Peter Pan is absolutely magical. I find that some of the most creative and imaginative books are books written for children. Are they necessarily children’s books? Some like me would argue that it is more meaningful to read them as adults. I missed out on reading Peter Pan as a child, but perhaps you would get the most enjoyment reading it as a child first, and then as an adult as I imagined I did. Nostalgia may have something to do with it, but no matter at what age you are, Peter Pan is nothing that comes before or after it in its genre. I don’t think many children’s books come close. The closest I can think of is The Little Prince, which is saying a lot because it is my favourite book.
And no, I haven’t watched the Disney adaptation from way back, though the missus told me it’s quite similar to the events in the book, so I came it to Peter Pan fresh, only watching the 1991 bastardised adaptation of Robin Williams as an adult Peter Pan coming back to Neverland. That movie used to scare the shit out of me somehow. It was too miserable for me to watch at such a young age, and I bloody hated Hook. But the original text is really something else.
And it is something else because it is just too darn clever, funny, sentimental, absurd and everything good. I loved Barrie’s description of the Darlings and had to reread the introduction of Nana twice, as I couldn’t believe what I just read. A Newfoundland dog, as the children’s nurse? It is so bloody absurd, and the more you read on, the more hilarious Nana gets, especially the animosity Mr Darling had with her blaming her how the children were growing up.
Nana caught hold of Peter Pan’s shadow, and he stole back into the night so he can wear his shadow back. Wendy, upon discovering him and his grief that he wasn’t able to reattach his shadow, sewed the shadow back on to his feet. I thought that even this little passage was such an imaginative and wonderful storytelling. We see the vitriol of Tinker Bell who’s just a jealous bitch when Peter and Wendy got too close. None of the characters are untarnished in this book, not even the children.
By the time the children escaped to Neverland, we were Hooked (hah hah). Tis a world that literally sits in the children’s dreams, but they can never physically attain. But our entry to Neverland was more restrained, as the pirates were expecting Peter. We get into a hilarious ouroboros:
The lost boys were out looking for Peter, the pirates were out looking for the lost boys, the redskins were out looking for the pirates , and the beasts were looking for the redskins. They were going round and round the island, but they did not meet because all were going at the same rate.
And I can only assume that Peter was looking for beasts, as is his nature for adventure. Barrie also gave each lost boy a distinct flavour, like artisanal ice cream cones, but scruffier. Each of the pirates too.
And I think this is where the book is so engaging — because the characters are lively, they are well described, they are flawed. Hook is articulate, a bit of a showboater alpha male, but he succumbs to his fear of the crocodile which swallowed his hand (and a clock, which gave it an unmistakeable tick tick tick noise). This crocodile is perpetually preying on Hook, to his dismay. Peter Pan is the most animated — he would switch sides while fighting the redskins and the rest of the lost boys would also be on the redskins side, forcing the redskins to take the part of the lost boys so that they can continue fighting. Peter is capricious, forgetful and always looking for adventure without reason save for adventure itself.
Barrie often took artistic liberties in talking directly with the reader, at times telling the reader that the character should be left alone and that they don’t need the reader and the narrator, even though without, the book will cease to exist. But I absolutely fell in love with the book when he professed his own opinions on which character he liked best:
Some like Peter best and some like Wendy best, but I like her (Mrs Darling) best.
The sentence knocked me off guard, because how many times have you heard any author wrote about his favourite character in the same pages he’s telling the story on? And we naturally fall too, for Mrs Darling, who I’d like to think is the embodiment of Barrie’s wife. And thus, it is natural that Barrie loved her as a character in the book, as well as in real life.
Peter Pan’s story is a bedtime story Barrie made for the Davies children, George and Jack, claiming that babies were birds who were able to fly, and thus the necessity of barring their windows lest the children should fly away. Peter was the one who managed to fly away. Barrie became the protector of the Davies children after the death of their parents and took care of them until their adulthood. Sadly, some of these children were cut down early in life during the First World War. Though there were untoward speculations of Barrie as a suspicious lover of children, he took care of the children and the same children also refuted these statements. Barrie was as innocent as the children he writes about.
But there are some passages that confused me, such as when Barrie mentioned that the faeries were coming back from an orgy. I could only imagine a scene where a young child whose mother is reading the book to him: “Mom, what’s an orgy?” Perhaps the word meant something else back then, but I doubt it. Regardless, it is a book that is easy to fall in love with, no matter your age as a reader. The final chapter of the book is sobering — it is the reason we read, as it grounds us back to reality.
Peter Pan claims that he is youth, he is joy. And this is irrefutable. Barrie had kept him immortal in his book. But there is a tragic bittersweetness to this: Peter is left behind in Neverland. His youth had cost him adulthood and the joys that come with it, and he will never have the permanence of knowing the tenderness from a parent, from a mother. This rebelliousness is perhaps unjustified. I wonder then if Peter can find new adventures after all the pirates have been defeated, won’t he get bored? Peter comes back to the Darling household for generations to come, whenever it crosses his mind. But we can’t help wondering one day if he would stop coming back to Neverland one day, and be an accountant.
