I’ve been mulling over J. M. Barrie’s classic since I finished it yesterday. And I’m still not sure what I think about it. I liked some of it — thought it was very inventive. But other bits, well, left a lot to be desired. It was racist — I would have been surprised if it hadn’t been, but also downright mean to women, especially mothers. I remembered, while reading, my mom’s opinion on Peter Pan: “That man had issues with his mother.” But he was also critical of society, of men’s role in society, of those who would want to be young forever, and of children’s heartlessness.

But, in spite of all that (or perhaps because of all that), there’s a lot in this little novel. I invariably compared it to the two versions of the movie I’ve seen, as well as Finding Neverland (it’s been too long since I’ve seen Hook), mostly because I saw them first. I came to an interesting conclusion: I think Disney got Peter right. I hate the Disney movie — I think Peter’s an inconsiderate jerk and treats Tinker Bell and Wendy terribly — but Peter’s an inconsiderate jerk in the novel. More specifically, he’s a five-year-old. He’s inconsiderate and thoughtless and self-absorbed. A child. What I could never figure out — though reading the novel helped a bit — was why Tinker Bell and Wendy even remotely tolerated this kid. Anyway, I like Peter in the 2003 version better, but that’s because he’s slightly older, and treats Tinker Bell and Wendy slightly better. In other words, they changed the novel. (Not that it was a bad change.) I liked Hook in the book; he was evil, but a likable character. I loved how he was always obsessing with “good form.” (There’s a fun little passage where Hook converses with himself as to whether or not it’s bad form to obsess about good form.) But the rest of the characters, save Wendy (whom I found a little irritating, but then she’s an Edwardian British girl, and they can be a little irritating sometimes), weren’t very developed. Even Tinker Bell was just a peripheral character (though I did like that she “shouted”, “Silly ass!” at Peter quite often); I never did understand why she was hanging around Peter in the first place and why she got so jealous of Wendy. She was what she was.

I’m going to end this — mostly because I could go on and on and I need to go make dinner and take my girls to see the Nutcracker. But, I’ll leave you with the quote that I thought was the heart of the novel, after Wendy, John and Michael come back to Mr. and Mrs. Darling:

There could not have been a lovelier sight; but there was none to see it except a strange boy who was staring in at the window. He had ecstasies innumerable that other children can never know; but he was looking through the window at the one joy from which he must be for ever barred.