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8/23/2006
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I read The Master and Margarita a few years ago, and to be honest, it did not remind me of Twin Peaks. But now that you have mentioned it, I am starting to see the similarities. Both take very old ideas (the battle between good and evil, including the Devil and/or evil spirits) and transplant them into a modern setting, either the USSR in the 1930s or the USA in the late 1980s or early 1990s. However, The Master and Margarita is a much more political novel, whose main aim is a political satire against the Soviet government/Stalin, whose true meaning is hidden in a complicated system of symbols, mainly because Bulgakov would have got into great trouble if he had written something more direct and obvious. Shostakovich was in a similar situation, and used secret codes in the context of classical music. Twin Peaks does not really deal with politics, especially not large-scale (inter)national politics. Nearly everything is working on a small-scale local neighbourhood, community, family or personal level. There is that mystical and spiritual side to it, but once again, the spiritual development offered by Buddhism happens on a personal basis to individuals, and those who have mystical experiences tend to be individual people, who are then isolated and mocked by the rest of society, eg, Simone Weil in reality and the Log Lady in Twin Peaks, although admittedly, in Twin Peaks, eccentricity seems to be tolerated more than in most places. But, to cut a long story short, both "The Master..." and "Twin Peaks" deal with the notion of evil personified in a human form, the Professor in the first case (sorry, can't remember his exact name) and BOB in the latter case, and the disastrous and chaotic effects it can have on a group of people. "The Master..." does seem more of a comedy/farce though. When "Twin Peaks" deals with murder and death, it treats them very seriously, eliciting the emotions of fear and horror.
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