Most Helpful Customer Reviews
33 of 35 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Peter Pan Review, May 9, 2004
This review is from: Peter Pan: The Original Story (Paperback)
Peter Pan is the timeless classic everyone has grown up to. It has been passed down from generation to generation but it all started with one man, J. M. Barrie. When anyone tells the story of Peter Pan most adults don't think it is suitable for them. They think that it is simply a children's story and always will be. However, Barrie made sure that this story would be appropriate for all ages. Some of the language might be a bit difficult for the youngest range but the context helps to figure out a funny word or two. It appeals to the older range because of the layers it conceals. Behind each game they play is a message. Hidden under each smile Wendy gives to Peter is her hidden kiss. However, this story relates mostly to teenagers as they are going through the stage of growing up. Just days before I read Peter Pan I thought of how nice it would be to be free of homework and school. I thought how wonderful it would be to grow up and be independent. After reading this story, and seeing it exactly how Barrie told it, I don't want to grow up as much as Peter Pan and Wendy don't want to. I first heard the story, from seeing the movie, at a very young age, probably around the time I was 2 or 3. Disney tried hard to incorporate everything from the book but they didn't get every meaning or all the symbolism. For example, Mrs. Darling and Wendy Darling both have a hidden kiss. This kiss is hidden under the right hand corner of their mouths and only their true love can find it. Because Mr. Darling can't find Mrs. Darling's kiss, perhaps Barrie is trying to say that although she loves Mr. Darling dearly, he isn't her true love. Barrie fills his book with the perfect amount of detail and color. Children don't get bored because there is too much and adults don't need any more. At one point in the story, Barrie writes about the adventures at the lagoon. "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." It is work like this that captures the reader and makes them never put the book down. The action and the drama are another reason such a wide age range is attached to this story. The lost boys go on countless raids and enticing adventures that children can only dream about. The love story between Peter and Wendy thickens throughout the entire book and we don't know till the end whether the Darlings will return home to England or stay in Neverland forever. Barrie does such an incredible job with the characters I felt I had met each one personally. John and Michael are as adorable as ever, Captain Hook as evil, Tinkerbell as envious, Peter as cocky and Wendy as in love. Though the title expresses that the story is about Peter Pan, I think one of Barrie's hidden messages was that it was really Wendy's story. Peter Pan can meet many more pirates and have many more adventures but Wendy only had that one time with him. She could only be his mother, or possibly his only love, once in her life. She was supposed to go back to Neverland every spring to do Peter's spring cleaning but he forgot almost every year. Barrie might have been trying to show how forgetful little boys are. He also might have been trying to show Peter's denial that Wendy might grow up. If Peter didn't go back then Wendy might not grow up. If he didn't go back he wouldn't be reminded that he lost the love of his life. Barrie did a phenomenal job with this story. His ideas make you wonder why we have to grow up and why none of us have ever been able to see Tink's glow, outside of our dreams. This book is suitable for all ages and the only thing that could make it even better were if we could be in the story ourselves.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
"Peter Pan," a Child's Novel for Adults, March 16, 2005
This review is from: Peter Pan: The Original Story (Paperback)
"Peter Pan," or by its original title, "Peter and Wendy," when considered in its entirety is a grand read for an adult. The key to its enjoyment is the realization that all spoken and written words are metaphor. For even when words sit closely to reality they are not, and cannot be, the actual things they represent. They are signs! And sometimes they are signs of things not readily apparent and requiring work. Imagination is needed. And that is why all written words are fiction regardless of category, for even as they reach toward reality they are not themselves the same reality. It is a very interesting philosophical concept. The answer is found in Tolstoy's definition of art.
J.M. Barrie uses his story to attack certain English pretensions and inane formalities at the beginning of the twentieth century, life by rote being one, but "Peter Pan" is primarily about the mind and world of a child. The adults in the story are childhood concepts, as are the animals, water, earth, weather and sky. Childhood has no chronological border even though concentrated at the beginning of our lives, for it is perfectly capable of coming back now and again. Mine does. I hope yours does too, for if childhood never comes back the result might be insanity. And if it never leaves that too might bring madness.
I think that the most important lesson of "Peter Pan" is the final description of Captain Hook near the end of the story, not of his physicality, but of his character. It might very well be a reading child's first realization that we are good and we are bad, at the same time, every damn one of us, and that our sharing of such disparate qualities is cause for love and compassion.
"James Hook, thou not wholly unheroic figure, farewell."
That night Peter cries in his sleep. Is he crying for Hook? I say yes, I hope so.
Perhaps the book's second most important lesson is found in the last chapter's picture of time rolling on and on, children replacing adults replacing children, over and over, again and again. As Barrie writes it, "When Margaret grows up she will have a daughter, who is to be Peter's mother in turn; and so it will go on, so long as children are gay and innocent and heartless."
Yes, "heartless," for that's just as much a part of being a child as the other two adjectives. "Peter Pan" is sprinkled with truths that are downplayed these days by too many adults trying like hell to avoid conflict. But children are too innocent for such tactics, for truth comes natural to them. Children are perfectly capable of creating their own self-esteem at the drop of a hat, or the tinkle of a faerie bell.
-----Joseph A. Psarto, Westlake, Ohio
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
The Pros and Cons of Eternal Childhood, June 10, 2005
This review is from: Peter Pan: The Original Story (Paperback)
Like "Tarzan of the Apes", I picked this up on a whim. It was only a dollar in a discount bin, so what the heck, right? Turns out to be a wonderful book, magical in a way that no movie can ever truly touch. And I generally prefer movies to books.
So what makes it so terrific? It's hard to explain unless you read it. Sufficient to say that it's much darker, much more fantastic, and just plain better than any version you've seen before though I've never seen the play so I can't say anything bad about that. Disney's animated film is a pale, pale immitation, and the recent live action version, while much better, still doesn't stand up against the book.
I think the narration is what won me over. The writer actually addressed the reader directly quite often, giving the sense of hearing a story, not just reading it. And every so often, the writer even whispers a thing or two to the characters in the story that should be silly but comes across as charming and whimsical.
But be warned. This is a dark story too. Not too dark, but more than the uninformed would expect from Peter Pan. But this is a classic for a reason, and if you're looking for a good story told well, you should definitely give it a look.
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
Was this review helpful to you? Yes
No
|
|
Most Recent Customer Reviews
|
