A review by louiza_read2live
Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie

5.0

I love this book! Although some parts are disturbing, overall it is a very good story about the imagination children have and the nostalgia of the magic of childhood that is lost when one grows up. One might say that Peter Pan is the symbol of that childhood; it shows up on the birth of every new generation, on the eyes and minds of every child while it disappears when that child grows up and the adult responsibilities are taking over, only that lost childhood to resurface and be recognized again upon the innocent imagination of every new child.

Peter Pan by J. M. Barrie, is so different than the Disney version and I wouldn't classify this original version necessarily as a young children's book. Maybe a PG13 type of book.

I love the writing style of Barrie in how he directly interacts with the readers. It makes me feel as Barrie and I are sitting next to each other somewhere hidden and we're secretly watching the story unfold as Barrie who can see better and knows more narrates the story:
"You or I, not being wild things of the woods, would have heard nothing, but they heard it..." "At once the lost boys -- but where are they? They are no longer there [...]. I will tell you where they are [...]" "But how have they reached it? [...]." "Look closely, however, and you may note that there are here seven large trees, [...] Will he find it tonight?" etc...
I just love that interaction as if the writer and reader are discussing the story they hear and see together. This style fits so well with this story!

Athough of course completely different works, writing styles, and themes, I've seen that interactive style between reader and author before and I had loved it in Henry James's works.

Barrie too, I feel, has done this so beautifully that it makes the story a pleasure to read as the reader gets deeply connected with the characters and directly involved in the storyline.

* Interesting fact: Someone on one of the facebook book groups I'm involved was kind to share this disturbing, but interesting, fact about the author's life that might also have something to say about the story he wrote. Barrie had a difficult childhood himself and a strange relationship with his mother. His brother died and his mother never recovered from this loss. Barrie for the sake of his mother had to pretend that he himself is his dead brother.

Therefore, with that in mind, our view of the story might change completely. Is Peter Pan a symbol of childhood and the nostalgia adults feel for the simpler days? Or perhaps Peter Pan represents a more macabre theme, that of the lost boys as the children who have passed away and Peter Pan is the brother who never returned home to Barrie's mother?
Or perhaps none of these speculations are true and Peter Pan is just a fantasy, just a story to entertain with nothing more to it? It is up to each reader to decide -- Who is Peter Pan and what he represents, if anything?