Genre: Children’s fantasy

Synopsis: Wendy Darling has heard stories of the eternally youthful Peter Pan and world of Neverland where children never grow up. And now, here he is, Peter Pan himself, and he and his band of lost boys desperately need a mother. So Wendy, along with her brothers John and Michael, fly back to Neverland, where they partake in great adventures with mermaids, redskins, and of course, the band of pirates led by the notorious Captain James Hook, Peter’s arch nemesis who wants him dead.

Review: Believe it or not, I’d never read the original J.M. Barrie story of Peter Pan before this year. I’ve seen nearly every visual incarnation of the story, including the Disney animated movie, the Mary Martin stage musical shot for television, the 2003 live action movie, and the Spielberg movie Hook, so I knew the story pretty well, but I’d never looked at the original book. And even though I thought I pretty much knew the story backwards and forwards, I was surprised by a lot of aspects of this story. This story is a gritty, uncompromising, and at times, dark portrayal of the nature of childhood.

There were two characters in particular that I found interesting and complex. The first is Captain Hook, the bad guy, always portrayed as the bad guy, but is actually considerably more complex than most portrayals give him credit for. We see this especially in the last few chapters, with agonizing over good form and bad form, which isn’t something we’d expect from a ruthless pirate. But it’s clear that Hook is a gentleman, raised in a gentlemanly way, and does actually have certain scruples, albeit not when it comes with killing and stealing. He’s ruthless, but he’s also often sympathetic, because his vendetta against Pan is almost entirely because of Pan’s cockiness, and there’s no doubt that that is as good a motivation as any.

And the second is Peter himself, and this is where I feel a lot of adaptations of this story miss the boat. Peter Pan is often portrayed as a childlike hero, cocky and bossy to be sure, but a hero nonetheless. J.M. Barrie, however, portrays him as more of a tragic figure. It isn’t so much that Peter doesn’t want to grow up . . . it’s that he’s afraid to. But unlike other people who are afraid of growing up, Peter actually has a choice. He lives in a land where he can be a child forever. Growing up is simply a matter of leaving Neverland. But he chooses to stay, and we see the type of child he becomes: cocky, to be sure, and selfish, but also sympathetic in that we see how much he is missing by remaining a child forever. He can never have a true and meaningful relationship with anyone, whether it be Tinkerbell, his lost boys, or Wendy, because they grow up or leave him, and he remains the way he has always been.

Barrie does not portray childhood as an entirely idyllic and innocent time that some would have us believe that it is. The childhood of Neverland is not always nice. People die or get hurt, but the resiliency and selfishness that is inherent in childhood keeps them from being scarred by this kind of life. Peter forgets things soon after they are no longer a part of his life. He loses track of the things around him because he is too busy thinking about himself. But if cockiness and selfishness are his faults, Barrie makes sure we see his strengths as well. He’s resilient and brave and resourceful, and he has a sense of what is fair. Though he thinks primarily of himself, he also offers Hook his hand when he falls so that they can continue fighting fairly, and when Hooks takes advantage of this, Peter’s senses are shaken and he nearly loses the battle. And again, Peter is a tragic figure, because he isn’t even aware that he is missing out on anything by being an eternal child. And yet, the one thing that he seems to consistently remember is Wendy, and later, Wendy’s descendants, sweet girls who mean something special to him.

Barrie, I think, would have us remember that neither being a child nor growing up is inherently good or bad. We see this in Captain Hook, who never realizes that the “Good form” that Peter exemplifies has everything to do with Peter being a child concerned with what is fair. We see this with Wendy, who stands on the boundary between childhood and adulthood, and who cares to much for others to be a child, but too much for herself to be an adult. And we see this in Peter, who loves life and everything it has to offer, provided that he doesn’t have to grow up to experience it. There is a lot in this book for both children and adults, and I would encourage both children and adults to read it and relearn what is an inherent part of childhood.

Worth Rating: Worth owning (new)