This is MJ. These are my quick thoughts on Peter Pan, Chapter 5.
Jane Barry is an incredible visionary writer.
Barry, that is, Hook invented the double cigar holder.
Well, so, anyway, let me go back to clarify what I mean.
Jane Barry put things in this book that are extremely iconic images, and I'm impressed by them.
A lot of the things I noticed early in the book I realized were in the Disney adaptation, the animated one,
and I think some of them were in Hook, and there are other places, but there's a lot of striking images that he makes in prose
that you can kind of see in your mind's eye that end up in adaptations.
So one of them is Captain Hook's double cigar holder thing, so he smokes two cigars at the same time,
which he created himself in the book, and I looked it up and it seems like he really is the guy who created them.
The other thing is the foreshadows of the kids flying in the nursery on the curtains that the parents see from outside,
the ticking croc, Peter playing the pipes, the underground tree house, there's lots of other good stuff.
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Another striking image that I have, or that was in this chapter specifically,
because that stuff was kind of scattered all over the book, but another striking iconic image that should be, or is, whatever,
is the island coming to life for Peter.
The narrator says that as Peter returns to Neverland, the island awakens to him.
Somehow there is a level of sentience to the Neverland, and something about that place has a direct effect on the characters who inhabit it.
So like, the mermaids, I think, are a little lazier.
The fairies sleep in, and when Peter comes back, the mermaids kind of get into action,
and the fairies know that it's not time for them to be sleeping anymore.
The Lost Boys and the Indians on the island, they won't actually kill each other, they'll just insult each other and things like that.
And that's all really interesting, and I don't know what Barry's trying to say with that.
I don't understand what it means, and I'm curious if there is a deeper meaning or some sort of significance to it,
or is it just something whimsical that he said on the fly?
I don't know, because I don't remember at this point if it holds true, if it continues to hold true throughout the book,
that it's something that's mentioned, but it is definitely something here, and it has an effect on the characters and the way they behave.
And they're also actually, previously, when they were flying towards the island, it says that the Neverland was approaching the children.
They were coming towards Peter and the Darling children, and it can only be found when you, or when it wants to find you,
I think is what the phrasing was in the flight, I think is the name of the chapter, which should have been chapter four.
Anyway, I'm not sure what that means, that the island is alive, and I also am trying to think,
if the island is alive, if it's some sort of sentience, and these children inhabit it,
and it's kind of created from the children's imaginings, and there are parts of the Neverland that we see described here
as being things that Wendy and Michael and John have all dreamt of.
So is it the Darling's Neverland? Does it change her who's visiting it?
Does Peter neglect those aspects of it that are specific to the Darling children, doesn't realize them because of his forgetfulness,
or because his lack of care or concern about those sorts of things, a lack of care about the details?
Or is it something else? And also, why is Peter the trigger?
Why is it that the Neverland awakens for him and kind of goes to sleep or settles into a lower state of activity when he's gone?
I know that Peter came from, it says, or he says he ran away from home when he was a baby
because his parents were talking about what he was going to be when he grew up, so he said,
I'm never going to grow up instead. But I don't know that that's actually true,
especially because the Lost Boys are said to have fallen out of their cribs, and if they're not claimed in seven days, they get stuck there.
And the reason why there's no Lost Girls is because girls are far too clever to fall out of their perimulators,
actually, their baby carriages, their strollers, which I think is a wonderful compliment to women and girls.
And anyway, it's interesting because, like, is Peter this mythic, time-old individual?
It doesn't seem like it because he said he, well, did he say he ran away to Kensington Gardens
or he lived in Kensington Gardens for some time? I'm not sure.
I don't know how old he is, how long ago he went into the Neverland or anything like that,
but it's just really interesting to think that for whatever reason, maybe because it sounds like boys come and go,
Lost Boys come and go, and the six that are there with Peter at the time of this book are the six current occupants of the Neverland.
And I almost wonder if, like, the Neverland has kind of become tailored to Peter
and formed a stronger connection with him or a, I don't know, like, almost a symbiotic relationship with him
because he's a boy who's been in the Neverland for so long. And I don't know.
I'm not sure we were supposed to think this hard about it, but just, you know, I can accept it on the face value and I can just roll with it.
But at the same time, there are things, flags waving in my head about the, like, thematic resonance
that some of these more interesting, stranger concepts might have.
And also, you know, also kind of leading me to think or wonder what kind of thoughts Barry had
and what kind of things he was intending for the children to know or to think or to learn
as they were listening to the story, as they were reading the story.
So, anyway, that's all I have to say for now. Please, like I said earlier, subscribe to the channel.
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