Summary: One starry night, Peter Pan and Tinker Bell lead the three Darling children over the rooftops of London and away to Neverland - the island where lost boys play, mermaids splash and fairies make mischief. But a villainous-looking gang of pirates lurk in the docks, led by the terrifying Captain James Hook. Magic and excitement are in the air, but if Captain Hook has his way, before long, someone will be walking the plank and swimming with the crocodiles.
MY THOUGHTS:
This beautiful edition is one of my William Morris inspired Puffin classics from the Aldi Bargain Table.
We all know that the boy who left his shadow behind at the Darling family's London home has become a cultural icon. When young Wendy kindly sews it back on, he pleads with her to go with him and tell stories to the Lost Boys in Neverland. Wendy asks for her brothers, John and Michael, to go too. So Peter teaches all three to fly, and off they shoot out the window.
You can read this story two ways. For children, it's probably a pure adventure tale, as it was for me a long time ago. But for adult readers, Barrie's brilliance really begins to shine through. What he's created is a homage to pretend play, and Neverland is a map of children's collective unconscious minds. The Darling trio hail it not as a new destination, but as a familiar place to which they're returning for some holiday fun. And significantly, the landscape nuances are slightly different for Wendy, John, and Michael. Yet they all agree that Neverland always begins to seem a little dark and threatening by the time bedtime rolls around.
It turns out that Peter is head of a rebellion, because he never wants to grow up and assume a man's duties of heading out to the office each day. The half dozen 'Lost Boys' all fell out of their prams when their nurses' backs were turned, and now they're members of Peter's gang. Whenever they appear to be growing up, which is against the rules, Peter thins them out.
And get this, the main difference between Peter Pan and the other boys is that they know deep down that their underground home and skirmishes with the pirates and redskins is all make-believe, while Peter hasn't ever developed the discrimination to tell the difference. 'This troubled them when they had to make-believe they had their dinner.'
The book is both profound and ridiculous. It puts me in mind of psychology articles I've read, which claim that make-believe play is the proper occupation for children, and their development is stymied if they're prevented from doing so. Another whimsical incident the narrator divulges is that one day the boys wanted to pretend to be redskins, so the redskins agreed to pretend to be Lost Boys.
Tinker Bell, the jealous fairy, is as iconic as Peter Pan himself. Like me, you may remember attending live performances during which we were asked to bellow, 'I do believe in fairies!' at the top of our lungs. She's capable of sacrificing her life to rescue Peter, but also sets Wendy up to be shot down, because the human girl occupies too much of Peter's attention.
'Tink was not all bad, or rather she was all bad just now, but on the other hand, sometimes she was all good... fairies are so small they have room for only one feeling at a time.'
Of course, there's the colorful villain, Captain James Hook, who is bent on both a revenge mission and a fearful game of hide-and-seek. He's out to get Peter Pan for cutting off his hand, while simultaneously dodging a ticking crocodile who swallowed a clock. This beast ate Hook's hand, and has now developed a taste for the rest of him. When Peter finally defeats Hook in a major show-down, we're told the boy hero forgets about the pirate menace and moves on very quickly.
For Barrie depicts Peter with several character traits that are consistent with childhood development, in very general and blanket terms. Peter is heartless, egotistical, and unable to see any given situation from others' points of view. He is always self-focused and rooted firmly in the present moment. In fact, Hook is mostly incensed by Peter's cockiness, for the boy's childishness gets on his nerves.
I consider it most fortunate that Peter Pan is oblivious to Wendy's and Tink's crushes on him. Surely harboring romantic feelings for a person who still has all his milk teeth intact is bound to end badly.
The story leaves me with a lingering, bitter-sweet melancholy at the inevitability of aging. By the end, 'Michael is an engine driver... and the bearded man who doesn't know any story to tell his children was once John.' I believe Barrie challenges us to aim to retain Neverland's charm, while also celebrating our wider and wiser outlooks, earned from years of experience in the world, for would we really wish to stay as static and narrow-focused as Peter if we were offered the chance?
I read this way back when I was little and credulous, and the underlying themes soared right over my head. I enjoyed it far more this time round, sorry kiddies.
For any grown-up who thinks, 'Naw, I read Peter Pan as a kid,' I'd say, 'Read it again! You'll get so much more out of it.' He surely wrote it for all ages, for vastly difference reasons, and the fact that it works makes J. M. Barrie a genius.
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