Review: Peter Pan (1910)

Book information

Title: Peter Pan

Author: J.M. Barrie

Where to buy: Amazon & AbeBooks.

This review includes spoilers, read at your own risk.

'All children, except one, grow up.'

'Wendy, one girl is more use than twenty boys.'

'To die will be an awfully big adventure.'

'Boy... Why are you crying?'

Likes: 

Writing style. The old-fashioned way of writing. I am aware that it's a book from 1911, so in the times back then it was normal, but nowadays it's art to write like this.

Rhymes. I am not sure if that was done on purpose or not, as it happened without any notice beforehand and ended so fast again, but it was really beautiful. 

Originality. That book is the only original Peter Pan as we know and it has more than enough original story elements to call this original. 

Personality. Characters aren't flat. Peter the cocky boy, Wendy the adventurous girl, Mr. Darling who dislikes Nanny and has sometimes a temper and so many more. 

Film vs Book. The film makes Tinker Bell look like she is envious about Wendy and tries to stop her from kissing Peter, by making loid noises from where she accidently got locked, but in the book, which also came first, we get to know that this isn't true completely and that she done that later on. Instead Peter gets a thimble from Wendy and LATER when Tink is already outside the drawer she pulls Wendy's hair. If I wouldn't have read this book I would have never known. 

I understand better now why so many say Peter is in truth evil, he laughed in the bock when a boy was about to fall from the sky, flying, as he got too sleepy. But I think that's great, no not that the boy was about to fall, but that Peter has such a unique personality out of children books. He isn't just nice and joyful, but has a dark side as well which doesn't inflict the enjoyment of a child reader. 

This book is literally the only one who uses perfect and awful next to eachother. ('How perfectly awful') and I find it rather funny. 

I already read in the past a dark retelling of Disney's Peter Pan, but now I found out that the original Peter Pan story is dark as well! I always thought people exaggerated or that it was all lies, but it's true! And I really love it! The child version is nice too, but different, less interesting. Seeing that the original is dark too gives me more joy while reading. 

The poems in the book are having an ABCB sheme. It's quite lovely!

The scene where Peter barricades the windows so that the three children think they aren't loved and needed anymore really gave me chills. What if Peter did the same to himself? Thinking his parents didn't want him anymore and since it was long time ago he replaced his lost memory of what exactly happened to this. I don't know why exactly but I really neeed this info, I never heard anyone else ever talking about it!

My, my, this ending is so splendid! I had this heart ache when I read it. It's so good and perfect and good. The way Jane said the same line as her mother 'Boy...why are you crying?' and then that every child who was born afterwards was doing the spring cleaning as the mothers couldn't fly anymore. But the same line really gave me goosebumps, I wasn't expecting this at all! 

Dislikes: 

Unfortunately, 'cause of the old-fashioned writing style the vocabulary was also different leading me into having a hard time understanding certain words and sentences.

How it works: Only everything that is lower than 9 gets reduced from the final rating. Depending on how strong it inflicted the overall enjoyment of reading it effects differently. 

[ Story 10 / 10 ]

[ Characters 10 / 10 ]

[ Triggering 0 / 10 ]

[ Topic/Genre 10 / 10 ]

[ Writing style 9 / 10 ]

[ Grammatic and spelling 10 / 10 ]

[ Ending 10 / 10 ]

Final Rating

5/5

I didn't reduce a star from my final rating as it isn't my fault for nor understanding every word as this work was written in the early 19th century and from that time it was completely normal vocabulary and if I was born in that time I would also have understood it. Also, the writing style is so unique and gives the story a different shade. 

Started the book: 21. March 2024

Finished the book: 21. March 2024

Wrote the review: 21. March 2024