Scraps of books – The Portugal News
Continuing my idea of rummaging through my old notebooks and finding passages from books that I find particularly well written and scribbled over the years, this time I would like to talk about Peter Pan.
I’ve always felt a huge affinity with Pan. Peter and the ancient Greek goat-like god of evil, nature and nature from whom he inherited his name – Pan. Indeed, I spent much of my childhood running around, dressed in green, trying my best to think of something happy enough to get me off the ground.
The Return of Captain James Hook
However, before I get to the “bit of the book”, I’d like to explain that, for me at least, the Peter Pan adventure is only complete when it includes the movie Hook starring Robin Williams. Peter Pan grows up and becomes a lawyer. He has forgotten who he is and when Captain Hook (Dustin Hoffman) returns and steals his children, he must relearn how to fight, fly and sing.
But first he has to get back to Neverland, and one of my favorite parts is when Tinkerbell (Julia Roberts) comes looking for him. Robin Williams wonders if she’s “related to Mighty Mouse” before knocking him down and as she paces over him leaving tiny little fairy footprints on his white shirt (and before Robin Williams concludes that he’s clearly having a nervous breakdown and that anyway “he doesn’t believe in fairies”) they have this argument about whether he really is Peter Pan or not:
Tinkerbell: Well, whoever you are is always you, because only one person smells like that.
Peter Pan: Smell?
Tinkerbell: The scent of someone who rode the back of the wind, Peter. The smell of a hundred fun summers, with nights in the trees and adventures with Indians and Pirates. Oh, do you remember, Peter? The world was ours. We could do everything or nothing. Whatever it had to be, it was crap because it was still us.
Back to book
I’ll be honest, when I was younger I was too busy running around trying to fly, that I never really sat down long enough to read the whole book. But there was one piece (near the beginning) that I remember, even then, that I thought was written wonderfully. This is pretty much the first time Peter appears. Once you’ve read it, the next time you go out and look at the stars, you might remember to pay attention to see if there’s any blinking – because they might be trying to get you to say something 😉
Entrance Peter Pans
No. 27 was only a few yards away, but there had been a light snowfall, and father and mother Darling made their way there deftly so as not to soil their shoes. They were already the only people on the street, and all the stars were staring at them. The stars are beautiful, but they cannot actively participate in anything, they just have to watch forever. It’s a punishment given to them for something they did so long ago that no star now knows what it was. So the older ones have glassy eyes and speak little (the wink is the language of the stars), but the little ones still wonder. They aren’t exactly friendly with Peter, who had a mischievous way of sneaking up behind them and trying to blow them up; but they are so fun-loving that they were on his side tonight, and anxious to keep the grown-ups out of the way. So as soon as the door of 27 closed behind Mr. and Mrs. Darling, there was a stir in the firmament, and the smallest of all stars in the Milky Way cried out:
“Now, Peter! »
