Anthony Lane: Why J. M. Barrie created Peter Pan, from 2004.

Tag : men's overcoat

Almost a hundred years ago, at half past eight on the evening ofDecember 27, 1904, the curtain went up at the Duke of York’sTheatre, in London, to reveal, among other things, a man dressed asa dog. The man was an actor named Arthur Lupino, suffering for hisart in a shaggy costume, and the dog was called Nana. Most playsenjoy a fitful life, at best, but we can be fairly sure that thiswinter grown men will once again drop on all fours and work up acanine sweat, while grown women will crop their hair, pull on greentights, and turn into temporary boys. The play is “PeterPan,” and, like its eponymous hero, it gives freakishlylittle sign of growing old.
The author was J. M. Barrie: Jimmy to some of his friends, and, inhis later pomp, Sir James. He was short and slight, with bags underhis eyes and a pale, protuberant brow, like a clever schoolboy whohas stayed up late reading books under the bedclothes. He had aheavy mustache and a pipe smoker’s percussive cough. Ofhumble origins, he grew rich, yet his choice of overcoat remainedseveral sizes too large, as if he were wearing a father’shand-me-down. Both in face and in body—and, it becameapparent, in the lineaments of his soul—Barrie seemedill-suited to adult life, and those neat, child-friendly featuressank all too readily into the caved-in sadness of old age.
Up to his death, in 1937, Barrie, as a result of his novels andplays, was one of the most famous men of his day; when Chaplin, ona trip to London in 1921, was asked whom he most wanted to meet,the answer was J. M. Barrie. Not even Barrie’s ardentadmirers, however, would have described him as a matinée idol,and he would have been wryly flattered to find himselfreincarnated, for the centenary of “Peter Pan,” in thebeauteous person of Johnny Depp. A new film, entitled“Finding Neverland,” tells the story—or adecorated version of the story—of J. M. Barrie and thecircumstances under which Peter Pan leaped into existence. Deppresembles Barrie in no way, except in his slenderness of form. Weget a passable, soft stab at a Scottish burr but no mustache; wesee more of the sweet side of Barrie than the insidious flip side;and the harshest coughing in the film comes not from Depp but fromKate Winslet, who plays Barrie’s friend Sylvia LlewellynDavies.
Sylvia was one of a number of strong, rather Shakespearean femalefigures who ringed the life of Barrie—a dominance that began,unsurprisingly, with his mother. She was Margaret Ogilvy, astonemason’s daughter who hailed from a particularly hardoutcrop of the Presbyterian Church. James was born in 1860, the sonof Margaret and a weaver named Alexander Barrie, in the Scottishtown of Kirriemuir, and, until the age of six, he played in theshadow of his gifted and handsome older brother, David. Then, inthe winter of 1867, David was killed; he was hit by a fellowice-skater, fell, and cracked his skull. Margaret took to her bedunder the onslaught of grief, and young James was dispatched tooffer comfort:

The room was dark, and when I heard the door shut and no sound comefrom the bed I was afraid, and I stood still. I suppose I wasbreathing hard, or perhaps I was crying, for after a time I heard alistless voice that had never been listless before say, “Isthat you?” I think the tone hurt me, for I made no answer,and then the voice said more anxiously “Is that you?”again. I thought it was the dead boy she was speaking to, and Isaid in a little lonely voice, “No, it’s no’ him,it’s just me.” Then I heard a cry, and my mother turnedin bed, and though it was dark I knew that she was holding out herarms.


From here on, James worshipped his dead brother with a devotionthat carried the taint of jealousy. Once, he even entered hismother’s presence wearing a suit of David’s clothes.The residue of the calamity, as it eventually seeped intoBarrie’s art, was the conviction that a perfect child whodies on the eve of his fourteenth birthday will be spared thedegradation of growing up, and that the death will be outshone bythe thought of the perfection—so blindingly, perhaps, thatthe boy will seem scarcely to have passed away at all.
We think of Barrie as one of the chief explorers—or, in agloomier light, invaders—of childhood. Yet the childhood thatgripped him most tightly was not his own but that of other people;it is almost as if his own did not exist. The souls around him werelike books, ripe for perusal, and he preferred their openingchapters. Hence “Margaret Ogilvy” (1896), which in partis a memoir of his mother’s youth. One of Barrie’sbiographers, Denis Mackail, calls it “that distressinglyhuman and inhuman book,” presumably because it demonstrates,even more than “Peter Pan,” the weird twinning ofBarrie’s gifts—an almost telepathic self-spiriting intothe emotions of others, and a professional shamelessness aboutbaring them in public. Listen to his proud recital of MargaretOgilvy’s deprivations: “She was eight when hermother’s death made her mistress of the house and mother toher little brother, and from that time she scrubbed and mended andbaked and sewed.” At once we see that image skipping thegenerations, from mother to son, and from the son to the Wendy of“Peter Pan,” who was obliged, when she flew toNeverland and found a host of unclaimed children, to become amother before her time.