I don't know if you remember that at the opening ceremony of the 2012 Olympic Games in London, England, J· K. Rowling himself read to the world children's literature that represents this country, not Harry Potter, but Peter Pan.
Peter Pan is a very vivid figure in the history of 20th century literature, since his birth in 1902, he has been loved by children, he is brave and cheerful, willful and self-sufficient, he wears clothes made of leaves, flying freely in the air, he takes the children to live in the dreamy "Never Island", fighting with the vicious pirate Hooke gang, from him we can see the innocence and joy of every child.
In the story of Peter Pan, the author uses a more magical narrative method, the story is based on the assumption that Peter Pan is a "little celebrity" known to every childhood, but people forget it when they grow up.
This hypothesis is actually very reasonable, almost every child in a certain period of childhood, will think that the people in the world know themselves, only slowly with the improvement of cognitive ability, gradually realize that they are just an ordinary member of the vast sea of people.
So, the little girl Wendy recognized Peter Pan the first time she saw him and quickly became friends with him.
Peter tells Wendy about his life, about what happened on the fantastic "Island of No One", about mermaids and fairies, which makes Wendy envious. Peter also showed Wendy and his brothers the skill of flying, which made them ecstatic, and under Peter's cunning careful thinking, Wendy and the two younger brothers were "lured" by him to "Never Island".
Life on the island is full of fairy tales, from the childlike and warm "underground home", the heroic and warlike Indian red man and the Indian princess Tiger Lotus, to the sinister mermaid, and the evil pirate captain Hook and his natural enemy, a crocodile that swallows an alarm clock.
The best part of the whole story is the plot of Peter leading the children to fight the pirates, where Hooke's cunning and fierceness, Peter's wisdom and courage are vividly displayed, and in the end Hooke is defeated "satisfied" like fatalism and falls into the mouth of the crocodile.
After this hearty battle, Wendy and her two younger brothers finally choose to return to real life, and as they grow up, they gradually forget their lives on "Never Island".
At the end of the novel, Peter Pan reappears at the window of Wendy's house, while Wendy is already married and a mother. But here the author cleverly designs such a plot, wendy's daughter Jane replaces Wendy and peters to never island, starting a new round of adventure. And Jane's daughter Margaret embarks on another round of adventures with Peter—and Peter Pan's story loops endlessly, just as human history repeats itself over and over again.
In fact, everything on the island, if you look closely, has a certain symbolic meaning, unlike our common fairy tales, not simply pointing to the beautiful, but also containing the dark parts of human nature. In earlier editions, for example, the author had suggested that Peter and Hooke were actually two sides of the same person, but the content was later deleted in consideration of the impact on children.
We have reason to believe that the novel was originally more likely to be written for adults than it was for children. When the first chapter mentions "Never Island", there is this exclamation: "We have all been there before, and even now we can still hear the waves, but we can no longer go ashore." ”
Many adults often rise a faint sadness in their hearts when they finish reading this novel, accompanied by that eternal touch, and I think the reason is probably this, because Peter Pan took Wendy and her brother, took us, and went to the eternal childhood in each of our hearts, and it is also the childhood that we can never go back to.
This writer's list will be published in the "Peter Pan Trilogy", accompanied by the author James Matthew Barry's preface to the work, showing us the whole story of Peter Pan and helping readers understand the world of Peter Pan.
"Peter Pan in Kensington's Garden" is about the origin of Peter Pan, although there are some discrepancies at some times, but it also makes peter Pan's image more complete.
The play "Peter Pan – Or a Child Who Won't Grow Up" recreates the sensational performance scenes of the time, and can also be performed by families with childlike interests.
There are many people in the world who are "big fans" of Peter Pan, and this "little guy" created by James Matthew Barry has touched generations of people, and the British government has also spent money to sculpt a statue of Peter Pan in Hyde Park in the capital London, which is their national fairy tale in the eyes of the British, just as "The Little Prince" means to France.
As Mark Twain commented, "Peter Pan is consistently beautiful, sweet, magical, satisfying, charming, and incredible from start to finish." I believe that Peter Pan is an uplifting gospel for this banal world of money cults. ”
Finally, I would like to use this sentence written by the translator Huang Tianyi in the afterword to invite everyone to walk into this story full of miracles and emotions: "Open the pages, drill into the hut, fly into the sky, step into the island of never." Soar and laugh with Peter. He will soon forget you, but you will never forget that you were once a child. ”