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David Lynch: The Man from Another Place
At once a pop culture icon, cult figure, and film industry outsider, master filmmaker David Lynch and his work defy easy definition. Dredged from his subconscious mind, Lynch’s work is primed to act on our own subconscious, combining heightened, contradictory emotions into something familiar but inscrutable. No less than his art, Lynch’s life also evades simple categorization, encompassing pursuits as a musician, painter, photographer, carpenter, entrepreneur, and vocal proponent of Transcendental Meditation.
David Lynch: The Man from Another Place, Dennis Lim’s remarkably smart and concise book, proposes several lenses through which to view Lynch and his work: through the age-old mysteries of the uncanny and the sublime, through the creative energies of surrealism and postmodernism, through ideas of America and theories of good and evil. Lynch himself often warns against overinterpretation. And accordingly, this is not a book that seeks to decode his art or annotate his life—to dispel the strangeness of the Lynchian—so much as one that offers complementary ways of seeing and understanding one of the most distinctive bodies of work in modern cinema. Its spirit is true to its subject, in remaining suggestive rather than definitive, in allowing what Lynch likes to call “room to dream,” and in honoring the allure of the unknown and the unknowable.
David Lynch: The Man from Another Place, Dennis Lim’s remarkably smart and concise book, proposes several lenses through which to view Lynch and his work: through the age-old mysteries of the uncanny and the sublime, through the creative energies of surrealism and postmodernism, through ideas of America and theories of good and evil. Lynch himself often warns against overinterpretation. And accordingly, this is not a book that seeks to decode his art or annotate his life—to dispel the strangeness of the Lynchian—so much as one that offers complementary ways of seeing and understanding one of the most distinctive bodies of work in modern cinema. Its spirit is true to its subject, in remaining suggestive rather than definitive, in allowing what Lynch likes to call “room to dream,” and in honoring the allure of the unknown and the unknowable.
184 pages, Hardcover
First published August 28, 2013
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1616 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 100 reviews
March 18, 2025
Very accessible bio of the life and work of a genius. At 200 pages it doesn't go to deep in trying to get inside Lynch's head, Lim isn't trying to solve a puzzle when it comes to Lynch's thought process, but what he does do he does ever so well, giving a rounded account of his early life through to his later years when he stopped making films, turning more to his other forms of interest, two being painting and music, which are also studied, whilst offering, most important to me, a critical exploration of all his films. To be honest, I would have given this top marks anyway even if he was still with us, so it's not like a jerk reaction to his passing.
On that though, I knew something wasn't right when he stopped his weather report, which I regularly used to watch on YouTube; not because I'm bothered about whether it's sunny or not in L.A., me being on the other side of the Atlantic, but just to hear him and see him, wishing everyone a great day! He could have been talking about practically anything and I would have tuned in. The last of his videos his breathing was really bad then, and I hope to god he didn't suffer in the end. Bless him, a true great. Will never be another like him.
February 16, 2017
This is as quick and breezy a trip through David Lynch's life and oeuvre as I can imagine. And it's kind of fun to just get a glimpse into the man and his work, not lingering too long on any one period or piece. I'm mostly familiar with Lynch through Twin Peaks, which I've watched numerous times and which, when I watched the original broadcast, became a real touchstone moment in my artistic perspective. It was the first time that I realized TV could be something much different from what it normally was. And though in the years since, there have been many shows hailed as "the next Twin Peaks," there has never been anything remotely close to it in quality and addiction. (Carnivale came very close and, like Twin Peaks, was canceled way too soon.)
In reading about Lynch, I found a number of ways that I really relate to him and understand him. His honesty and candor, for example, is something that I understand. But in many other ways, he's a much different person from me--and I'm rather glad that I'm me.
In reading about The Straight Story, Lynch's G-rated Disney film that was very successful at the time but has just about been forgotten since, I was happy to read this comment from Lynch: "I think it may be my most experimental film. . . . Tenderness can be just as abstract as insanity" (139). Though I disagree that it's his "most experimental film," I love his perspective, that a sweet, linear story needn't be regarded as something lesser than a wilder, out-there film.
The author of this book, Dennis Lim, does an okay job skimming the surface of Lynch. But really, if you're writing a book about David Lynch, you cannot write a wrong name for a Twin Peaks character! Page 115: the keeper of Laura Palmer's secret diary was Harold Smith, not Howard.
In reading about Lynch, I found a number of ways that I really relate to him and understand him. His honesty and candor, for example, is something that I understand. But in many other ways, he's a much different person from me--and I'm rather glad that I'm me.
In reading about The Straight Story, Lynch's G-rated Disney film that was very successful at the time but has just about been forgotten since, I was happy to read this comment from Lynch: "I think it may be my most experimental film. . . . Tenderness can be just as abstract as insanity" (139). Though I disagree that it's his "most experimental film," I love his perspective, that a sweet, linear story needn't be regarded as something lesser than a wilder, out-there film.
The author of this book, Dennis Lim, does an okay job skimming the surface of Lynch. But really, if you're writing a book about David Lynch, you cannot write a wrong name for a Twin Peaks character! Page 115: the keeper of Laura Palmer's secret diary was Harold Smith, not Howard.
January 9, 2016
As a Lynch obsessive, I'm as keen as any other to learn more about the worlds the visionary auteur creates, as well as the worlds he himself inhabits. In this insightful, occasionally thought-provoking book, Lim manages to address the needs of his audience succinctly and chronologically, with authorial objectivity giving way to subjective bias only occasionally.
There is much to be divulged from the tales of Lynch's childhood - how his upbringing and changing surroundings shaped his art. Several overarching motifs are established across his cross-media body of work, although some venture into fan theory and others borrow from previously established viewpoints.
Despite this, the book is easy to read, and each chapter manages, whilst concentrating on the evolving eras of Lynch's work, to invoke a strong desire to revisit each and every film as you read on. Often spoiler-heavy, the book assumes readers will have already seen the major releases, and occasionally focuses on particularly significant or revelatory moments which are likely (or certainly, as Lynch would undoubtedly stress) best experienced in person before they are analysed.
Never seeking to de-code, Lim instead maintains the essential air of mystery and ethereality necessary for complete immersion, nor does he claim to know all of the answers. He does, however, provide several fascinating accounts, theories, opinions and counter-opinions, whilst simultaneously allowing the reader to feel almost as close to the visionary director as he has been.
A must-have for any fans - there is always more for any obsessive to discover, and there is indeed a fair amount here.
There is much to be divulged from the tales of Lynch's childhood - how his upbringing and changing surroundings shaped his art. Several overarching motifs are established across his cross-media body of work, although some venture into fan theory and others borrow from previously established viewpoints.
Despite this, the book is easy to read, and each chapter manages, whilst concentrating on the evolving eras of Lynch's work, to invoke a strong desire to revisit each and every film as you read on. Often spoiler-heavy, the book assumes readers will have already seen the major releases, and occasionally focuses on particularly significant or revelatory moments which are likely (or certainly, as Lynch would undoubtedly stress) best experienced in person before they are analysed.
Never seeking to de-code, Lim instead maintains the essential air of mystery and ethereality necessary for complete immersion, nor does he claim to know all of the answers. He does, however, provide several fascinating accounts, theories, opinions and counter-opinions, whilst simultaneously allowing the reader to feel almost as close to the visionary director as he has been.
A must-have for any fans - there is always more for any obsessive to discover, and there is indeed a fair amount here.
September 25, 2017
Había leído el libro por abril pero deje un capítulo pendiente: el referente a Inland Empire, que era la única película que me faltaba de ver de David Lynch. Ayer la vi, y hoy terminé el libro.
Buenos análisis, y sobre todo, buena explicación del contexto en el que se crearon las películas de este director. Muchas de sus obras han sido moldeadas por las circunstancias de la producción (Mulhollabd Dr. como piloto de una serie transformada en película a último momento, Eraserhead con su turbulenta historia de producción en cinco años, Twin Peaks con el estudio metiendo sus sucias manotas por ahí, etc).
Recomendado para fans de Lynch, como yo. Si sacan una edición más tarde enfocada en el regreso de Twin Peaks de este año, yo me apunto para leerlo.
Buenos análisis, y sobre todo, buena explicación del contexto en el que se crearon las películas de este director. Muchas de sus obras han sido moldeadas por las circunstancias de la producción (Mulhollabd Dr. como piloto de una serie transformada en película a último momento, Eraserhead con su turbulenta historia de producción en cinco años, Twin Peaks con el estudio metiendo sus sucias manotas por ahí, etc).
Recomendado para fans de Lynch, como yo. Si sacan una edición más tarde enfocada en el regreso de Twin Peaks de este año, yo me apunto para leerlo.
November 8, 2025
Really great - wish it was written later to include The Return!
May 6, 2025
RIP mi querido Lynch pero siempre en mi corazón
September 25, 2017
A revealing, highly accessible overview of the enigma who is David Lynch. The strength of the book is that the writer focuses on the core of what most Readers probably want to know more about rather than minutiae regarding the Lynch ancestral history and what a former teacher might have had to say about him. Details were not available at the time this was written, but it would have been tremendous if the writer could have commented on TWIN PEAKS: THE RETURN … the next step in the David Lynch cinematic evolution process after INLAND EMPIRE.
Dennis Lim provided a perspective regarding Lynch’s work that I hadn’t considered before. Is David Lynch a neo-H.P. Lovecraft, exploring the frightening unseen that lurks beneath an appearance of normalcy? There is ample evidence of this in almost every motion picture (except THE STRAIGHT STORY) and in TWIN PEAKS. It would certainly explain how the Lynch storylines often confound viewers who are trying to impose an order to them.
The writer doesn’t engage in a deep analysis of what Lynch is trying to do, so the thoughts have value even for the casual Reader who has heard of David Lynch, but who isn’t an acolyte. My thoughts didn’t always mesh with Lim’s interpretation, but that is part of the fun of journeying into Lynch’s surreal subconscious. All attempts to impose a preset order destroy the delicate fabric.
Most of the text explores the major highlights. So, you’ll find a “deep dive” into ERASERHEAD, BLUE VELVET, TWIN PEAKS, WILD AT HEART, TWIN PEAKS: FIRE WALK WITH ME, LOST HIGHWAY, MULHOLLAND DRIVE and INLAND EMPIRE. Lim only lightly touches upon THE ELEPHANT MAN, DUNE and THE STRAIGHT STORY. There is also little mentioned about his sit-com television series with Mark Frost and his davidlynch.com website.
It was fascinating to learn that although Lynch studied the artistic medium (and got into film as an attempt to have his art “move”), he was very unfamiliar with film history. Consequently, he didn’t base what he was trying to do upon what had been done before in the movies.
Having finished this book, I’m still a fan. Lynch’s work intrigues me … although I often have to ponder it a while before I embrace it. I can’t say that I would enjoy meeting him. He appears to have a tenuous grip on human relationships (apparently not even reading his daughter’s best-selling book, THE SECRET DIARY OF LAURA PALMER, even though he encouraged her to write it). That would bother me.
I highly recommend this book for anyone who wants to find a good starting point for a personal interpretation of David Lynch and his work.
Dennis Lim provided a perspective regarding Lynch’s work that I hadn’t considered before. Is David Lynch a neo-H.P. Lovecraft, exploring the frightening unseen that lurks beneath an appearance of normalcy? There is ample evidence of this in almost every motion picture (except THE STRAIGHT STORY) and in TWIN PEAKS. It would certainly explain how the Lynch storylines often confound viewers who are trying to impose an order to them.
The writer doesn’t engage in a deep analysis of what Lynch is trying to do, so the thoughts have value even for the casual Reader who has heard of David Lynch, but who isn’t an acolyte. My thoughts didn’t always mesh with Lim’s interpretation, but that is part of the fun of journeying into Lynch’s surreal subconscious. All attempts to impose a preset order destroy the delicate fabric.
Most of the text explores the major highlights. So, you’ll find a “deep dive” into ERASERHEAD, BLUE VELVET, TWIN PEAKS, WILD AT HEART, TWIN PEAKS: FIRE WALK WITH ME, LOST HIGHWAY, MULHOLLAND DRIVE and INLAND EMPIRE. Lim only lightly touches upon THE ELEPHANT MAN, DUNE and THE STRAIGHT STORY. There is also little mentioned about his sit-com television series with Mark Frost and his davidlynch.com website.
It was fascinating to learn that although Lynch studied the artistic medium (and got into film as an attempt to have his art “move”), he was very unfamiliar with film history. Consequently, he didn’t base what he was trying to do upon what had been done before in the movies.
Having finished this book, I’m still a fan. Lynch’s work intrigues me … although I often have to ponder it a while before I embrace it. I can’t say that I would enjoy meeting him. He appears to have a tenuous grip on human relationships (apparently not even reading his daughter’s best-selling book, THE SECRET DIARY OF LAURA PALMER, even though he encouraged her to write it). That would bother me.
I highly recommend this book for anyone who wants to find a good starting point for a personal interpretation of David Lynch and his work.
June 28, 2017
El crítico Dennis Lim escribe un completo, práctico y sencillo repaso a la carrera de David Lynch con algunas referencias a su vida privada. Afortunadamente no es una biografía pero tampoco un estudio académico. La valoración de las películas del director norteamericano se dejan leer con interés y siempre resultan esclarecedoras.
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October 23, 2023The only thing at this point that keeps me in NYC (secondary to um, my friends) is the abundance of movie theaters here and the education they give me. To this extent, Dennis Lim, director of programming at the Film Society of Lincoln Center, has done a lot for me. Loved the understated revisionism of the historiography of Lynch that Lim presents here, clearing through clichés of Lynch hagiography (which stress their readings of his weirdness, inscrutability, spirituality, and autistic rapture). Learned about American microhistory as much as I did about Lynch's oeuvre in this book. Take for example a single paragraph (that incidentally covers the history of the semiology of the woods while tying it all back to the man in question) from the chapter on Twin Peaks:
Tectonically mind-boggling. Lim pulls off analyses of this scale with incredible ease. But he also doesn't make the critical mistake of portraying Lynch as an inhumanely absurd being. In fact, the chapters on Lynch's early life, the birth of his first child while still an undergraduate at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, are written with a sympathetic yet objective tone reminiscent of Williams' Stoner. He's just as fair in his monograph on Hong Sang Soo, which I read first. The latter is a more mature work, doing away with the occasional veering into teleological assessments (I guess since, Hong is still making films, whereas Lynch has been on a hiatus), but this one is for sure more seminal; this is the book on Lynch's entire career.
The “errand into the wilderness,” as the Puritan minister Samuel Danforth termed it, sent the seventeenth-century New Englanders into unknown terrain, a place to be feared and tamed, along with its indigenous inhabitants. That conquest, which turned wild country into settlements and farmland, and the influence of romanticism and transcendentalism, not least in the figure of Henry David Thoreau, would eventually make the natural environment seem less threatening. By the late nineteenth century, in response to urbanization, an opposite view was emerging: The wilderness was sacred and in need of protection from man, who became the alien intruder. The U.S. Forest Service was founded in 1905 as an agency of the Department of Agriculture to administer the nation’s public forests and grasslands. Donald Lynch, David’s father, was one of the many college graduates who joined the forest service in its period of rapid postwar development. In 1947, Congress passed the Forest Pest Control Act, which directed funding toward the study of tree diseases, a specialty of Donald’s. To meet the demands of the building boom, national forests also became a major supplier of timber, as the forest service turned its attention to resource production (at least until the rise of the environmental movement in the 1960s). In the 1950s, the Spokane Daily Chronicle featured several stories on tree blight and timber cutting that quote Donald, an expert on the ponderosa pine, the dominant tree species in eastern Washington and the official state tree of Montana. Donald’s doctoral thesis, completed in 1958, examined the factors affecting tree growth between the Cascade Range and the Rocky Mountains; its title — Effects of Stocking on Site Measurement and Yield of Second-Growth Ponderosa Pine in the Inland Empire — anticipates the title of a film his son would make half a century later.
Tectonically mind-boggling. Lim pulls off analyses of this scale with incredible ease. But he also doesn't make the critical mistake of portraying Lynch as an inhumanely absurd being. In fact, the chapters on Lynch's early life, the birth of his first child while still an undergraduate at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, are written with a sympathetic yet objective tone reminiscent of Williams' Stoner. He's just as fair in his monograph on Hong Sang Soo, which I read first. The latter is a more mature work, doing away with the occasional veering into teleological assessments (I guess since, Hong is still making films, whereas Lynch has been on a hiatus), but this one is for sure more seminal; this is the book on Lynch's entire career.
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February 14, 2025Sin duda, una lectura para completistas: no saldrás del libro sabiendo más de lo que podrías saber leyendo otras obras como Atrapa el pez dorado o el libro de entrevistas Lynch por Lynch, pero para iniciados puede ser un buen acercamiento (aunque el análisis de alguna de sus obras es cuestionable, como ese análisis que hace del caballo blanco de Twin Peaks). Muy interesante sobre todo por la narración de los comienzos de Lynch en el mundo del arte y sus primeros acercamientos a las influencias para el gran corpus de su obra.
Se queda muy parco en detalles de producción sobre Inland Empire y, como es lógico por su fecha de publicación, no llega hasta la temporada 3 de Twin Peaks. Aún así, es una lectura fácil y que consigue arrastrarnos de nuevo a ver algunas de las películas más emblemáticas de Lynch.
Se queda muy parco en detalles de producción sobre Inland Empire y, como es lógico por su fecha de publicación, no llega hasta la temporada 3 de Twin Peaks. Aún así, es una lectura fácil y que consigue arrastrarnos de nuevo a ver algunas de las películas más emblemáticas de Lynch.
June 6, 2025
Si echáis de menos a Lynch, os gustará leer este libro lleno de anécdotas, citas (que no podréis evitar leer con voz de Lynch) y datos curiosos sobre el autor y su obra. Dennis Lim ofrece un análisis bastante exhaustivo sobre la obra de Lynch, eso sí... es imprescindible, antes de leer el libro, haber repasado recientemente su filmografía entera... pues no se deja un sólo spoiler sin hacer!
December 19, 2020
A fairly concise and well-researched (albeit brief) summary of David Lynch's life and art, including his dubious longtime connection to Transcendental Meditation. Unfortunately, this book does not discuss TWIN PEAKS: THE RETURN.
April 29, 2025
Me ha gustado conocer a la David de esta manera cronológica. He gaspeado varias veces por entender y/o relacionar cosas de su obra que recientemente estoy explorando. Y por eso se ha sentido curioso al fin tener una muy mínima idea de lo que era este galimatías de persona.
February 23, 2025
Pretty well observed, concise stuff
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February 1, 2025Ebook
Rest in peace David Lynch <3
Rest in peace David Lynch <3
March 6, 2018
No suelo hacer reviews largas porque me da mucha pereza, peeero:
Me ha gustado mucho el libro. Bueno, debería comenzar explicando qué clase de libro es. Es una biografía, más o menos, del director de cine David Lynch, conocido sobre todo por su serie Twin Peaks, la cual me comencé a ver este verano y hasta donde he llegado (solo me queda ver la temporada nueva) me ha gustado mucho. Su obra está caracterizada por, diciéndolo de forma simple, cosas raras, es decir, planos alternativos de la realidad, sueños, seres extraños, muchas emociones e inquietudes humanas... También me parece importante la cantidad de personajes femeninos interesantes, nada planos y diferentes entre ellos que vi en Twin Peaks. Y que, en general, es un mundo muy original, desde luego, que hacen de la serie una candidata perfecta a que, si se hubiera estrenado hace un par de años, Tumblr estaría lleno de gifs y ships y memes hechos por un fandom que ya existió en su época con sus propios medios. (no quita que sí haya material en tumblr, pero de forma más relajada)
Pero yo he venido aquí a hablar del libro. Primero, comentar que Dennis Lim, el autor, me ha parecido un señor muy majo con su forma de narrar los hechos y analizar las películas mientras comentaba todas las curiosidades y eventos importantes de pasada. No me ha resultado pesado en ningún momento.
Pero principalmente, me ha gustado por lo que me ha aportado:
-He conocido a fondo un trocito de la historia del cine, en concreto de Lynch, claro
-Me ha hecho interesarme por el resto de su filmografía, que me acabe o no gustando, creo que necesito ver
-Me ha recordado que puedo hacer lo que me dé la gana: a mí me gusta dibujar, pero también me gusta escribir historias, y me gusta la música y el cine, y también me apasionan los idiomas y la literatura, como me gusta la biología; y el mundo en el que vivo está hecho para que te especialices en un único campo, olvidándote un poco del resto. Pero sobre todo, siempre he tenido la inquietud de que "o escribo, o dibujo, pero quien mucho abarca poco aprieta". Aún así, si yo dedico el tiempo suficiente a ambas cosas no tiene por qué ser cierto. Lynch hacía lo que le daba la gana: comenzó pintando y luego vio que le apasionaba hacer películas y seguía pintando o incluso construía muebles. Si me da la gana pintaré un día y escribiré otro o me pasaré una semana sin escribir por estar pintando o escribiré un guión de cine. No espero que todo lo que haga sea bueno, pero lo importante es hacer cosas y practicar, en especial, hacer las cosas porque te gustan, porque disfrutas haciéndolas. Eso es lo que me tiene que mover.
-También me ha recordado que no debo idealizar nada ni a nadie. Me gusta mucho lo poco que conozco de la obra de Lynch, pero no creo que sea mi ídolo ni que todas sus opiniones sean correctas ni nada por el estilo. Es más, me parece bien lo de la meditación trascendental si le ayuda y eso, pero los argumentos que da él para practicarla son un poco estupidos, en especial si tenemos en cuenta que no es "meditar y ya está", si no que, por supuesto, es algo que "para hacerlo bien" hay que pagar una bonita cantidad de dinero a yo qué sé qué señores. Parece algo totalmente lógico pero creo que muchas veces nos olvidamos de que la gente famosa, sean del campo que sean, son personas, y si cometen errores no se deben caer del pedestal, porque no tendrían que haber estado ahí en primer lugar. Es peligroso idealizar a alguien porque es muy fácil acabar actuando acorde a esos ideales inconscientemente, o obsesionándonos con que no somos como la gente que admiramos. No sé si se me entiende, pero quiero decir que es peligroso de muchas maneras distintas, tanto para nosotros como para la persona en cuestión.
-y ya se me han acabado las ganas de escribir cosas largas y bien redactadas así que acabaré diciendo que el libro me ha inspirado mucho para seguir dibujando y escribiendo y leyendo y viendo cositas aunque puede que otra persona lo lea y diga Pues es una biografía y ya está, yo qué sé.
Y también quiero acabar diciendo que Tarantino es un notas. Pulp Fiction es divertida y el nazi de Malditos bastardos es un personaje super chulo pero Tarantino es un NOTAS. Y ME CANSAN MUCHO LOS NOTAS.
Me ha gustado mucho el libro. Bueno, debería comenzar explicando qué clase de libro es. Es una biografía, más o menos, del director de cine David Lynch, conocido sobre todo por su serie Twin Peaks, la cual me comencé a ver este verano y hasta donde he llegado (solo me queda ver la temporada nueva) me ha gustado mucho. Su obra está caracterizada por, diciéndolo de forma simple, cosas raras, es decir, planos alternativos de la realidad, sueños, seres extraños, muchas emociones e inquietudes humanas... También me parece importante la cantidad de personajes femeninos interesantes, nada planos y diferentes entre ellos que vi en Twin Peaks. Y que, en general, es un mundo muy original, desde luego, que hacen de la serie una candidata perfecta a que, si se hubiera estrenado hace un par de años, Tumblr estaría lleno de gifs y ships y memes hechos por un fandom que ya existió en su época con sus propios medios. (no quita que sí haya material en tumblr, pero de forma más relajada)
Pero yo he venido aquí a hablar del libro. Primero, comentar que Dennis Lim, el autor, me ha parecido un señor muy majo con su forma de narrar los hechos y analizar las películas mientras comentaba todas las curiosidades y eventos importantes de pasada. No me ha resultado pesado en ningún momento.
Pero principalmente, me ha gustado por lo que me ha aportado:
-He conocido a fondo un trocito de la historia del cine, en concreto de Lynch, claro
-Me ha hecho interesarme por el resto de su filmografía, que me acabe o no gustando, creo que necesito ver
-Me ha recordado que puedo hacer lo que me dé la gana: a mí me gusta dibujar, pero también me gusta escribir historias, y me gusta la música y el cine, y también me apasionan los idiomas y la literatura, como me gusta la biología; y el mundo en el que vivo está hecho para que te especialices en un único campo, olvidándote un poco del resto. Pero sobre todo, siempre he tenido la inquietud de que "o escribo, o dibujo, pero quien mucho abarca poco aprieta". Aún así, si yo dedico el tiempo suficiente a ambas cosas no tiene por qué ser cierto. Lynch hacía lo que le daba la gana: comenzó pintando y luego vio que le apasionaba hacer películas y seguía pintando o incluso construía muebles. Si me da la gana pintaré un día y escribiré otro o me pasaré una semana sin escribir por estar pintando o escribiré un guión de cine. No espero que todo lo que haga sea bueno, pero lo importante es hacer cosas y practicar, en especial, hacer las cosas porque te gustan, porque disfrutas haciéndolas. Eso es lo que me tiene que mover.
-También me ha recordado que no debo idealizar nada ni a nadie. Me gusta mucho lo poco que conozco de la obra de Lynch, pero no creo que sea mi ídolo ni que todas sus opiniones sean correctas ni nada por el estilo. Es más, me parece bien lo de la meditación trascendental si le ayuda y eso, pero los argumentos que da él para practicarla son un poco estupidos, en especial si tenemos en cuenta que no es "meditar y ya está", si no que, por supuesto, es algo que "para hacerlo bien" hay que pagar una bonita cantidad de dinero a yo qué sé qué señores. Parece algo totalmente lógico pero creo que muchas veces nos olvidamos de que la gente famosa, sean del campo que sean, son personas, y si cometen errores no se deben caer del pedestal, porque no tendrían que haber estado ahí en primer lugar. Es peligroso idealizar a alguien porque es muy fácil acabar actuando acorde a esos ideales inconscientemente, o obsesionándonos con que no somos como la gente que admiramos. No sé si se me entiende, pero quiero decir que es peligroso de muchas maneras distintas, tanto para nosotros como para la persona en cuestión.
-y ya se me han acabado las ganas de escribir cosas largas y bien redactadas así que acabaré diciendo que el libro me ha inspirado mucho para seguir dibujando y escribiendo y leyendo y viendo cositas aunque puede que otra persona lo lea y diga Pues es una biografía y ya está, yo qué sé.
Y también quiero acabar diciendo que Tarantino es un notas. Pulp Fiction es divertida y el nazi de Malditos bastardos es un personaje super chulo pero Tarantino es un NOTAS. Y ME CANSAN MUCHO LOS NOTAS.
March 13, 2025
Un "Must" si quieres profundizar en la vida y obra del icónico David Lynch. R.I.P.
November 25, 2015
A succinct but conscientious, insightful, and enlighteningly multidimensional survey of the life and work of a great American artist.
December 8, 2025
13/30 Dennis Lim’s David Lynch: The Man from Another Place is a compact yet richly textured biographical portrait that manages to feel both authoritative and dreamlike—an elegant mirror of its subject. In about 150 pages, Lim distills the essence of Lynch’s creative evolution without being reductive, tracing a line from the director’s early life in the American suburbs to the fully formed visionary who produced Eraserhead, Blue Velvet, and Twin Peaks. What makes the book exceptional is not that it offers an exhaustive cradle-to-current survey—there are thicker tomes for that—but that Lim captures the internal weather of Lynch’s imagination, the private conditions under which his strange and powerful work emerges.
The level of detail is surprisingly deep for a book this slim. Lim writes with the concision of a critic and the control of a biographer who knows exactly which facts matter. Instead of drowning the reader in production minutiae, he selects anecdotes that illuminate the formative tensions of Lynch’s life: the clean-cut upbringing shadowed by unspoken dread; his early ambitions as a painter; the discovery of moving images as an extension of canvas; the years of financial and artistic struggle; and his complicated, sometimes contradictory relationship to Hollywood. These details accumulate with quiet force. You feel the groundwork of Lynch’s worldview being laid brick by brick—his fascination with surfaces, his suspicion that beneath the placid smile of American normalcy lies something electric and uneasy.
Lim’s research deserves genuine praise. He has combed through interviews, production histories, obscure notes, early paintings, and a constellation of collaborators who help contextualize Lynch’s idiosyncrasies. The book is not merely a biography but a cultural archaeology: Lim situates Lynch within American art movements, midcentury suburban mythologies, experimental film traditions, and transcendental mysticisms without ever losing sight of the specific human at the center. Every reference is purposeful; every citation reveals another layer. You can feel the devotion to getting Lynch “right” not by capturing every detail but by understanding the internal logic that binds them.
One of the most compelling sections arrives near the end, when Lim addresses Lynch’s decades-long commitment to Transcendental Meditation. Instead of treating TM as a quirky footnote or a celebrity eccentricity, Lim gives it philosophical weight. He threads TM into Lynch’s creative process as both discipline and metaphysics, linking it to the director’s reverence for intuition, interior stillness, and the fertile darkness where images first arise. What makes this chapter especially delightful is Lim’s refusal to confine TM to a cultural stereotype. In a move that shows real awareness, he compares TM not only to its Maharishi lineage but to Zen practice and even vipassanā—framing it within a broader tapestry of global contemplative traditions. That comparative gesture signals a writer who understands meditation not as cultural ornamentation but as a living method of experience, one that shapes the very texture of Lynch’s films.
By the end, Lim gives us a Lynch who is not explained but illuminated—someone whose art remains strange and enigmatic, yet more grounded in lived habits, rituals, and influences than ever before. The biography is short, but it opens into vast territory: dream logic, American unease, painterly violence, and the shimmering stillness at the heart of creation.
The level of detail is surprisingly deep for a book this slim. Lim writes with the concision of a critic and the control of a biographer who knows exactly which facts matter. Instead of drowning the reader in production minutiae, he selects anecdotes that illuminate the formative tensions of Lynch’s life: the clean-cut upbringing shadowed by unspoken dread; his early ambitions as a painter; the discovery of moving images as an extension of canvas; the years of financial and artistic struggle; and his complicated, sometimes contradictory relationship to Hollywood. These details accumulate with quiet force. You feel the groundwork of Lynch’s worldview being laid brick by brick—his fascination with surfaces, his suspicion that beneath the placid smile of American normalcy lies something electric and uneasy.
Lim’s research deserves genuine praise. He has combed through interviews, production histories, obscure notes, early paintings, and a constellation of collaborators who help contextualize Lynch’s idiosyncrasies. The book is not merely a biography but a cultural archaeology: Lim situates Lynch within American art movements, midcentury suburban mythologies, experimental film traditions, and transcendental mysticisms without ever losing sight of the specific human at the center. Every reference is purposeful; every citation reveals another layer. You can feel the devotion to getting Lynch “right” not by capturing every detail but by understanding the internal logic that binds them.
One of the most compelling sections arrives near the end, when Lim addresses Lynch’s decades-long commitment to Transcendental Meditation. Instead of treating TM as a quirky footnote or a celebrity eccentricity, Lim gives it philosophical weight. He threads TM into Lynch’s creative process as both discipline and metaphysics, linking it to the director’s reverence for intuition, interior stillness, and the fertile darkness where images first arise. What makes this chapter especially delightful is Lim’s refusal to confine TM to a cultural stereotype. In a move that shows real awareness, he compares TM not only to its Maharishi lineage but to Zen practice and even vipassanā—framing it within a broader tapestry of global contemplative traditions. That comparative gesture signals a writer who understands meditation not as cultural ornamentation but as a living method of experience, one that shapes the very texture of Lynch’s films.
By the end, Lim gives us a Lynch who is not explained but illuminated—someone whose art remains strange and enigmatic, yet more grounded in lived habits, rituals, and influences than ever before. The biography is short, but it opens into vast territory: dream logic, American unease, painterly violence, and the shimmering stillness at the heart of creation.
March 8, 2025
Fast moving biography that tries to balance talking about Lynch the person with his works, but lacking the space for any deep analysis of either. Written just before the fruition of the third season of Twin Peaks which effectively became the capstone of his career, this will always lack the finality of a life summarized postmortem, and perhaps that's a strength as the exuberance of the writing makes it seem like he had a lot of runway left. This also predates Room to Dream by many years, so the biographical notes are left mostly to traditional media articles and interviews with Lynch, as well as the (very short) Catching the Big Fish: Meditation, Consciousness, and Creativity which figures prominently to be the (very limited) final word on his creative process.
Some projects, like Twin Peaks, Mulholland Drive and (perhaps surprisingly) Inland Empire get more time than others, and as much discussion of the production issues and reception as content. This, along with a lot of focus on the pop culture phenomenon of Lynch, makes this a good biography for someone unfamiliar with him and his output. For existing fans, the pickings are slimmer.
Some projects, like Twin Peaks, Mulholland Drive and (perhaps surprisingly) Inland Empire get more time than others, and as much discussion of the production issues and reception as content. This, along with a lot of focus on the pop culture phenomenon of Lynch, makes this a good biography for someone unfamiliar with him and his output. For existing fans, the pickings are slimmer.
January 19, 2019
A good, but short career biography of David Lynch's work on film and television, omitting all of his obscure music video work, and touching on a few his interests in transcendental meditation. Since the book was released 3 years ago, it doesn't cover the Twin Peaks Return series but mentions the announcement and some of the pre-production stuff.
If you are a deep fan of Lynch, you probably won't get anything new here, although there was a bit of connection between Mulholland Drive and the new Twin Peaks which I made while listening to this, so clearly, some obscure details found in this book could be unknown to even to a good fan.
Each of Lynch's works is presented in chronology, with a summary of the story, some detail into the metaphysics of the story, and a discussion on the production. Some interesting things I was able to extract from this book about Lynch is that despite his surrealist, abstract, anachronistic storytelling, fundamentally Lynch is about two things: world building, a deep belief in "good and evil", that is, he's a believer in structure, and he's not an absurdist, as some of his less thoughtful critics decry. This is most clear in his recent Twin Peaks Return story in retrospect.
Not much else to say, a worthy 5 or 6 hours listening. Recommend.
If you are a deep fan of Lynch, you probably won't get anything new here, although there was a bit of connection between Mulholland Drive and the new Twin Peaks which I made while listening to this, so clearly, some obscure details found in this book could be unknown to even to a good fan.
Each of Lynch's works is presented in chronology, with a summary of the story, some detail into the metaphysics of the story, and a discussion on the production. Some interesting things I was able to extract from this book about Lynch is that despite his surrealist, abstract, anachronistic storytelling, fundamentally Lynch is about two things: world building, a deep belief in "good and evil", that is, he's a believer in structure, and he's not an absurdist, as some of his less thoughtful critics decry. This is most clear in his recent Twin Peaks Return story in retrospect.
Not much else to say, a worthy 5 or 6 hours listening. Recommend.
June 2, 2017
Este libro busca definir a David Lynch. Iconoclasta, director de cine, creador de obras como «Eraser Head» la primera pesadilla hecha película, «El hombre elefante» como dice el crítico francés Serge Daney "una película de monstruos en la que es el monstruo quien tiene miedo",«Blue Velvet» película de culto, «Munhollan Drive»; la perturbadora «Carretera Perdida» (estoy de acuerdo con Žižek, es su obra mayor), «Twin Peaks» y la jovial y hermosa «Una historia verdadera» entre otras películas, diez en total.
Dice David Foster Wallace «A veces es difícil saber si es un genio o un idiota» mientras estuvo en el rodaje de «Carretera Perdida». En otra reflexión añade «el humor lynchiano es aquel en el que lo muy macabro y lo muy rutinario se combinan de tal forma que revelan que lo uno está perpetuamente contenido en lo otro». Sin duda Lynch es el genio responsable de haber introducido una estética vanguardista en Hollywood y de inspirar a escritores como el mismo Wallace o el chileno Roberto Bolaño. O.T.
Dice David Foster Wallace «A veces es difícil saber si es un genio o un idiota» mientras estuvo en el rodaje de «Carretera Perdida». En otra reflexión añade «el humor lynchiano es aquel en el que lo muy macabro y lo muy rutinario se combinan de tal forma que revelan que lo uno está perpetuamente contenido en lo otro». Sin duda Lynch es el genio responsable de haber introducido una estética vanguardista en Hollywood y de inspirar a escritores como el mismo Wallace o el chileno Roberto Bolaño. O.T.
Read
January 23, 2023A decent overview of Lynch's life and work. There are many interesting historical tidbits in here about Lynch's life and the critical and commercial responses to his work, but for a seasoned Lynch fan most of this will simply be a reminder of stories one has heard before, and well-worn critical approaches to his various films. I think this book will be great, though, for Lynch newcomers who want a fairly comprehensive introduction to the man's remarkable body of work.
One detail to be aware of: given its publication date, this book doesn't include a chapter on Twin Peaks: The Return. Given how it ends (with an account of Lynch's initial difficulties hammering out a deal with Showtime), it was apparently completed just after Lynch finally solidified that deal. Perhaps Lim will update it at some point with a new chapter, but for now, you'll have to turn elsewhere for a consideration of any work Lynch has done post-Inland Empire.
One detail to be aware of: given its publication date, this book doesn't include a chapter on Twin Peaks: The Return. Given how it ends (with an account of Lynch's initial difficulties hammering out a deal with Showtime), it was apparently completed just after Lynch finally solidified that deal. Perhaps Lim will update it at some point with a new chapter, but for now, you'll have to turn elsewhere for a consideration of any work Lynch has done post-Inland Empire.
December 18, 2017
Hacer lo que te venga en gana, desplegar una obra difícil, desafiante, dura de roer y que se debe únicamente a un cometido artístico, con el suicidio comercial en el horizonte. Aún así, ganarse a pulso un lugar en la industria, emplear las arcas de Hollywood (con los pros y contras que trae consigo) para experimentar, dar forma a piezas de vanguardia, pulverizar los cánones. Tan solo por eso, el señor David Lynch tiene toda mi admiración. El libro de Dennis Lim, El Hombre de Otro Lugar, es un estudio preciso y esclarecedor sobre su obra.
"Lynch ha dicho que 'lo que hace que las cosas funcionen son los contrastes'. Sus películas son pródigas en marcadas dualidades —bien y mal, oscuridad y luz, inocencia y experiencia, realidad y fantasía—, no exactamente enfrentadas, sino combinadas y recombinadas de mil maneras para que nos desorientemos, con un efecto de cuarto de espejos".
"Lynch ha dicho que 'lo que hace que las cosas funcionen son los contrastes'. Sus películas son pródigas en marcadas dualidades —bien y mal, oscuridad y luz, inocencia y experiencia, realidad y fantasía—, no exactamente enfrentadas, sino combinadas y recombinadas de mil maneras para que nos desorientemos, con un efecto de cuarto de espejos".
July 11, 2017
I loved this book, which I listened to on Audible as an accompaniment to the new Twin Peaks shows. It's defiantly middle-brow, in love with popular culture but unafraid to refer to any aesthetic or philosophic movement that might be a good point of reference for a reader (or group of readers in discussion) mulling Lynch's work over, clearly written and with a personal point of view. It's a keystone for me in thinking about the structure of art between 1974, when my English teacher Mrs. Greening put me onto the Theater of the Absurd, and the present. The other thing I really like about Dennis Lim's writing on Lynch is that it doesn't devalue failures (of different magnitudes and for different real-world and interior reasons) in describing the career of an artist -- a worthy antidote to our equally success-corrupted and failure-corrupted art culture of 2017.
February 2, 2020
Nice critical overview of Lynch's work, I liked that it was a short piece that could be read without a huge time commitment but left you with a pretty good big picture understanding of Lynch's films. Starts with a biographical sketch of his childhood with emphasis on elements of the director's youth which may have helped shape his cinematic visions, then goes through his artistic production in chronological order, with brief foray into transcendental meditation in the last chapter. Published before Twin Peaks The Return premiered, so it's mentioned but of course the author had not yet been able to view the finished work. Does a pretty good job of explaining an artist who is notoriously cryptic and enigmatic, no small task for a critical author. I would recommend this to fans of Lynch.
January 25, 2018
Pero ¿qué podemos encontrar en el libro de Dennis Lim?
El verdadero significado de lo lynchiano, los orígenes de sus obsesiones y demás misterios irresolubles, a pesar de los esfuerzos representados en su obra; algo de su vida personal, lo suficiente para entenderlo un poco más, un largo etcétera de datos reveladores y sobre todo un buen agujero negro donde el propio Lynch se esconde de sí mismo, un lugar secreto en el que millones de espectadores se han perdido sin encontrar respuestas aún a algo tan simple como ¿por qué Lynch es Lynch?
El verdadero significado de lo lynchiano, los orígenes de sus obsesiones y demás misterios irresolubles, a pesar de los esfuerzos representados en su obra; algo de su vida personal, lo suficiente para entenderlo un poco más, un largo etcétera de datos reveladores y sobre todo un buen agujero negro donde el propio Lynch se esconde de sí mismo, un lugar secreto en el que millones de espectadores se han perdido sin encontrar respuestas aún a algo tan simple como ¿por qué Lynch es Lynch?
February 2, 2022
A phenomenal and concise overview of Lynch's career leading up to the 3rd season revival of Twin Peaks a few years back. Was looking for something to get my creative juices going, and this ended up doing the trick.
It doesn't dive all that much into the minutia of his work, but Lynch's films don't really lend themselves to such analysis anyway. This is much more interesting for the wealth of material it includes about Lynch's upbringing and early years that I simply didn't know (or, in the case of his residency at AFI, didn't know as much about).
It doesn't dive all that much into the minutia of his work, but Lynch's films don't really lend themselves to such analysis anyway. This is much more interesting for the wealth of material it includes about Lynch's upbringing and early years that I simply didn't know (or, in the case of his residency at AFI, didn't know as much about).
July 3, 2022
Love Lynch? Love this!
I really enjoyed this insight into David Lynch, well as much insight as Lynch ever gives.
It was nice for the chapters to follow his films and tv series in order. There was some repetition in information but was always in the right place. I like how Lynch isn't too wordy or descriptive, it makes him more real to me and I love his films, but I love Twin Peaks more. Is way to read the other books about Lynch mentioned in this book, you'll get a bigger picture but still walk away not really knowing the man. Which makes me like him all the more!
I really enjoyed this insight into David Lynch, well as much insight as Lynch ever gives.
It was nice for the chapters to follow his films and tv series in order. There was some repetition in information but was always in the right place. I like how Lynch isn't too wordy or descriptive, it makes him more real to me and I love his films, but I love Twin Peaks more. Is way to read the other books about Lynch mentioned in this book, you'll get a bigger picture but still walk away not really knowing the man. Which makes me like him all the more!
October 18, 2022
A great overview/intro to Lynch’s career. Some works are treated more breezily and less in depth than some readers might be after, so titles like Michel Chion’s David Lynch and Todd McGowan’s The Impossible DL are better for more probing analysis (the latter, btw, is a smart but throughly accessible psychoanalytic study of the director’s work. Lim maps Lynch’s life and work in broad but effective strokes, and the chapters on Blue Velvet, Fire Walk with Me, and Mulholland Drive are especially expressive.
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