Neverland: J.M. Barrie, The Du Mauriers, And The Dark Side Of Peter Pan (2009) - Plot & Excerpts
This biography of J.M. Barrie, the creator of Peter Pan, claims that he somehow hypnotized the Davies boys and also Daphne du Maurier (who was related to them), thus creating a lifetime of misery, breakdowns and suicide for them. This is rather far-fetched, and I think that Dudgeon does not understand the nature of the intense inner life of very imaginative people. It is not necessarily something that should be taken literally. Still, this book made me interested in the Du Mauriers, and gave me some ideas for future reading, so I'm glad to have read it. Interesting, but ultimately not very convincing. I've never been more captivated by a book I respected less and less as I read each page. Dudgeon starts with a valid premise, and one that he is not of course the first to write about: that J. M. Barrie manipulated his way into the Davies family, alienated Sylvia, the mother of the famous/notorious boys, from her husband, Arthur, and then, after both parents died, appropriated the boys despite their mother's actual intentions. Beyond that, he even has some interesting points to make, that seem to be reality-based, about Barrie's methods of, more or less, mind control, and how that related to the Du Maurier family (including George, the author of Trilby and thus creator of Svengali; Sylvia, his daughter; Gerald, his son, an actor whose life was inextricably linked with Barrie's; and of course Daphne, the author of Rebecca). And he's very good on the darkness and morbidity that underlie much of Barrie's writing, on the creepiness of his "sentimentality," and on the grisly unhealthiness of his relationship with the Davies boys. But beyond *that* the book's methodology is extraordinarily suspect: Dudgeon makes remarkable leaps to remarkable conclusions with the flimsiest of evidence, including whether or not certain of his characters ever met in their entire lives; he presents quoted fiction as if it is utterly undisguised nonfiction; and...well, from that point he can pretty much do whatever he wants, and does. And once the author drops even the faintest notion of objectivity and makes his personal "I" the loudest voice in the room, the book turns into a free-for-all between sense and lunacy. Lunacy wins. The final pages, on Daphne's later years, are virtually an acid trip of incomprehensibility. I wouldn't have missed it for the world.
What do You think about Neverland: J.M. Barrie, The Du Mauriers, And The Dark Side Of Peter Pan (2009)?
Interesting premise; but the the condemnations of Barrie seem based on circumstantial evidence.
—green
I couldn't even finish this book. Nothing grabbed my attention. womp womp.
—Jen
