Wendy, Darling
I just finished reading AC Wise's Wendy, Darling. Wow. Just, wow.
Many re-imaginings of classic tales like to focus on modern, rather than contemporary issues. AC Wise does both in this look at whatever happened to Wendy after Neverland, and how her tale can help her discover whatever happened to Baby Jane.
The book is a page turner. Compelling story and lyrical, sometimes painfully poignant prose explore the contemporary issues of the Darling children. Michael returns from WWI broken, unable to forget the horrors he's witnessed and experienced. Wendy is committed to an asylum for holding onto her persistent memories of Neverland and the hope that Peter will return for her and save her from the wretchedness of 1917. John carries the burden of responsibility for both his siblings when their parents go down with the Titanic. One child who was thrown into a grown-up world of slaughter with no chance of being saved with a mere bandage and a kiss on the wound. One who refuses to surrender the compelling desire to remain an innocent child. One who had no choice but to become an adult before his time, never to be a child again.
But Peter Pan, as elusive a figure in literature as Satan himself, is not innocent. This Peter more like a Bradbury child: growing mushrooms in the dark basement; feeding parents to the lions on the veldt; locking a classmate away while they play in the only day of sunlight to appear their lifetime. J.M.Barrie's version of Peter is told from the perspective of children dazzled by the merry life of no accountability. A.C.Wise's Peter is told from the perspective of an adult with a child of her own, who sees the true Peter reflected in the cruelty of John locking her away, then marrying her off like chattel to pay a debt to his employer disgusted with his gay son and determined to "cure him" by securing a good bride, and in Michael, a victim of the very real violence behind the playful games Peter led on the island.
There are passages in this novel that will break your heart. There are harsh truths we don't want to see behind the mask of lies society presents to us, truths we would prefer remain forgotten, but that shape us and determine who we become. "It isn't fair, because the world isn't fair, but perhaps that's what it means to grow up... to face disappointment, to hold secrets of her own, to choose between right and wrong, trying to do what is best with only her instincts to go on, even knowing she might fall."
This is the best piece of revisionist fantasy I've read since Gregory Maguire's Wicked. It is flawed only in the character of Mary, who serves more as a foil than an agent, and in the end seems to dropped in a weak resolution in a vague statement about love and acceptance of homosexuality and being honest with bullies who disdain others for being different. That's not a bad theme, but it gets tossed out to the reader as a lesson learned, and I didn't feel that from the plot. YMMV.
The bottom line is, this is an important book. Go read it.
The book is a page turner. Compelling story and lyrical, sometimes painfully poignant prose explore the contemporary issues of the Darling children. Michael returns from WWI broken, unable to forget the horrors he's witnessed and experienced. Wendy is committed to an asylum for holding onto her persistent memories of Neverland and the hope that Peter will return for her and save her from the wretchedness of 1917. John carries the burden of responsibility for both his siblings when their parents go down with the Titanic. One child who was thrown into a grown-up world of slaughter with no chance of being saved with a mere bandage and a kiss on the wound. One who refuses to surrender the compelling desire to remain an innocent child. One who had no choice but to become an adult before his time, never to be a child again.
But Peter Pan, as elusive a figure in literature as Satan himself, is not innocent. This Peter more like a Bradbury child: growing mushrooms in the dark basement; feeding parents to the lions on the veldt; locking a classmate away while they play in the only day of sunlight to appear their lifetime. J.M.Barrie's version of Peter is told from the perspective of children dazzled by the merry life of no accountability. A.C.Wise's Peter is told from the perspective of an adult with a child of her own, who sees the true Peter reflected in the cruelty of John locking her away, then marrying her off like chattel to pay a debt to his employer disgusted with his gay son and determined to "cure him" by securing a good bride, and in Michael, a victim of the very real violence behind the playful games Peter led on the island.
There are passages in this novel that will break your heart. There are harsh truths we don't want to see behind the mask of lies society presents to us, truths we would prefer remain forgotten, but that shape us and determine who we become. "It isn't fair, because the world isn't fair, but perhaps that's what it means to grow up... to face disappointment, to hold secrets of her own, to choose between right and wrong, trying to do what is best with only her instincts to go on, even knowing she might fall."
This is the best piece of revisionist fantasy I've read since Gregory Maguire's Wicked. It is flawed only in the character of Mary, who serves more as a foil than an agent, and in the end seems to dropped in a weak resolution in a vague statement about love and acceptance of homosexuality and being honest with bullies who disdain others for being different. That's not a bad theme, but it gets tossed out to the reader as a lesson learned, and I didn't feel that from the plot. YMMV.
The bottom line is, this is an important book. Go read it.
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