Tuesday, May 19, 2009

J M Barrie


I have always been interested in JM Barrie, all 4 foot ten inches of him. Perhaps it’s because I tread the same ground as him, and see his name on the prize boards here at the school and his photographs on the wall, even the section of desk he carved his name on. I’ve never been a great fan of Peter Pan although, like many other fairy stories, the play has a rich dark heart. Perhaps it has a darker heart than we think.

Jonny Depp’s recent portrayal as Jimmy with the luscious Kate Winslet as Sylvia Llewelyn Davies in ‘Finding Neverland’ presents the view of Barrie as a kindly uncle who, after their parents’ tragic and early death (both the Llewelyn Davies parents died of cancer aged 44) adopted their five sons, Jack, Peter, Michael, Nicholas and George, having met the family while walking his St Bernard in Kensington Gardens. The truth is more sinister. I do not believe that Barrie was a sexual predator or paedophile, though some passages in his stories, especially ‘The White Bird’, an early version of Peter Pan, are pretty peculiar- “David and I had a tremendous adventure. It was this - he passed the night with me... I took [his boots] off with all the coolness of an old hand, and then I placed him on my knee, and removed his blouse. This was a delightful experience, but I think I remained wonderfully calm until I came somewhat too suddenly to his little braces, which agitated me profoundly... I cannot proceed in public with the disrobing of David.'

In fact Barrie seems curiously asexual and was possibly impotent. His marriage, from 1894-1909, appears to have been unconsummated. His interest in children seemed born less out of a desire to corrupt them and more from his own obsession to return to a childlike state of innocence, before the world intervened. He probably felt he had a lot to escape from. Barrie was damaged goods by his early teens. Ignored by his father and the victim of psychological abuse from his mother, who never recovered from the death of Barrie’s older brother, and who possibly blamed the younger boy in some way for the skating accident that led to his death. His mother addressed James constantly as David, the name of his dead brother and to appease her he often wore his dead brother's clothes.

The case against Barrie, most recently stated in a brilliant if speculative new biography by Piers Dudgeon, is that he was fascinated by the power of manipulation and set out to control the lives of a regiment of young children – not just the Llewelyn Davies’- with invariably tragic results. The ghosts of dead or damaged children stalk Barrie’s work. He befriended for instance a little girl called Margaret Henley, who used to call him “my friendy”, lisped as “my fwendy”. The girl died aged 6 but lived on in Barrie’s world as Wendy in Peter Pan.

Barrie was fascinated by the writer George Du Maurier, author of the Victorian sensation ‘Trilby’ in which an innocent girl is controlled by hypnosis by the evil Svengali. Barrie was so obsessed with the book and the man that he followed Du Maurier about but never dared meet him, once reportedly running away when the man approached him. He called the St Bernard dog that he and his wife adored Porthos, after the St Bernard in one of Du Maurier’s other novels, Peter Ibbetsen. This St Bernard was to make an appearance in Peter Pan but more immediately significant is that George De Maurier’s daughter was Sylvia who married Arthur Llewelyn Davies and had 5 boys, the children Barrie “accidentally met” and befriended in Kensington Gardens. Sylvia’s brother was the famous actor Gerald Du Maurier (who met his future wife rehearsing in the Barrie play ‘The Admirable Crichton’). Barrie also befriended this family, especially Gerald’s young daughters, one of whom was to ascribe many of her later problems to the early part of her life and her strange relationship with both her father and her “Uncle Jimmy”. The name of this young girl? Daphne Du Maurer, who was to go on and write another classic of psychological manipulation and control, ‘Rebecca’.

In ‘The White Bird’ Barrie tells the story of his meeting with Sylvia and her family. The story is narrated by Capt. W, much taken to walking with his St Bernard Dog Porthos in Kensington Gardens. Sylvia Llewlyn Davies becomes ‘Mary’ (the name of Barrie’s wife), the young George Llewllyn Davies becomes ‘David’ (the name of Barrie’s dead brother). The Captain’s motives are undisguised:

'It was a scheme conceived in a flash, and ever since relentlessly pursued - to burrow under Mary's influence with the boy, expose her to him in all her vagaries, take him utterly from her.' All while Mary, was 'culpably obtuse to my sinister design'.

Also in The Little White Bird, the narrator declares, 'I once had a photograph taken of David being hanged on a tree', which he sends to the child's mother: 'You can't think of all the subtle ways of grieving her I have.'

The original name for Peter Pan was ‘The Boy who hated Mothers’. Poor Peter had as a baby gone to play with the fairies in the park and had then found the nursery window shut against him and his mother nursing another child. Before the role of Captain Hook was changed, partly to boost the role of the actor in the original play, none other than Gerald Du Maurier, the character of Peter Pan did not represent the force of good against evil and could be more logically seen as a diabolical half-child who, shut out of normal life, stole other childrens’ souls.

While Sylvia was on her deathbed Barrie, then divorced, said that she had agreed to marry her, a story that her sons never believed. He also forged his name on Sylvia’s will to make it appear that her wish was for Barrie to become guardian of her children. In reality, Sylvia had left a handwritten document, which said: 'What I wd like wd be if Jenny wd come to Mary & that the two together wd be looking after the boys & the house.' Mary was the boys' longstanding and faithful nanny, and Jenny was Mary's sister. Barrie changed Jenny to Jimmy. The ‘error’ in transcribing was never challenged, unbelievably, by the Llewelyn Davies boys’ many other relatives.

Perhaps all this is overstated. It's a fact that few people that knew him closely had a bad word to say about him. Perhaps also the era he lived in with the grim shadow of the Great War and its slaughter of the innocents casts a gloomy light on everything he wrote and the events that surrounded it.

DH Laurence said that “JM Barrie has a fatal touch for those he loves.”. The Llewelyn boys felt that touch most keenly. George was killed in the trenches in 1915, Michael drowned in a suicide pact with another young man in 1921, Jack died from lung disease and Peter waited until 1960 to throw himself in front of a train. Only Nicholas escaped, his attitude to Barrie unsoured.

14 comments:

Jim Murdoch said...

Informative article. I've never been a fan of Peter Pan; my only knowledge of the character came until recently when I saw Finding Neverland - I've tried to purge Hook from my mind - from the Disney film although I actually don't think I've ever seen it. I've certainly never read the book.

Rachel Fox said...

Yes...whilst an enjoyable film perhaps 'Finding Neverland' was more Kate and Johnny than Sylvia and JMB.

x

hope said...

Sad tale indeed. Wonder if J.M. Barrie wasn't so much Peter Pan as Tinkerbell...after all she had a rowdy streak and didn't like the rules but she loved Peter Pan fiercely.

Titus said...

Fascinating. Got to disagree with some of your conclusions though. I think he probably was a paedophile. He seems to me to fail the most basic test - would you have left any child you knew alone in Barrie's sole charge overnight and feel confident that no "inappropriate touching" would take place?

And "curiously asexual?" After that quote from "The White Bird"? You didn't even go onto the section where he's in bed with the boy. I know the TLS reviewed it favourably, but the writing of these sections is just plain weird.
The fact that his marriage does not appear to have been consummated is only evidence for the fact that he may not have found adult women sexually attractive, surely?

Ditto his face for the world - "the people that knew him closely". It is not unusual for paedophiles to be very good at presenting themselves as eminently trustworthy, upright, loving individuals - and gaining trust can be a modus operandi. You have to be good at it to get repeated access to children.

Also, the fact that some of the boys escaped unscathed is not remarkable - often only certain children will be "chosen" for sexual/sexualised activity within the family group or any other group (children's home/class at school/scouts etc.).

Leaving the high horse there are obvious parallels with that current child-man about to appear in London. Both victims of pretty major psychodramas in their youth, but once grown, unless mentally ill, we do have choices. I am not at all sure Barrie was making the right ones.

But should his life influence how we read his work? The million dollar question.

Hugh McMillan said...

aye but plenty of people were totally content to have Uncle Jimmy look after their children and not one of the children or the adults ever made any accusation of sexual impropriety even though some of them outlived JM for a considerable amount of time. I'm not saying you're wrong necessarily but modern polis paedo-profiles maybe don't fit. After all the late 19th Century was full of high profile 'pedarastic' scandals involving Wilde, Krupp etc it's not as if the issue was swept under the carpet in affluent society.

Titus said...

Wilde was having a great deal of success in an affluent society aware of his sexuality until he lit the touch-paper for his own fall from grace in choosing to sue for libel. Only then did affluent society choose to abandon him. Krupp was so "prolific" in Capri and the Hotel Bristol in Berlin that it was hard for even the Italian police to ignore. And I may be wrong here, but to my memory both cases involved young men, not boys. They were more about homosexuality than paedophilia, surely.

And nothing modern or polis in the profile. 'Tis as it ever was. People in positions of power manipulate to get what they want.

Pamela Terry and Edward said...

Gracious, what a history. Poor fellow, lots of darkness there. I did adore Finding Neverland. Such an interesting portrayal of an artist's mind I thought.

Thanks for your visit to my blog, and for the delicous sounding restaurant suggestion. Glencoe is my favourite place on earth, (no doubt due to the fact that my ancestors were probably slaughtered there!) so I do visit there each time I am fortunate enough to be in Scotland.

I have enjoyed perusing your blog this evening and I shall return. You are welcome over at my place anytime! Best to you!

Hugh McMillan said...

Titus: Aye, can't disagree with that. I'm not convinced about the sex side of things, though. Mind you, as you possibly know, a savant in our village is convinced that JM was engaged in Ugandan Discussions with Joseph Thompson.

Are you going to the Straightjacket Arms tonight?

Hugh McMillan said...

Pamela Terry and Edward: thanks for visiting Drumsleet. Are you 3 people?

I don't think the Campbells were very good at massacring. The phone book's full of MacDonalds.

Titus said...

Savant has not read "Ulu" or seen Thomson's photographs. It was the topless "savage" that appeared to float his boat.
Yep, I'll be there. May be a little late as all day in Gatehouse and I fear once you're there they do not let you leave.

Sylvia said...

Please watch the 1978 BBC documentary Andrew Birkin made with Nico Llewelyn Davies during 3 years. You will see that you take things out of context. Read The Little White Bird again and you will see this scene is fictional and at the end it shows how Barrie dreamt of being a father. Peter killed himself because his wife had a disease she had passed to their sons and they were all going to die of it so there pas no point in living anymore for him! Would pedophiles write a book for children when children were to be seen but not heard in 1904? Why did he keep interest in them when they were grown up? Plus in the former and next paragraphs of Sylvia's will, it really is written James. You can des that on jmbarrie.co.uk. if only people checked the right sources... Please read Tommy and Grizel too and you will notice Barrie was aromantic and didn't want to marry

Sylvia said...

Mary Hodgson, the nurse, pas always there with the boys and Sylvia was there when she lived

Sylvia said...

Why would a pedophile like to be a boy again? J. M. Barrie wantedto be a boy again cause he was an innocent as described by Nico Llewelyn Davies. Pedophiles don't wish they were boys again. They are monstruous adults who know they are adults who like being attracted to children and they think they are ok the way they are when in fact they rape children, they took innocence away, the very contrary of Mister Barrie.

Sylvia said...

And finally, pedophiles view children as adults. It's the contrary in Barrie's work and mind.