Peter Pan and Andrew Wyeth

I discovered this unlikely connection at Winter is Always, the recent Andrew Wyeth retrospective at Seattle Art Museum. As I've observed before, I find reflections of J. M. Barrie's famous character in  many unexpected places.

"Christina's World" is certainly Andrew Wyeth's most famous painting (although it was not at the SAM exhibit--it lives at MOMA in New York and does not travel). The history of the land around him--his home in Chadd's Ford, Pennsylvania, and a summer home in Maine--permeates all of Wyeth's work, and that leads us forthwith to his connection with fictional pirates.

Captain Keitt by Howard Pyle (1907)

I've written before in this blog about Howard Pyle, the illustrator who brought the image of the quintessential swashbuckling pirate to the modern world.

One of Pyle's students in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, was N. C. (Newell Convers) Wyeth, Andrew's father. N. C. Wyeth illustrated 112 books during his lifetime, including a 1911 edition of Treasure Island which is considered a masterpiece.

"Trodden Weed," 1951

Wyeth painted this self-portrait of sorts, Trodden Weed, with a piratical pair of boots previously owned by Howard Pyle.

Painter's Folly (1989). The house went up for sale in 2014 and
was ultimately bought by the township of Chadd's Ford in 2017.
Note the mermaids!

Andrew Wyeth considered Pyle his "spiritual grandfather," said Joyce Hill Stoner, the art conservator who worked for the Wyeths for thirty years. Pyle's house, Painter's Folly was the subject of several of Wyeth's paintings, as were Helen and George Sipala, the couple who lived in the house during his lifetime.

Andrew Wyeth (1917-2009) was often in poor health as a child and was home-tutored. He had a difficult relationship with his demanding father, who died when his car stalled on railroad tracks when Andrew was 28. He considered his father's death to be a formative emotional event--much as J. M. Barrie was affected by his brother's death. After this, Wyeth turned from watercolors to egg tempera (i think Captain Hook would approve of this old-fashioned technique), which gives his work a stark and timeless quality.

Perhaps it is odd that I was so alert to connections to Peter Pan, but note the hook appendage in this portrait of Wyeth's neighbor Bill Hoper, a blacksmith and handyman. The docent who discussed the exhibit at SAM said that Wyeth's father wouldn't have approved of so much reality in a portrait--not an issue for Andrew.

Although he was one of the foremost American artists of the twentieth century, his style of work became unfashionable during his lifetime, considered too sentimental by those who preferred their art abstract. I admit I was drawn to seeing this exhibit because a friend of mine described it as bleak, and I hoped I would find some comfort in that given my own mindset after the death of my father last September. What I found in Andrew Wyeth's paintings was imagery that is almost surreal, realism that expands into symbol and emotion, a depth beneath what has been dismissed as cartoonish or antiquated. This is what I hope in some small way to bring to my portrayal of Captain James Hook: something close to the heart, or maybe the bone.

“Life is strange,” Wyeth once told [Edgar Allen Beem]. “From the outside, things may look one way, but when you look inside, they’re very different.”

*  *  *

Note for further reading: I came across A Piece of the World, a fictionalized memoir of Christina Olson of "Christina's World," not long after seeing the Winter is Always exhibit. Naturally, it is now on my reading list.

Peter Pan and the historical novel

The Stowaway began as a fantasy story, but it very quickly became a historical novel about Edwardian England (and other places). When I discovered the Historical Novel Society, I realized I had found a group of people who also understood the pleasures and perils of research. And when the organizers announced their 2017 conference would be held in Portland, Oregon--only a few hours' trip away from me--I knew this was something I shouldn't miss.

And sure enough, I found panels and sessions on topics immediately relevant to my work, from one on historical fiction set in and around World War I (a conflict that will inform the potential sequel to The Stowaway) to panels on Gilded Age fiction (including fairy tales set in that time period) to Victorian funeral customs  (as there is a funeral in The Stowaway).

Art in Harper's New Monthly Magazine,1880, by George du Maurier,
grandfather of the Llewelyn Davies boys who inspired
J. M. Barrie to write Peter Pan.

I also learned about new places to find primary source materials, some expensive and difficult to access for non-academics, but others free and online, such as ProfNet (set up for journalists, but helpful for other writers as well), The American Association for State and Local History, and Google Scholar --and don't forget Google Maps. The Metropolitan Museum's website Heilbrunn Timeline of Art History is particularly wonderful, both as a historical reference and for illustrations of building interiors.

Always of interest to historical fiction writers is the question of balancing history with fiction. Specific facts add realism to a novel and bring the reader deeper into that world, but too much of that can distract from the story the writer is trying to tell. Inaccuracies can throw a reader out of the story. And as was also discussed at the Pop Culture Association/American Culture Association conference I attended in Seattle last year, a historical novel is also a novel about today. Research turns up new information every day, and our interpretations of the past vary accordingly--and it's unavoidable that we bring our own contemporary values and outlook to what we write. We inevitably comment on the time we're writing in as well as the time a novel takes place, and that, along with putting the past into context with the present, makes historical fiction relevant to modern readers.

Peter Pan in Barrie's hometown of
Kirriemuir, Scotland.

The 2018 HNS conference will take place next August in J. M. Barrie's home country of Scotland. This is a little more difficult to arrange than a four-hour drive from home--but no doubt it would be worth the effort.

Manga in Neverland (Volume 3)

I am delighted to announce that Elaine Tipping has posted the Kickstarter campaign for Volume 3 of her Peter Pan manga (with a lovely animation). This volume, chapters 7-10 of the webcomic, contains full versions of Neverland adventures J. M. Barrie only mentioned briefly in his book. If you like reading about the shenanigans of the lost boys, you will especially enjoy this.

Elaine and I agree that too many people have never read the original Peter Pan, and thus she's illustrating it rather than other, altered versions that have appeared since the book's publication in 1911. Barrie's book contains both whimsy and darkness that other versions such as Walt Disney's 1953 animated feature skip over, and Elaine Tipping's manga embraces them as well.

The rewards for each campaign level include digital and print versions of Volume One and Volume Two, chibi keychains, tote bags, art cards, and character notebooks. I'm especially hoping for the completion of the second stretch goal: A new eight-page Wendy adventure. And, of course, supporting the continued manga adventures of Peter Pan means seeing more of Captain Jas. Hook in future editions.

Elaine began her Peter Pan webcomic in 2011, and updates it every Sunday. In addition to supporting and reading the collected, updated comics in book form, you can follow the story as it's completed on Smackjeeves, Deviant Art, tumblr, and Tapastic.

The adventure continues

Three and a half years and 117 posts ago, this blog was born. It's now reached and passed 50,000 hits. This seems like a good time to look back at what I've found particularly interesting during my research for The Stowaway.

The five most popular posts are listed there at the right side of the page. I had no idea Mr. Smee was so popular before I started Hook's Waltz. But here are another five, with links, that I think deserve a little love as well.

By Mabel Lucie Atwell, 1921

Keeping faith
There are certain challenges of being true to a character who has been portrayed as many ways through the years as Peter has.

~ ~ ~

By Anne Graham Johnstone, 1988

Why they flew away
Why was it so easy for Peter Pan to convince the Darling children to join him in Neverland? The answer is less sinister than you might think. 

~ ~ ~

Return to Neverland Happy Meal toys.
2002?

Peter and the popular media
Movie tie-in toys have been around longer than McDonald's has.

(I wish now I had never gone searching for images of vintage Peter Pan toys. I guess there's a little more room in the display cabinet.)

~ ~ ~

Writer Maurice Hewlett. Not only did J. M
Barrie recruit him for his struggling cricke
team, he borrowed his son's name for one
of the pirates in Peter Pan.

Friends in unexpected places
James Matthew Barrie had no problem writing his friends into his stories, even if dreadful things happened to the characters.

Bonus: He also had no problem pressing them into service on perhaps the worst amateur cricket
team in history.
Sports and letters

Additional bonus:
The cricket rivalry has been resurrected!
A new sports rivalry between Authors and Actors 

~ ~ ~

By Marjorie Torrey, 1957

Of kisses and lost children 
And finally, my most personal take on the story of Peter Pan, with its expression of the indelible mark left by the death of a child.

Peter Pan and Patsy Stone

Patsy Stone and Edina Monsoon--leads of the new Absolutely Fabulous movie--may be monstrous (although I find them less so in their current incarnation). But my uncomfortable admiration of Patsy may be possible because I know actress Joanna Lumley is not only an activist for causes in the areas of human rights and animal welfare, but has also been instrumental in saving the house and garden where a young J. M. Barrie first dreamed of Peter Pan.

Barrie attended Dumfries Academy for five years, and played with the two boys who lived in the adjacent Moat Brae estate. From these games came the first inklings of the characters and plot of Peter and Wendy.

… when shades of night began to fall, certain young mathematicians shed their triangles, crept up walls and down trees, and became pirates in a sort of Odyssey that was long afterwards to become the play of Peter Pan. For our escapades in a certain Dumfries Garden, which is enchanted land to me, were certainly the genesis of that nefarious work, Peter Pan.” -- J. M. Barrie, 1924, upon being awarded the Freedom of the Burgh of Dumfries

The house was built in 1823, eventually converted to a private hospital and nursing home, abandoned by the 1990s and slated for demolition. But in 2007, the Peter Pan Moat Brae Trust was created to restore the house and gardens and convert the estate to Scotland's first National Centre for Children's Literature and Storytelling--an educational and cultural center for both local schools and anyone who loves the works of J. M. Barrie.

Dumfries is an economically challenged area, and the site was to be used for affordable housing. But the center does not abandon the goal of helping the town. It will bring tourist trade, jobs, and volunteer opportunities to Dumfries, along with skills development and literacy education.

The Discovery Garden will have a Neverland theme.

Lumley is patron of the trust, and in 2011 she launched the fundraiser which has raised £5.3 of its £5.8 target. Moat Brae will host artists in residence and hold ongoing workshops and artists in residence--programs which have already begun, even though the entire project won't be complete until 2018. One such event was an morning family presentation in March 2016 with Lumley and comedian David Walliams, who is not only popular for his work with comic Matt Lucas, but for the five children's books he's written, which have sold well over two million copies.

Another presentation was a 2015 production of scenes from Barrie's very first play, Bandelero the Bandit, which he wrote at the age of 17, and which had unexpected success when a local clergyman declared it immoral. Barrie thought the play lost, but a copy of the script was found in the U.S., and a full production will eventually be staged at Moat Brae.

Naturally, Christine de Poortere, keeper of the Peter Pan archives at Great Ormond Street Hospital, has visited Moat Brae, where she met with the children from a local school.

And a picture book--Sixteen String Jack and the Garden of Adventure--was published in 2015 about Moat Brae House and J. M. Barrie's adventures there. (When my copy arrives, you can read about it here.) It's written by Tom Pow and illustrated by Sendak Fellowship recipient Ian Andrew, and is available (along with other books about Moat Brae and J. M. Barrie) at the impressive Moat Brae website.

A blog's 2015 in review

It's rather gratifying to see which five Hook's Waltz posts of 2015 were the most-read.

By Trina Schart Hyman, 1980

Searching for the lost boys
I didn't realize the lost boys were so popular. It was fun investigating various visualizations of them throughout the years. Some of their portrayals--particularly current ones--are very far from J. M. Barrie's understanding indeed.

A Partnership
I'm pleased this was popular, both because it's an example of my fiction writing and because I got to explore the character of  'Becca Bloom in more detail than The Stowaway allows.

Berliner Ensemble/Cocorosie interpretation of Peter Pan

New Directions for Peter Pan
For all the versions I find problematic, there are other interpretations that I find intriguing and worthwhile.

Mural at Grand Ormond Street Hospital

Peter at the hospital
Also gratifying, because the staff at Great Ormond Street Hospital are lovely and do good things. I'm pleased that I got to visit them and that I can tell people about them and J. M. Barrie's financial gift.

"The Libertine's Death," from Rose Mortimer,
or, The Ballet Girl's Revenge, 1865

Defending the Victorians
Written because I had reached the end of my tolerance of people speaking of Victorian England as if it marked some low in human civilization, when in fact it was the era that birthed attitudes and reforms we are still working to perfect today. A huge amount of research went into this, so I'm glad to know others find the topic interesting.

Helping the Peter Pan Manga fly on

Update 11/30/2015: The Kickstarter is funded! But there's another week to go and some stretch goals I'd love to see funded--in particular, more "slice of life" Neverland comics.

Last year, at Emerald City Comic Con, I met and interviewed Elaine Tipping, creator of the Peter Pan manga. Elaine is doing something I wholeheartedly support--using a modern style of art to tell J. M. Barrie's story. Strictly J. M. Barrie--nothing from Disney or Dave Barry/Ridley Scott or Once Upon a Time--just the original.

But that manga was only the first part of the story, and now the Kickstarter for the second part has gone live. I have to encourage my readers to support this. Because Elaine cares about the original book and making it more widely available for people who are only familiar with retellings of Peter Pan which ignore important parts of the story.

And she's filling in some of the adventures that Barrie only hinted at, which I have been enjoying thoroughly, and which I've never known anyone else to do. The new manga will have even more of those--ten four-panel comic stories. Wendy plays a large part in these adventures, and animals and fairies too.

But perhaps most importantly (said the blogger with a wink), Elaine has a proper appreciation for Captain Jas. Hook and does not treat him like a buffoon. Probably because she's read the book.

The Captain Hook Kickstarter reward level includes two keychains, two postcards, a digital illustration, my name in the book... Look at that face. You wouldn't want to deprive me of that, would you? I thought not.

Shot from a canon

With another Peter Pan movie, of sorts, having hit the big screen and slid down it to die, I've been considering the idea of canon: events and characters in a story that should be immovable, not remastered to tell a tale that's possibly at odds with the original. And in a neat bit of timing, Chuck Wendig, who along with his other ventures writes in the Star Wars universe, has addressed this very issue.

Since The Stowaway takes place in an existing universe with many existing characters, of necessity I've given a great deal of thought to where canon should be adhered to, and where and when it can be broken. I tend to fall on the side of respecting it. (Past posts here at Hook's Waltz may tend to bear that out.) J. M. Barrie's Peter Pan has meant a great deal to me on a deep level, and many retellings strike me as a betrayal of the story's essence...which leads me to wonder if my own digressions from canon make me a hypocrite.

Thomas Kinkade's "Moonrise Over Pirate Cove," created for
Disneyland's 50th anniversary. Beautiful ship!
But not the kind Captain Hook sailed.

Interestingly, Barrie himself didn't always keep to his own canon. The play that was finally produced in 1904 went through innumerable changes beforehand (for one, Tinker Bell was first named Tippytoe and spoke her lines). And "Hook at Eton," the speech he wrote in 1927, contained some details that contradicted the 1911 novelization that was Peter and Wendy--some details which again complicated my own plot.

This was not the only challenging part of trying to adhere to Barrie's script. I have an irritating mental image of him leaning over my shoulder to say, "If you're sincere about following my plot, Mr. Starkey has to stay in Neverland." (That one necessitated a rewrite of the last section of the book and the absence of a character I'd come to appreciate.) But I felt that I needed to build on the scaffolding of the existing story as much as possible to keep my changes from flying off in directions that Barrie wouldn't appreciate.

There are some beloved elements common to both the book and the better-known Disney film that I wanted to keep--the flying ship, Tinker Bell's temper, the ticking crocodile. There are others I do alter, hoping that I am keeping true to the heart of the story in the process. Where I diverge, I like to think it's in directions Barrie would at least understand, and maybe even appreciate. The character of Tiger Lily, for example, is not one that can be responsibly transferred from the original as written. But Barrie didn't live in a time and place where information about American indigenous cultures would have been readily available, and he was more focused on writing a children's adventure story reminiscent of others popular at the time than on creating an accurate historical depiction. Maybe it's naive of me to consider, but he was a man who prized kindness, and perhaps he would encourage a more realistic and humane view of his "Indian" characters today.

I'm lucky that Peter Pan is known to have a loose relationship with the truth. (It's canon!)When my maternal grandmother wanted to ask if someone was lying, she would say, "Are you telling a story?" And this is crucial to the character of Peter. He loves stories. He first visited the Darling children because he wanted to hear the end of "Cinderella." To him, the line between a story and what the rest of the world recognizes as shared truth is gossamer. We know Peter Pan didn't really kill Blackbeard or Long John Silver, no matter what he says. It's not such a leap for me to tell a story that doesn't quite align with Peter's interpretation of events.

 I love Marjorie Torrey's 1957 illustrations, but her Tinker Bell
is neither voluptuous nor dressed in a single leaf as she should be.

Ultimately, canon is a complicated beast. Several different versions of the Land of Oz--L. Frank Baum's creation, Gregory Maguire's Wicked series--co-exist in my head perfectly compatibly, each appreciated in its own right. But I'm not able to do this with Peter Pan writings because I have too personal an interest in the story. Yet I have a decent collection of illustrated versions of Peter Pan, and I love seeing the variety of approaches artists take. I may be distracted by errors I catch, but there are so many beautiful interpretations which I enjoy on their own terms.

Considering fan fiction (amateur and traditionally published, because the latter absolutely does exist and has for centuries) gives me a few more clues. Alternate or contradictory timelines can be confusing, but I find them possible to compartmentalize. Once fanfic begins taking too many liberties with characters and situations as I've come to understand them, I begin to lose interest. Cross-overs and alternate universes, I leave almost entirely to those who can appreciate them. And once characters begin to act in ways that are antithetical to their origins, I wonder why writers don't cut them loose entirely, accept that they are now writing an entirely new piece, and forge forward with that.

In the end, I believe I accept digressions from canon as long as they respect the author's intent and hew closely enough to it that the initial message isn't lost. I like variations that explore aspects of characters and happenings which were absent from the initial work, that find alternate interpretations of actions and motives, that create occurrences and meetings that could well fit into the official canon but weren't initially written into it. Ideas that actually do fit into the original story if you turn it a bit so the light hits it a new way. This is what I'm trying to do with The Stowaway.

Captain Hook and the Merry Monarch

King Charles II, born on May 29, 1630, was a fashion influence on Captain Jas. Hook.

Portrait by Sir Peter Lely, 1670

As J. M. Barrie wrote in Peter Pan and Wendy, "[i]n dress he somewhat aped the attire associated with the name of Charles II, having heard it said in some earlier period of his career that he bore a strange resemblance to the ill-fated Stuarts."

Hook also wore his hair in long black corkscrews curls resembling the king's wig. While "[H]is eyes were of the blue of the forget-me-not," wrote Barrie, there can perhaps be seen a shared melancholy in the faces of both.

Portrait by John Michael Wright, c. 1660-1665

Yet Charles II, unlike Hook, was far from melancholy, though he might well have been. His father, Charles I, was deposed from the throne by the decidedly un-jolly Oliver Cromwell and executed in 1649, and the son exiled. Upon the death of Cromwell, Charles II reclaimed the throne in 1660--the start of the Restoration--with a style of rule so at odds with that of Cromwell that his court was renowned for all manner of licentious behavior. But he wasn't neglectful of his subjects, as one might expect from his frivolous ways--when the Great Fire of 1666 destroyed three-quarters of the wooden buildings in the City of London over the course of four days, he fought the fire alongside the citizens. And he founded the Royal Society of scientists in 1660. On a lighter note, King Charles spaniels are named after his favorite dogs.

As I have never yet passed up a chance to share the Horrible Histories "King of Bling," with Mathew here it is once more. Enjoy!

There are any number of entertaining stories about Charles II, a few of which I have fun mentioning in The Stowaway: He reinstated the celebration of Christmas, and was the recipient of the first pineapple brought to England. One anecdote which I haven't found a place for (yet) is about Thomas Blood, who attempted to steal the crown jewels (and whose portrait, incidentally, is a crucial part of the plot of Muppets Most Wanted). The crown jewels had been melted down after Charles I's execution and later refashioned by Charles II, so this was a grave crime indeed. And yet Charles was so impressed with Captain Blood's audacity that he rewarded him rather than have him punished.

Portrait of Catherine of Braganza
by Otto Hoynck

Charles's wife, Catherine of Braganza, Infanta of Portugal, was controversial among the populace because of her devout Catholicism. Convent-raised, she had difficulty adjusting to life at court and was never able to bring a child of the union to term, but--unlike some kings--Charles refused to divorce her and insisted she be treated with respect. In time she did become more comfortable in her new home, embracing the fashion trends of wearing men's clothing and shorter skirts, scandalizing the Protestants by playing cards on Sunday, and popularizing the drinking of tea in England.

Charles II with actress Nell Gwyn, by Edward
Mathew Ward (1854), possibly wearing black to
recall the Great Fire of 1666

Charles II was surrounded by interesting women, in fact. He had a dozen acknowledged children with a plethora of mistresses, including two by actress Nell Gwyn. (Among his actions as monarch was legalizing the profession of acting for women.)

And he wrote poetry for one woman who resisted his advances, Frances Theresa Stuart, granddaughter of Walter Stuart, 1st Lord Blantyre and the face of Britannia, a Scot whose portrait whose portrait appeared not only upon medals commemorating a naval victory, but also on the English penny until the decimal system was put into use in 1971.

The Pleasures of Love

I pass all my hours in a shady old grove.
But I live not the day when I see not my love;
I survey every walk now my Phyllis is gone,
And sigh when I think we were there all alone,
Oh, then ‘tis I think there’s no Hell
Like loving too well.

But each shade and each conscious bower when I find
Where I once have been happy and she has been kind;
When I see the print left of her shape on the green,
And imagine the pleasure may yet come again;
Oh, then ‘tis I think that no joys are above
The pleasures of love.

While alone to myself I repeat all her charms,
She I love may be locked in another man’s arms,
She may laugh at my cares, and so false she may be,
To say all the kind things she before said to me!
Oh then ‘tis, oh then, that I think there’s no Hell
Like loving too well.

But when I consider the truth of her heart,
Such an innocent passion, so kind without art,
I fear I have wronged her, and hope she may be
So full of true love to be jealous of me.
Oh then ‘tis I think that no joys are above
The pleasures of love.

Of course, this being English history, all was not revelry during the reign of Charles II. Though he promoted religious tolerance, constant conflict between Protestants and Catholics led to his dissolving Parliament in 1681 and ruling alone. In 1677, Charles encouraged the marriage of his niece Mary (son of his Catholic brother, James) to the Protestant King William III of Orange, in hopes of increasing peace between the two religions, and also re-establishing his own Protestant credentials. Nevertheless, he officially converted to Catholicism upon his death bed.

William of Orange is reportedly an ancestor of my own, and his statue in Kensington Gardens, London, has been mentioned as another of J. M. Barrie's sources of inspiration for Captain Hook. (In other words, I find yet another connection to Peter Pan and the Captain in my own life.)

Searching for the lost boys

No characters in J. M. Barrie's Peter Pan have undergone a wider variety of interpretations over the years than the feral children known as the lost boys.

John Hassall, 1907, Duke of York's Theatre lobby posters

Artists who drew the boys immediately after the debut of the play in 1904 showed them as normal Edwardian boys in ordinary clothes. But the longer and more fully-realized version of the story in Barrie's book, published in 1911, takes pains to describe how the boys' garb differs from Peter Pan's suit of skeleton leaves and cobwebs.

They are forbidden by Peter to look in the least like him, and they wear the skins of the bears slain by themselves, in which they are so round and furry that when they fall they roll. They have therefore become very sure-footed.

Even shooting at the Wendy Bird, Flora White's 1914 Tootles looks adorable, even cherubic. This rather describes Tootles, actually, although artists have long seemed fond of thinking of the lost boys in general as sweeter than perhaps Barrie did.

The 1953 Disney animated film took the idea of the bear skins further and dressed the boys in full animal costume. The suits seem to take the place of differentiated personalities for these characters. And I'm sorry, but they're the ugliest lost boys I've seen. Plus there must have been some mighty big rabbits and foxes in Never Neverland.

Later artists such as Trina Shart Hyman (1980)

and  Scott Gustafson (1991) were more faithful to the book's portrayal, with their lost boys looking roly-poly in their bear-skin coats.

The 2003 Universal/Columbia Pictures Peter Pan movie took more liberties with the boys' attire, but it makes sense that boys in a permanent game of make-believe would take creative advantage of whatever props they came across.

With the modern popularity of "dark" versions of children's stories came grimmer versions of the lost boys, portrayals which do not shy from the more murderous nature of these children. A good example is the group in ABC's Once Upon a Time. However, portrayals of the lost boys as teens, according to Barrie, are impossible. As he tells us, "...when they seem to be growing up, which is against the rules, Peter thins them out." (Dark interpretations of Peter Pan often miss the darkness that has been in the story from the beginning.)

A little bird broken out of the egg

Somewhere between the boy hero of Disney studios and the dangerous, complicated lead of Brom's The Child Thief lies the real Peter Pan.

J. M. Barrie's original Peter is neither the spirit of sweetness nor the incarnation of malice. This Peter is nothing more or less than a small boy who is static, unchanging, embodying both the innocence and heartlessness of a child who doesn't grow up and therefore never learns to be kind.

Peter himself says, "I'm youth, I'm joy, I'm a little bird that has broken out of the egg." To an extent, that's true, and it's long been a popular way of considering him. Unfortunately, this charm is tempered with a lack of practicality and ability to exasperate, as the Darling children see over and over on their flight to Neverland.

Barrie tells us how Peter acquires food for himself and the others by stealing it from the beaks of passing birds, which John and Michael find delightful.

But Wendy noticed with gentle concern that Peter did not seem to know that this was rather an odd way of getting your bread and butter, nor even that there are other ways.

One of Peter's more alarming traits manifests when the children fall asleep from exhaustion and tumble through the sky.

Eventually Peter would dive through the air, and catch Michael just before he could strike the sea,and it was lovely the way he did it; but he always waited till the last moment, and you felt it was his cleverness that interested him and not the saving of human life.

And he's never completely trustworthy.

Indeed, sometimes when he returned he did not remember them, at least not well. Wendy was sure of it. She saw recognition come into his eyes as he was about to pass them the time of day and go on; once even she had to tell him her name.

He was very sorry. "I say, Wendy," he whispered to her, "always if you see me forgetting you, just keep on saying 'I'm Wendy,' and then I'll remember."

Carelessness is integral to Peter's character, as is the way he tries on identities. On one level, Peter wants to be a captain, wishes to play at being a father. But he wants these roles never to be truly real.

I was just thinking," he said, a little scared. "It is only  make-believe, isn't it, that I am their father?"

"Oh yes," Wendy said primly.

"You see," he continued apologetically, "it would make me seem so old to be their real father."

"But they are ours, Peter, yours and mine,"

"But not really, Wendy?" he asked anxiously.

"Not if you don't wish it," she replied; and she distinctly heard his sigh of relief.

He inhabits his roles briefly, and they leave no real impression upon him. It's as if everything is make-believe, including the consequences of his actions.

He often went out alone, and when he came back you were never absolutely certain whether he had had an adventure or not. He might have forgotten it so completely that he said nothing about it; and then when you went out you found the body; and on the other hand, he might say a great deal about it, and yet you could not find the body.

Peter has the callousness of the child who doesn't understand death, or the fact that people have lives and concerns of their own that have nothing to do with him."I forget them after I kill them," he says of the pirates in Neverland. Because Peter Pan can be heartless--with his indifference towards those he kills, and the way he "thins out" the population of lost boys as they become older--it's easy to see where the dark interpretations come from. But this is a simple interpretation of a much more complex character.

Peter even forgets Tinker Bell after the Darling children leave Neverland and the fairy dies of old age. Most people aren't real to him once they pass off the screen of his immediate life, Wendy being the exception, and that not complete. "Being present" is held up as a high ideal in our culture, but Peter warns of the risks that come if one disregards the richness and depth that present and past bring to existence. His is the peril of the child who refuses to learn and mature.

John and Michael forget about their parents during their time in Neverland, much to Wendy's distress. She is the only one mature enough to realize what is happening, and her attempts to keep those memories alive make up a significant part of Barrie's book. In contrast, the lost boys, who have no such memories to draw upon, do their best to construct pasts for themselves.

Peter's world is one of adventure and novelty and joy. And yet, he cries sometimes in the night, and is at least as unsettled than triumphant when he takes over the captainship of the Jolly Roger. On some level, he knows all is not right with the way he has chosen to live. The scene where the Darling children return home brings into relief what Peter has lost in his refusal to grow up.

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 forever barred.

And herein lies the essential sadness of Peter Pan. Courageous in facing the dangers he sets up for himself to defeat, and yet so fearful of the prosaic unknown he does everything he can to avoid it. In the end, he is more lost than the boys who follow him.