Peter Pan by J.M. Barrie

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The famous story of Peter Pan was first published as Peter and Wendy in 1911, and later as Peter Pan and Wendy in 1921, but the story made its debut on stage in 1904.

Peter Pan is one of those stories that most everyone knows about, but for some reason or another have never read the book. And the book (more a novella than a full-sized novel) is truly exceptional. The narrator, author J.M. Barrie, maintains a tone that is as if he is actually telling children a bedtime story. The imagination open and soars as the story unfolds as slick as ice one skates upon:

“The night’s work was not yet over, for it was not the redskins [Hook] had come out to destroy; they were but the bees to be smoked, so that he should get at the honey. It was Pan he wanted, Pan and Wendy and their band, but chiefly Pan.

“Peter was such a small boy that one tends to wonder at the man’s hatred of him. True he had flung Hook’s arm to the crocodile; but even this and the increased insecurity of life to which it led, owing to the crocodile’s pertinacity, hardly account for a vindictiveness so relentless and malignant. The truth is that there was a something about Peter which goaded the pirate captain to frenzy. It was not his courage, it was not his engaging appearance, it was not –. There is no beating about the bush, for we know quite well what it was, and have got to tell. It was Peter’s cockiness” (pg. 112).

The writing, even an adult can enjoy, is deft and flawless.

“One green light squinting over Kidd’s Creek, which is near the mouth of the pirate river, marked where the brig, the Jolly Roger, lay, low in the water; a rakish-looking craft foul to the hull, every beam in her detestable like ground strewn with mangled feathers. She was the cannibal of the seas, and scarce needed the watchful eye, for she floated immune in the horror of her name” (pg. 125).

And that is but one paragraph among many showcasing Barrie’s skill as both writer and storyteller; for after all: these are not one in the same.

Some of the things not often found in Pan movies: After Peter Pan saves Tiger Lily from Capt. James Hook at Mermaids’ Lagoon, the Never Bird saves Peter from drowning (Pan is too injured to fly or swim); Tinker Bell does die, as well as Nana, beloved nurse-dog; and the crocodile finally has the full meal of Capt. Hook; and Pan, who has forgotten there ever was a Capt. Hook and Lost Boys, flies off with Jane, Wendy’s daughter in the end.

Wendy and Michael and John return from their long journey to the Neverland and embrace their mother, Mrs. Wendy Darling. And how my heart was moved when I read this passage, thinking I too have lived such a fate:

“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” (pg. 152).

A recommend for any and all. A wonderful story. A beautiful story.

 

CG FEWSTON is an American novelist who is a member of AWP, a member of Americans for the Arts, and a professional member and advocate of the PEN American Center, advocating for the freedom of expression around the world.

His novel, A TIME TO LOVE IN TEHRAN, won GOLD for Literary Classics’ 2015 best book in the category under “Special Interest” for “Gender Specific – Female Audience” and has been called a “cerebral, fast-paced thriller” by Kirkus Reviews, where it gained over 10,000 shares.

A TIME TO LOVE IN TEHRAN was also nominated for the 2016 Pulitzer Prize, the 2016 PEN/Faulkner Award, the 2016 John Gardner Fiction Book Award, the 2016 Young Lions Fiction Award, the 2016 Hammett Prize, and the 2016 Pushcart Prize.

CG FEWSTON has travelled across continents and visited such places as Mexico, the island of Guam, Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, Macau, Viet Nam, Cambodia, Singapore, Thailand, Taipei and Beitou in Taiwan, Bali in Indonesia, and Guilin and Shenzhen and Beijing in China. He also enjoys studying and learning French, Vietnamese, Cantonese and Mandarin.

CG FEWSTON earned an M.Ed. in Higher Education Leadership and Administration (honors), an M.A. in Literature (honors) from Stony Brook University, and an M.F.A. in Creative Writing and Fiction from Southern New Hampshire University, where he had the chance to work with wonderful and talented novelists, such as Richard Adams Carey (author of In the Evil Day, October 2015; and, The Philosopher Fish, 2006) and Jessica Anthony (author of Chopsticks, 2012; and, The Convalescent, 2010) as well as New York Times Best-Selling novelists Matt Bondurant (author of The Night Swimmer, 2012; and, The Wettest County in the World, 2009, made famous in the movie Lawless, 2012) and Wiley Cash (author of A Land More Kind Than Home, 2013; and, This Dark Road to Mercy, 2014).

Among many others, CG FEWSTON’S stories, photographs and essays have appeared in Sediments Literary–Arts Journal, Bohemia, Ginosko Literary Journal, GNU Journal (“Hills Like Giant Elephants”), Tendril Literary Magazine, Prachya Review (“The One Who Had It All”), Driftwood Press, The Missing Slate Literary Magazine (“Darwin Mother”), Gravel Literary Journal, Foliate Oak Magazine, The Writer’s Drawer, Moonlit Road, Nature Writing, and Travelmag: The Independent Spirit; and for several years he was a contributor to Vietnam’s national premier English newspaper, Tuoi Tre, “The Youth Newspaper.”

You can read more about CG FEWSTON and his writing at

www.cgfewston.me & https://www.facebook.com/cg.fewston/ & https://hk.linkedin.com/in/cgfewston

A TIME TO LOVE IN TEHRAN won GOLD for Literary Classics’ 2015 best book in the category under ”Special Interest” for “Gender Specific – Female Audience”…

Finalist in the 2015 Chatelaine Awards for Romantic Fiction…

Finalist in the 2015 Mystery & Mayhem Novel Writing Contest…

Praise for A TIME TO LOVE IN TEHRAN:

“Fewston delivers an atmospheric and evocative thriller in which an American government secret agent must navigate fluid allegiances and murky principles in 1970s Tehran… A cerebral, fast-paced thriller.”

— Kirkus Reviews 

“A TIME TO LOVE IN TEHRAN is a thrilling adventure which takes place in pre-revolutionary Tehran. Author CG FEWSTON provides a unique glimpse into this important historical city and its rich culture during a pivotal time in its storied past. This book is so much more than a love story. Skillfully paired with a suspenseful tale of espionage, A TIME TO LOVE IN TEHRAN is a riveting study of humanity. Replete with turns & twists and a powerful finish, FEWSTON has intimately woven a tale which creates vivid pictures of the people and places in this extraordinary novel.”

— LITERARY CLASSICS

CG FEWSTON‘s new novel,

A TIME TO LOVE IN TEHRAN, was published on April 2, 2015 —

10 years to the day of the publication

of his first novella, A FATHER’S SON (April 2, 2005)

“Thus one skilled at giving rise to the extraordinary

is as boundless as Heaven and Earth,

as inexhaustible as the Yellow River and the ocean.

Ending and beginning again,

like the sun and moon. Dying and then being born,

like the four seasons.”

found in Sources of Chinese Tradition, p 5