Kafka, Lynch, and Frost—The Trial and Tribulations in Twin Peaks: The Return

Abstract

Based on David Lynch’s lifelong preoccupation with the prose of Franz Kafka, this article argues that Twin Peaks: The Return (2017) represents an homage to Kafka’s novel The Trial (1925). The text identifies and analyzes several parallels between these works (their interplay with what Espen Hammer calls the genre of the metaphysical crime narrative and their use of motifs of doors and thresholds) in order to explain how they contribute to the complexity of Lynch and Frost’s television series.

Keywords

• twin peaks
• david lynch
• franz kafka
• the trial
• literature
• novels
• crime narrative