"Peter Pan" by J.M. Barrie

Read: 5/11/09

5/5 stars

Why am I reading Peter Pan? Two simple reasons: (1) I hadn't read it before, and (2) I was looking for an intelligent and short read. Albeit it took me around a week and a half to get through this short book, mostly it was due to work pressures that prevented me from getting much reading done. And in the short bits that I was able to snatch some time to read Peter Pan, what astounded me is how charming this book is and a distant, distant contrast to perhaps any movie or play adaptation I had seen.

Granted, the movie adaptations I had seen were cute and charming in themselves, evoking a mischievous Pan. But Barrie's book shows a highly intelligent treatment of his characters.

Pan isn't just a mischievous boy who refuses to grow up. In his sense of fun and adventure is a certain ruthlessness, simply because he is a child. Interestingly, though, Pan is extremely compelling, even if he is heartless. His heartlessness isn't borne out of malice, but of the short memory and lack of sense of responsibility of children. And I think this is what makes him compelling. That, though sometimes the reader may be appalled by Peter's flippant attitude towards people and events, Peter's brand of freedom is a great attraction. Whether this freedom is to be desired, though, is left to the reader's judgment.

The great charm of the book, too, apart from the main character, is that it seems to make of childhood a great brotherhood. That, when we were children, we were all part of this thing greater than each of us--the ability to detect magic or be closer to it. I know that the idea may not be entirely new, but the manner of Barrie's execution was majestic. I think this was Barrie's greatest triumph--to make the barrier between the real world and the world of magic/imagination less solid. Take, for instance, his passage on how one sees the Mermaid's Lagoon (in Neverland) from the mainland (the real world):

"If you shut your eyes and are a lucky one, you may see at times a shapeless pool of lovely pale colours suspended in the darkness; then, if you squeeze your eyes tighter, the pool begins to take shape, and the colours become so vivid that with another squeeze they must go on fire. But just before they go on fire you see the lagoon. This is the nearest you get to it on the mainland, just one heavenly moment; if there could be two moments you might see the surf and hear mermaids singing."

I actually tried it and wished that I could see the Lagoon. At the same time, I marveled at the man who could think of such magic.

Obviously, I loved this book and I'm not sure whether I count myself as fortunate for having read it as an adult, when I can appreciate the different layers of meaning, or unfortunate for not having read it as a child, when the magic would have been purer and more innocent. Regardless, I understand why it has become a classic. I guess we love the books that remind us of the innocence and freedom that once was ours.

By the way, here's an intelligent article from A.S. Byatt about the golden age of children's books and why we refuse to grow up. I find it interesting when she says that the children's books written in the Edwardian times aren't that different from the children's books written now.