I have to start this article with a confession: I don't like Peter Pan. I never have. I find his cockiness and self-absorption repellant, Wendy pathetic and the stuff about believing in fairies quite yucky. Most of all I hate the idea of the boy who won't grow up, which is the problem with too many of the people that form 49% of the population. It's fear of death, really; if you don't grow up, you don't grow old and therefore become immortal. Personally, although I like some children very much, as with kittens, I find the grown-up version even more attractive.
However, this lack of love for the original makes me the ideal reader of the much-publicised sequel by Geraldine McCaughrean, Peter Pan in Scarlet (Oxford University Press). I didn't feel constrained by the kind of awed respect that doesn't like liberties taken or ideas extended. This new book, as I am sure most readers know by now, was commissioned by Great Ormond Street Hospital as a result of a competition in 2004, the centenary of the first performance of J.M. Barrie's original play. Proceeds from every book sold go to GOSH and more from any spin-offs.
The best characters in the original play and book are, of course Hook, the crocodile and Tinker Bell and I wondered how any of them could come back in a sequel. Still, if anyone could do it, it would be Geraldine McCaughrean.
Geraldine, four times bronze Smarties Prize winner, three times of the Whitbread, and once of the Guardian Children's Fiction Prize and Carnegie Medal, and author of 130 books, fitted Armadillo into her hectic autumn schedule to answer some questions:
MH. Had you thought of writing a sequel to Peter Pan before the competition came up?
G McC. I've never thought to write a sequel to any of my own books, let alone someone else's. No, it would never have crossed my mind, but for the Hospital's competition. And it was only because of the reason behind the competition that I saw it as a good idea - a worthwhile reason to write any book - grounds enough to suppose J M Barrie would also approve.
MH. Was Peter Pan an important book for you in your childhood?
G. McC. It was one of the very few books we actually possessed. (We lived in a tiny house and got most of our reading material from the library.) Probably more importantly it was the first play I ever saw - I must have been about six - and theatre has always made the biggest impact on my imagination.
MH. The coverage for Peter Pan in Scarlet has been phenomenal; have things calmed down yet?
G. MCC. Not really. With the launch timed for October, I was 'on tour' from a week beforehand until. well, until I got back from Canada last weekend. And the events are still going on almost every day, because of the run-up to Christmas. I'm pooped, but I resigned myself to that cheerfully a long time ago, because I can see that it's part of the job. It never has been before, because I've never really inhabited the world of the best-seller. But PPIS needs to be a best seller if it is to serve the Hospital's needs, so I've got to give it all I can. I just wish it had all happened when I was a bit younger and had more stamina!
MH. What were the major problems in writing a sequel to a "classic" like Peter Pan? Or what were the constraints?
G. McC. I think the 'expectation of failure' was the hardest thing I was up against: so many people were bound to think it was a Bad Idea and that nothing would hold a candle to Barrie's original.
Also he stitched up the end of the original book very tightly indeed - almost as if to fend off rogue sequel-writers. I had to unpick the hemming and ignore the last few pages, just to be able to begin. The demise of Hook was a bit of a problem, too. He was always my favourite character when I was young.
The constraints imposed by the Hospital were very few indeed. I was asked to include as many of the old characters as I could, not to repeat any incident that happened in the original, or any of the film spin-offs, and to avoid health issues, because of the connection with the Hospital. Not much hardship in any of those. No one stood at my shoulder clicking their tongue disapprovingly or making suggestions.
MH. What do you think about sequels in general? Do you read them? (e.g. Gilbert Adair's Alice through the Needle's Eye, Robert Leeson's Silver's Revenge, Pemberley, even Wide Sargasso Sea (technically a "prequel")
G. McC.There is hardly any limit to what I haven't read. Sometimes I think I must be the worst read author around. I didn't even know about the Alice sequel. But I don't have any intrinsic moral objection to them, no. It just depends how well done they are and how much they extend the enjoyment of fans. Personally, I am everlastingly grateful to Jill Paton Walsh for writing her two perfectly seamless sequels to Dorothy L Sayers which are superb and have given me endless pleasure. (Big part of my imaginary inner world, D.L.S., and my one real way of understanding how the real Peter Pan aficionados feel about Neverland.)
MH. Were you ever worried that you might get type-cast as " the person who wrote the sequel to Peter Pan"?
G. McC. It fleetingly crossed my mind. My mental answer to myself was that it would be nice to be remembered for any reason at all! Prior to PPIS I never met anybody, outside the world of schools and libraries, who had ever heard of me, let alone read anything of mine. And with a bit of luck a few readers who enjoy PPIS may be moved to read something else I have written. It will be very interesting indeed to see how sales of the backlist fare.
MH. Do you feel that J.M.Barrie's world view and yours are compatible at most points?
G. McC. We are totally at one in the matter of 'the imaginary inner world' and what a source of happiness it is - that place where imaginary play can take a child and let him/her cross swords with villainy and stand tall and be surrounded by adoring friends, and be free of the tyranny of grown-ups and devoid of such frailties as shyness and timidity and gaucheness and ignorance. Oh the empowering magic of adventure fiction!
But I didn't see eye to eye with him in the matter of mothers, or his belief that the zenith of happiness comes at two, and that after that life's a downhill slide into misery and decay. I made the question of mothers the hook on which to hang the plot: the fact that mothers go on caring, are incapable of stopping caring, would do anything for their offspring.
MH. The role of women and girls is a problem. There is only Wendy and Tinker Bell in the original and Wendy is the little mother in both books. You've given Tootles a sex change; was this to expand the role of females?
G. MCC. Exactly. I wanted to make Wendy a prime player, but I did not want to lose the 'helpless female' so beloved of Dr Who watchers over the years: the one who screams and falls down a lot and looks to the marvellous hero for rescue from a thousand perils. By turning Tootles into a girl, I gave myself the luxury of a helpless female character that no girl reader was going to identify with but who could fulfil the same traditional function in the group. (Besides which it was too good a comic situation to pass up when it came to the transformation chapter. And besides, there weren't enough girls before.)
MH. Peter Pan in Scarlet is a lot darker than the original, with its allusions to the Great War and the shadow it casts, together with Michael's death - a bold move. Would you have liked to develop these ideas further?
G. McC. Do you think it's darker? When I went back to it, I found the original book surprisingly violent and dark in places.
Having given myself the start date of 1926, it seemed to me that the one major event the Darlings and Lost Boys would have encountered (since 1904) was the Great War. As soon as that occurred to me, the War sort of offered itself up as a scapegoat. War pollutes the natural social order. It is a buckling in the rail tracks, which derails whole generations in the middle of nowhere; in hostile landscapes far from where they expected to end up. Hence the conclusion at the end of the book that the dream-leaks probably weren't caused by the poison inside any red coat, but by the flying shrapnel of War. Looking back, I find the exchange I am most fond of is the one between Ravello and Wendy, when he says he imagines his crewmen were enjoying themselves too much in France to return home after the War, and Wendy looks him in the eye and says that she likes to imagine that too, about Michael.
MH. What does PP have to say to 21st century children? (either the original or your sequel)
G. McC. See my answer about the imaginary inner world, really. Neverland, despite all its dangers, is a Place of Safety for children. It is the place they can go to feel good about themselves and to do all the things they would like to do if only their parents would let them: where they can be all the things they would like to be. And come home again safe.
MH. Was it a gamble to make PP the character so unlikeable for most of the book? (The HP5 syndrome)
G. McC. Mmmm. I can't think that the fully signed up fans of the boy (and there are many) are going to appreciate it. But who knows? People find what they expect to find, so their goodwill towards Peter may carry them through. Strictly speaking, from the finding of the coat onwards, he behaves badly whenever he is in the coat and well whenever he is out of it, but of course it would ruin the story if readers noticed that. He seems to have survived perfectly well for a hundred years being a selfish, arrogant little brat, and I could not very well tinker with those characteristics without being untrue to Barrie. So I sort of made a virtue of them, by putting the blame on the coat for most of his worst excesses.
MH. The story comes pellmell - circus, pirates, redskins, maze, mountain, treasure, fairies, rainbow, war - it's a veritable cornucopia of plot ideas. Did it write itself like that and did you ever find yourself thinking, "I'd better hold that plot element for a later book."?
McC. Heavens no. I never thought in terms of there being a sequel. It was more a matter of 'let's get everything possible in there - something for everyone - abiding by my lifelong principle to have 'something happen on every single page'. It did write itself, yes - very happily, too. I had thought, in the circumstances, that it might turn into a bit of an intellectual exercise, but far from it. I had a whale of a time writing it. The plotting was quite complex, because everything needs to feed into the climax/revelation. Goodness knows how I am going to simplify it for the very young picture-book version that is planned!
MH. Fireflyer the fairy is a very good creation, but do you know why he was played on the radio with a Lancashire accent? Peter Pan was also odd - not pre-pubertal, which seems essential.
G. McC. I couldn't tell you. I had no hand at all in the radio adaptation (though I was dying to do it) and wasn't so much as shown the script or invited along to the recording. I found the children's voices difficult to tell apart, so that may be the explanation for a regional accent . And yes, a gruff Peter? Hmmm. Perhaps that was seen as a favourable alternative to bad child-acting. Or they just wanted a biggish name to tempt listeners. Who knows?
I have to bear in mind that this book does not really belong to me. It is the property of the Hospital and they must do whatever they want with it, sanction whatever comes along.
MH. Would we have had the snow and ice climax on the mountain without The White Darkness? Do you still have more ice to get out of your system?
G. McC. Blame Captain Scott. The only fact about J M Barrie that was in the forefront of my mind, at the time I was awarded the Pan job, was about Scott writing to him from the death tent, and about the mutual admiration that existed between the two men. Since I wanted to pick up on Barrie's chief preoccupations even more than on his style, I went with his admiration of explorers and Scott's snowy death. I even stitched quotes by Barrie (from his rectorial speech, Courage) into the text of the novel. No one will ever notice them, but I know they're there.
You would be perfectly right to think that The White Darkness is my dearest child, and I was very loath to leave it behind. So, since I had to leap straight from White Darkness into PPIS, the snow did make for a softer landing; it is very astute of you to know this already.
(I even took one character from the first book into the next - for luck - though much too well disguised for anyone ever to notice)
MH. I'm biased but I don't think Barrie was as good a writer as Geraldine McCaughrean. Perhaps it doesn't matter, because Pan the character is such an archetype?
G. McC. Shucks, that's kind beyond my deserts. Nobody will ever buy either book out of an admiration for either author - simply an admiration for the boy: for the IDEA of the-boy-who-never-grows-up.
MH. What happened to the bears?
G. McC. They joined up as crew - no ship for them to sail, as yet, but since the old crew of the Jolly Roger didn't come back from the war, a pirate captain must make what start he can, with such staff as he can get hold of.
MH. The ending seems set up in to lead the way to another sequel; any plans?
G. McC. Does it? People keep saying that. It wasn't my intention at all. I just knew that I couldn't leave Peter alone in Neverland with no adversary. He would die of boredom.
I only perceived the book as a counterpart to the original book, not as the first of many. The Hospital doesn't feel quite the same about that, it's true. And I had such a great time writing it that I hate the idea of having left behind Neverland's Eden-like groves for ever and ever. But it would be enough for me to be allowed to write the stage-play of the book, without writing a sequel.
I have stopped looking into the future, however, for what it will bring in the way of work. I operate from day-to-day right now: where do I have to get to today? What time train do I have to catch? Do I have to wear my home-made Peter Pan costume?
For further information, see www.peterpaninscarlet.com, www.geraldine-mccaughrean.co.uk and, for Great Ormand Street Hospital: www.gosh.org
Peter Pan in Scarlet is reviewed in this issue of Armadillo.