A review by quadrille
Peter and Wendy by J.M. Barrie

5.0

In the old days at home the Neverland had always begun to look a little dark and threatening by bedtime. Then unexplored patches arose in it and spread; black shadows moved about in them; the roar of the beasts of prey was quite different now, and above all, you lost the certainty that you would win. You were quite glad that the night-lights were in. You even liked Nana to say that this was just the mantelpiece over here, and that the Neverland was all make-believe.

Of course the Neverland had been make-believe in those days; but it was real now, and there were no night-lights, and it was getting darker every moment, and where was Nana?

This is another one of those books where I thought I knew what it was going to be like -- I thought I knew the story, between the Disney version, the 2003 film, Finding Neverland, and Hook (one of my favourite movies of all time). I thought I was a long-avowed Peter Pan fan!

But ugh, Peter and Wendy. All the hearts in my eyes. This book is so wonderfully well-written, and contains so many little details in the metaphorical margins and narration. Reading this was an absolute delight because as much as I thought I knew the story, reading it was something else entirely. It's bloodier than I expected -- there's a lot of violent death, the Lost Boys and pirates are constantly killing each other and the end of the book is a veritable bloodbath. Hook is surprisingly sympathetic, likeable, and charming, which is exactly how I love my not-entirely-unheroic villains. Wendy and Tinkerbell are so completely obviously romantically interested in Peter (and it breaks my heart), so I was charmed to see that that wasn't all fanon reading too much into things. Peter and Wendy are meant to be together but won't ever be, and I hate how much this damned book hurt my soul over it. ('Oh no, he isn't grown up,' Wendy assured her confidently, 'and he is just my size.' She meant that he was her size in both mind and body; she didn't know how she knew it, she just knew it.)

And also, more than anything, J.M. Barrie's narrator's voice is infuckingcredible: offering wry commentary, criticism, and unique turns of phrase and ways of approaching the story aslant. For example:

Mrs. Darling first heard of Peter when she was tidying up her children's minds. It is the nightly custom of every good mother after her children are asleep to rummage in their minds and put things straight for next morning, repacking into their proper places the many articles that have wandered during the day. If you could keep awake (but of course you can't) you would see your own mother doing this, and you would find it very interesting to watch her. It is quite like tidying up drawers. You would see her on her knees, I expect, lingering humorously over some of your contents, wondering where on earth you had picked this thing up, making discoveries sweet and not so sweet, pressing this to her cheek as if it were as nice as a kitten, and hurriedly stowing that out of sight. When you wake in the morning, the naughtiness and evil passions with which you went to bed have been folded up small and placed at the bottom of your mind and on the top, beautifully aired, are spread out your prettier thoughts, ready for you to put on.

It's all the little flights of fancy like this, and the sentient dog-nanny Nana, that make it so-- I just keep coming back to the word 'charming'. But it is. The book is fast and fun to read and charming like its titular boy is charming.

(For others who've read it: The narrator's vicious evisceration of Mrs. Darling at the end was really curious to me -- I was honestly shocked while reading that passage. And then he does his abrupt 180 turn later, and 'forgives' Mrs. Darling... all of which was so strange and impassioned that it made me wonder if that was something of J.M. Barrie & Sylvia Llewelyn Davies shining through, but idk.)

Regardless! It's quirky and fun and dark -- a perfect followup to reading some Roald Dahl, actually. The ending gutted me; it's the end of innocence, the end of childhood, the heartless and selfish gaiety of children. It's also curious that for such a famous children's book, Barrie ultimately ends it on such a bitter note and also eviscerates children (and their thoughtlessness) in those last couple chapters. But again: that made it brilliant, if heartbreaking.