Peter Pan in Hook’s Coat

Since the publishing of Peter Pan 100 years ago, an official sequel to it has finally arrived. There is good reason why it is called an “official” sequel. James Matthew Barrie, a Scottish author, handed over his copyright of Peter Pan, published in 1904, and intellectual property rights of the characters to the Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children in London. The cash-stripped hospital decided to publish a sequel by 2007, the year when the E.U. intellectual property rights expire. It commissioned author Geraldine McCaughrean to write the sequel after carrying out a worldwide search for an author. The story starts at a time when 20 years have passed since the characters left Neverland. Wendy is now a mother. The boys who became orphans due to their parents’ carelessness have grown up to be a judge, doctor, and congressman. They are all members of the “Gentlemen’s Club.” They start to envision a nightmare featuring Neverland. They begin an adventure by returning to Neverland as they believe the best way to stop a nightmare is to figure out what goes wrong.

We must pay attention to the clothes characters wear as the original title, Peter Pan in Scarlet, indicates. Peter Pan now is in scarlet, the favorite color of Captain Hook, by changing his green clothes. With his new color, his personality resembles Hook’s character. Now the grown-up boys must wear their children’s clothes to return to being small children and fly back to Neverland. Judge Tootles, wearing his daughter’s ballet uniform, turns into a little girl and Congressman Slightly, who has no child, cannot travel to Neverland.

This book features attractive characters. Peter Pan denies his growth, Wendy is obsessed with maternal love, and Hook is a symbolic character of an oppressive father. All of them give opportunities to readers to contemplate the true meaning of growth and differences between adults and children. It allows for multilayer interpretations on being an adult, in contrast to the original story.

A translator, Jo Dong-seob, evaluates, “It is talking about a balanced and natural growth out of cynical views on the world of grown-ups.”

Kim Seong-gon, a professor of English literature at Seoul National University, interpreted, “This story allows us to look at Peter Pan and Hook with a complex view and plot. There is also an element of fun. What kind of character does the re-born Captain Hook have in the sequel, as he was eaten up in the original? That is just one of the exciting questions readers can uncover.

ecolee@donga.com