A review of J.M. Barrie and the Lost Boys

jedson   13 November 2017

This is an excellent review by Donald Mader of a very fine book. I loved it—though it was, of course, terribly sad. As Mader suggests, Birkin gives us the info, and lets us make our own evaluations. I personally do not see Barrie as mentally stunted. Neoteny—the retention of certain juvenile characteristics in adult animals (such as salamanders)—is not abnormal. And perhaps it is not so with humans. Perhaps Barrie is child-like in some respects. And maybe he does share some characteristics with Peter Pan. But in a least one respect the two are quite different. Peter Pan really only loves himself. His own lost boys as well as Wendy are disposable. He is a narcissist. Whatever may or may not have been true for Barrie with regard to sex, he was not a narcissist. He loved the Llewelyn-Davies boys deeply. Isn’t it our capacity to love that, more than any other attribute, marks us a fully human?