since she was 12. Leland could've been doing it to her before that.

That said, some children who have been sexually abused forget what has happened to them. Then, we could think that Laura made herself to forget that her father had been abusing her by starting to write about BOB in her diary.

Wow, this post is quite hard to read... I'll try to explain my point later if it's not understandable.

Logic Hat Online- logichat.org

thankyou for telling me who jennifer lynch is. btw, i just added Boxing Helena to my netflix cue! i had heard of this film years ago and had wanted to see it.

i'm enjoying reading people's comments here, btw. many are quite illuminating.

it's pileated, isn't it?

Got up early, found something's missing/ My only name/ No one else sees but I got stuck/ And soon forever came

That's one of the things I don't like about the diary. It really doesn't line up that well with the series.

Bob talks to her at length, and we are supposed to believe that she writes it down uncontrollably?

Based on this diary, I would think she was making it up, that she had psychological issues. Also, it seems like she has too much to do. I think when they were writing the show, it was cool to have Laura involved in all kinds of things, but, to actually see her trying to live that out just seems ridiculous.

It's my first time reading the diary since that summer in 1990.  This time I get to read the hardback edition that I won in the scavenger hunt at  the Festival last summer.

 Some observations, and a lot of questions:

 The diary doesn't hold up nearly as well as the series, or even FWWM.  Looking at it now, it seems like it was part of the hype at the time, but not much more consequential than the Access Guide or the non-licensed Guide to Who's Who & What's What.  Parts of it don't sound like they were written by a 12 or 13 year old, and many parts don't sound like they were written by Laura Palmer.

I wonder how Laura decided what to put into each of her diaries.  "Nervous about meeting J tonight" seems like it should go into the secret diary.

Why would Laura's parents not tell Laura that Troy was a gift from Ben?  It seems like Leland could afford to buy a horse for Laura himself if he wanted, especially if he is now paying for keeping Troy.

I remember that when I first saw Sarah's white horse, I thought that it was Troy, until someone pointed out that Troy was brown.

Why does Laura call Ben "Benjamin" even though she calls Donna's parents Dr. and Mrs. Hayward? 

Can Josh, Rick and Tim really not tell that Laura and Donna are 13?  Well, maybe not, since we now know that Laura will look like she's 40 in four years.

What's wrong with the adults in Twin Peaks?  Why do they let unescorted children into the Bookhouse and the Roadhouse?  Doesn't anyone recognize the smell of tobacco or alcohol?

The encounter on River Road with the Log Lady nicely foreshadows the meeting between the two in FWWM.

That's all for now.  Looking forward to 1986 and beyond.

 Last summer I found myself asking the same question - "Whats wrong with the adults? Why do they let children into the local bar when we're celebrating easter?", concerning the "children" in the smalltown I live in myself. I don't know if it's a typical smalltown-thing? That we let our children and teenagers join the party, since we want to etend so much ourselves and not leave the kids home alone...some kids where there wíthout their parents too of course. I don't know if it's typical swedish either, but I did too go to these localbars-parties when I was a teenager. Sometimes we would sneak in of course. And once you were in, the boys naturally thought you were older than you were (so, I guess Rick, Josh and Tim couldn't tell Laura and Donnas exact age). And it is quite simple for a girl to look older - just put some make-up on and light a cigarette and you're at least 3 years older (if you're 13). The bartenders and barowners never seemed to care. Now when I'm an adult I cannot believe it's still going on! The strangest thing is that our local bar look very similar to the Road House! ;P

I like the Log Lady-part in the diary too, it's really nice!  

 / L 

~Night time is my time~

MSN: lilla_laura_palmer@home.se

So I'm pretty much a terrible "host" to this discussion, I know.  I've been finishing up school stuff this week, so please forgive my absence.  I will try to be a much larger presence in the upcomming weeks.  On the brighter side... my thesis is done and submitted.  WOOT!

I really have little to say about this week's selection.  Laura seems to say and do a lot here that merely sets her up as a sweet girl tormented by a sinisterly precocious knowledge of her own sexuality.  I'm not sure if I think it was handled as well as I would have liked, but it's okay.  For example, it's interesting that both of the experpts referred to in the series (I include here the mirror of Donna's story from ep 12 or 13)  appear here in this first year when she's 12.  It's almost like Jen wanted to get them out of the way.  And I cant help but think the boys (Josh Tom and Rick) were kinda creeps for messing around with 12 year old girls.  I mean... they cant really look like theyre 18, after all.  :)

"watch out for my cousin.."