Snow, Peter Pan

[poliphilo]

It snowed over night. Really snowed. Everything is covered. The rabbit has been sitting out in it. The footprints show he was up early- galumphing about. Ailz says rabbits like cold weather. 

I'm reading Peter Pan (it exists in many forms: I'm reading the play script as Barrie published it in the 1920s).  I hadn't realised before just how dreamlike it is. The mood keeps switching between sentimental whimsy and shivery, cold-hearted weirdness. I'll be at the stage of wanting to chuck it across the room because reading any more would be like starting in on a fourth cupcake, when there'll be a line that wings in out of nowhere that sets my hair on end. Children are utterly ruthless. One of the secrets of writing enduring children's fiction is to match them at it. 

Comments

[grashupfer.livejournal.com]

Wow. Love those last two sentences.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Thank you.

[ooxc.livejournal.com]

There's plenty on the mountains, but all we've got is hail - lots of it - what I'm now fearing is the snow might arrive just in time to stop me travelling -

[ooxc.livejournal.com]

"Children are utterly ruthless"

Thank you

[sovay]

Children are utterly ruthless. One of the secrets of writing enduring children's fiction is to match them at it.

Yes.

Have you ever written for children?

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I believe warmer weather is forecast

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

No, I never have.

[daisytells.livejournal.com]

Is that the secret of the Harry Potter series' success? Whatever, it was certainly magic, even for this old lady.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Rowling is admirably tough-minded, but Barrie makes her look like a pussycat. The child characters in Peter Pan are utterly selfish- as children are- and Peter himself is a charming psychopath.

[daisytells.livejournal.com]

I love the concept of the kid who refuses to grow up! Especially now that I am into old age.