“Declan Burke is his own genre. The Lammisters dazzles, beguiles and transcends. Virtuoso from start to finish.” – Eoin McNamee “This bourbon-smooth riot of jazz-age excess, high satire and Wodehouse flamboyance is a pitch-perfect bullseye of comic brilliance.” – Irish Independent Books of the Year 2019 “This rapid-fire novel deserves a place on any bookshelf that grants asylum to PG Wodehouse, Flann O’Brien or Kyril Bonfiglioli.” – Eoin Colfer, Guardian Best Books of the Year 2019 “The funniest book of the year.” – Sunday Independent “Declan Burke is one funny bastard. The Lammisters ... conducts a forensic analysis on the anatomy of a story.” – Liz Nugent “Burke’s exuberant prose takes centre stage … He plays with language like a jazz soloist stretching the boundaries of musical theory.” – Totally Dublin “A mega-meta smorgasbord of inventive language ... linguistic verve not just on every page but every line.Irish Times “Above all, The Lammisters gives the impression of a writer enjoying himself. And so, dear reader, should you.” – Sunday Times “A triumph of absurdity, which burlesques the literary canon from Shakespeare, Pope and Austen to Flann O’Brien … The Lammisters is very clever indeed.” – The Guardian

Monday, February 14, 2011

Hooked, Line and Sinker

“All children, except one, grow up.”
  It celebrates its 100th anniversary this year, but PETER PAN hasn’t aged a day. JM Barrie’s children’s classic originated with a story published in ‘The Little White Bird’ in 1902, made its debut as a play in 1904, and finally appeared as the beloved book in 1911, under the title PETER AND WENDY.
  As the author of a couple of hard-boiled crime novels, I occasionally get asked about my favourite novel. PETER PAN, I say, and brace myself for the inevitable squinty-eyed glare from under a raised eyebrow. Am I being ironic? Did I mishear the question? Have I gone senile, and am I reverting to infantilism?
  No, no and not quite yet. There’s no other way of putting this, so I’m just going to go ahead and say it: PETER PAN is the best novel ever written, bar none.
  Why so? Well, first off it’s a rollicking tale, as you already know. Boys and girls who fly off to a magical islands, there to encounter fairies, pirates and Red Indians, wild beasts for the hunting and a ticking crocodile, and an anarchic band of lost boys led by the irrepressibly brave swashbuckler, Peter himself, nemesis of the unspeakably evil and sadistic Captain Hook. It’s funny, dangerous and tragic; it features betrayals and outrageous reversals of fortune, the poignancy of loss, death and even a resurrection.
  There’s a good chance, of course, that you know the story from the 1953 Disney cartoon, or from the countless adaptations of the book, or contemporary movies such as ‘Hook’ (1991), ‘Peter Pan’ (2003) or ‘Finding Neverland’ (2004). If that’s the case, you won’t know that the novel itself is exquisitely written by a writer at the very top of his game. Stuffy literary types arguing that James Joyce’s ULYSSES, say, or Tolstoy’s WAR AND PEACE, are better written, neglect the scientifically proven fact that PETER PAN is one million times more enjoyable than WAR AND PEACE, and just under one trillion times more comprehensible than ULYSSES.
  Furthermore, neither WAR AND PEACE nor ULYSSES, nor any other novel to the best of my knowledge, have been central to the funding of a children’s hospital, as is the case with London’s Great Ormond Street Hospital, which has been in receipt of the royalties from PETER PAN since 1929. It’s a particularly poignant relationship, given that the Peter Pan story Wendy’s mother knew as a child was that Peter went part of the way to heaven with children who died, so that they wouldn’t be frightened on the journey.
  It’s no small coincidence that one of the heroines of PETER PAN is called Tiger-Lily, and that my own daughter is called Lily. So you can imagine my delight went I arrived at the crèche last week to find one of Lily’s carers reading PETER PAN aloud to a small circle of bowed heads, all utterly rapt.
  I’d presumed Lily was still too young for PETER PAN - it gets quite dark in places, after all. But no. In the car on the way home, I asked about Captain Hook. “He’s scrummied up in the crockdile’s tummy, yum-yum!” she crowed.
  One hundred years on, the tale of the boy who never grew up is still wowing children all over the world. More importantly, perhaps, it’s helping sick kids to get better and grow up at Ormond Street Hospital.
  This year, do yourself a favour and treat a kid you know, perhaps even your own inner child, to PETER PAN. Would that we all stayed so young with such grace.

8 comments:

seana graham said...

I saw the stage play with Mary Martin on television when I was very young and it was both scary and marvelous. They did a special rebroadcast at some point in my adulthood, and it still held up. I did read it at some point, but it's the stage version that captured my imagination.

Richard L. Pangburn said...

Captain Hook is the grasping capitalist. The crocodile is his own consuming ego, intent on devouring itself, caught in time. It is the denial of death.

Anonymous said...

SOLD!

I know what book I'll be reading to my wee daughter next.

Cheers

gb

michael said...

So have you read book two of the three Peter Pan books, "Peter Pan In Kensington Gardens"?

Jerry House said...

Princess Lilyput is very lucky to have you as her Dad.

Declan Burke said...

Michael - No, I haven't read any other Peter Pan books ... it's just one of those things, the first experience was so perfect, I don't want to do anything that might taint it.

Cheers, Dec

kathy d. said...

What? There's more than one Peter Pan book! I'm gobsmacked!

michael said...

One of the joys of the e-book is the return of many forgotten classics. Kindle offers for 99 cents the "Complete Adventures of Peter Pan" containing three books, "Little White Bird", "Peter Pan In Kensington", and "Peter and Wendy".

Dec mention the first and I was hoping he could tell me if the last two had been put together to form "Peter Pan" or was "Peter and Wendy" the original title for "Peter Pan".