Book-to-film review: "Finding Neverland"

I was recently in a bookshop whose owner was playing some hauntingly familiar music. After enquiring I discovered that it was the soundtrack to "Finding Neverland," a film I'd found absolutely entrancing, having read the original Barrie tale a few years earlier. 

I love doing book-to-film reviews and here's one on "Finding Neverland" that I wrote a few years ago:

Tinkerbell was about to die. Peter Pan, in desperation, turned to his 1903 opening night audience and cried: “If you believe in fairies, clap your hands!” The response was thunderous and Tink was saved. “All children, except one, grow up,” but if they loose their child-like faith in make-believe, all is lost. So goes the theme of the enchanting film “Finding Neverland.”

The film’s central tension, between the child and the grown-up, between belief and unbelief, is led by the story’s quintessential child, playwright James Barrie (Johnny Depp). When he meets widow Sylvia Llewelyn Davies (Kate Winslet) and her four rambunctious boys, Barrie creates imaginative worlds for them all to play about in, much to the chagrin of the film’s arch adults, Sylvia’s mother, Emma Du Marier (Julie Christie) and Barrie’s wife, Mary (Radha Mitchell). Despite grown-up disapproval, the friendship between Barrie and the Llewelyn Davies family continues and their inventive Indian and Pirate worlds begin to expand the Peter Pan story forming in Barrie’s mind..

All the boys join in the make-believe but one: Peter Llewelyn Davies (Freddie Highmore) refuses to play at play. He is grieving over his father’s recent death; perhaps if he grows up, he won’t hurt anymore. Perhaps if he had been already grown-up, the adults in his life wouldn’t have lied to him about his father’s condition. Now he will only engage in dry truth, nothing pretend. While Barrie patiently coaxes Peter into the land of make-believe, (going so far as to give his forthcoming protagonist Peter’s name) we too find ourselves longing to go to Neverland. Where is it? How do we get there? In a word: imagination.

Director Marc Forster gloriously brings imagination, and the play, “Peter Pan,” to life by letting us inside Barrie’s mind; we watch ordinary things turn magical until we (and Barrie’s Edwardian audience) find ourselves in a place where “happy thoughts” and fairy dust defy gravity and adventures abound. Was Neverland a set on a London stage with actors dressed as dogs, pirates and crocodiles? Or is “Neverland” something more, something intangible? The play debuted over one hundred years ago and we still don’t know the answer to that question nor has the story has ever lost its grip on our consciousness.

This most recent and enchanting effort to grapple with the story of the boy who would never grow old boasts a magnificent cast. Depp gives a marvelous understated performance. Winslet’s character magically combines pragmatic motherhood with childlike wonder, and her “boys” bring an extremely winning piece of ensemble work to the screen. Particularly compelling is Freddie Highmore, who plays the grieving Peter with heartbreaking realism. Radha Mitchell and Julie Christie are Neverland’s arch enemies, but their performances never descend into two-dimensionality. Dustin Hoffman is enjoyable as Barrie’s skeptical American producer, Charles Frohman (Frohman actually had tremendous faith in “Peter Pan” from the start but depicting him as initially unbelieving adds interesting dramatic tension).

Where or what is Neverland? This film doesn’t tell us exactly. It comes close to showing the genesis of “Peter Pan,” but tinkers too much with the actual Barrie-Llewelyn Davies story to approximate a docudrama, which was never the film’s purpose. It seeks instead to rekindle the wonder and rapture of Neverland for a 21st Century audience with the same power that it did for its first Edwardian theater-goers. On that level, it is an astounding success. “Finding Neverland” takes us on a journey so magical and touches us so deeply that by the film’s end, we are yearning for a sprinkling of fairy dust so that we too can follow the call, “second [star] to the right, and straight on till morning.”

"Snowed Up" by Rosalie K. Fry

I’m on a quest – limited only by my bank account -- to discover the works of Rosalie K. Fry, book by book.  Ever since encountering the hauntingly beautiful “The Secret of Roan Inish,” a film based on a children’s book by Fry, I’ve been wanting know more about the story’s creator that can be supplied by her few sketchy, Google-able biographical facts.  So I’m making an attempt to discover the artist through her art.

The book I pulled off the top of my stack of three was Snowed Up. As the title suggests, the tale’s young protagonists find themselves in the midst of an adventure caused by a blizzard. And some disturbingly myopic adults. I suppose if the children had remained in safety they wouldn’t have been allowed to become part of this sweet adventure but still, did Fry have to create adults with such weirdly dense priorities in order to set off the story’s chain of events?

Those events include a fair amount of danger which forces the children to – cheerfully, always cheerfully -- reach inside themselves to discover hidden stores of resourcefulness.  They encounter an abandoned house whose name – Pen Mynydd (not quite as magical as Roan Inish but still lovely in a British Isles sort of way) -- they find carved in stone above one of the doors. Instead of magical seals, Snowed Up contains hungry sheep and an edible called a “swede,” ingested gratefully by both human and ovines (the S in “swede” is not capitalized so no, they don’t become so desperate as to develop a taste for Scandinavians). 

Aside from one dreamy Christmas-inspired moment towards the end, the magical quotient in the book isn’t quite as high as that found in Roan Inish. And for all the danger the Snowed Up children face, the basic tenor of the book is as bright as the sun sparkling on the snow that reaches all the way up to the second floor windows of Pen Mynydd.  Snowed Up was published in 1970 when I was 10, and although I didn’t read anything British outside of The Chronicles of Narnia when I was around that age, this book seemed somehow vaguely familiar: I don’t recall reading anything darker. Perhaps tragedy-as-children’s-story might have been introduced a few years later, in 1977 with Bridge to Terebithia. Current 10 year-olds devour dystopian novels like The Hunger Games  (and the Harry Potter series had plenty of dark moments) but back in 1970, adventure books – at least those that flowed from the lovely pen of Rosalie K. Fry – weren’t all that scary.

All told, Snowed Up is a sweet little tale and I’m looking forward to reading my next Fry book in April.

Odes to the Pen

"The pen is the tongue of the mind."

Horace, Roman Poet 8BC

"I am no Poet here; my pen is the spout where the rain water of my eyes run out." 
John Cleveland (1613-1658). English poet.

A word is a bud attempting to become a twig. How can one not dream while writing? It is the pen which dreams. The blank page gives the right to dream.
Gaston Bachelard (1884-1962). French philosopher and poet.

What has any poet to trust more than the feel of the thing? Theory concerns him only until he picks up his pen, and it begins to concern him again as soon as he lays it down. 
John Ciardi (1916-1986) American poet, translator, and etymologist. 

In a mood of faith and hope my work goes on. A ream of fresh paper lies on my desk waiting for the next book. I am a writer and I take up my pen to write. 
Pearl S. Buck (1892-1973) Pulitzer prize winning American author.

"I wear my pen as others do their sword."
John Oldham, poet and novelist, English immigrant to Plymouth, 1623.

My two fingers on a typewriter have never connected with my brain. My hand on a pen does. A fountain pen, of course. Ball-point pens are only good for filling out forms on a plane.

Graham Greene (1904-1991) English playwright, storyteller, novelist, and critic. 

The material came bubbling up inside like a geyser or an oil gusher. It streamed up of its own accord, down my arm and out of my fountain pen in a torrent of six thousand words a day. 
C. S. Forester (1899-1966), writer. 

"Every writing career starts as a personal quest for sainthood, for self-betterment. Sooner or later, and as a rule quite soon, a man discovers that his pen accomplishes a lot more than his soul."
Joseph Brodsky, Russian born American poet.

Inflated descriptions by the pen are exaggerated illustrations by the pencil.
Grace Darling (1815 –1842) One of England's best loved Victorian heroines.

The pen wherewith thou dost so heavenly sing made of a quill from an angel's wing.
Henry Constable (1562-1613). English poet most famous for Diana, a collection of sonnets.

(compiled by Victorian Trading Co. -- they have a special on pens this month!)

Who was Rosalie K. Fry?

I’ve wanted to write a blog post on Ms. Fry, the author of the achingly beautiful story The Secret of Roan Inish ever since I realized that the lovely film was based on a book.  Try Googling her, though, and nothing comes up but the titles of her books.  For some odd reason the University of Southern Mississippi has her “papers” and their website condenses her biographical facts into two short sentences: “Rosalie K. Fry was born in Vancouver, Canada, and lived as an adult in England and Wales. She attended school in Wales and in London at the Central School of Arts.”

The Wales thing and the art school thing explain a lot but only through inference.  I thought perhaps purchasing a collection of her books might shed some light but some of those little gems are pricey and I ended up with only two, A Bell for Ringblume and Snowed Up.  I haven’t read them yet – three time-heavy non-fiction projects got in the way; plus I’d like to purchase more before jumping headfirst into Fry’s world – but the back cover of Ringblume, copyrighted 1957, offers some interesting info:

“This author was born on Vancouver Island.  She makes her home in Swansea, South Wales.  During World War II she was stationed in the Orkney Islands, where she was employed as a Cypher Officer in the Women’s Royal Service.  She has written many stories and executed many drawings for a variety of children’s magazines in Great Britain.  She is also known as a maker of children’s toys.  Her books, which she has also illustrated, have included: Bumblebuzz; Lady Bug! Lady Bug!; Bandy Boy’s Treasure Island; Pipkin Sees the World; Cinderella’s Mouse and other Fairy Tales; and The Wind Call.”

My non-fiction young adult book, published last year, features heroic WWII women so when I read of Fry's wartime work I immediately gave a hearty huzzah for her. Like so many other women of the time, she obviously put her immediate endeavors on hold indefinitely in order to do battle with Fascism.

Also interesting is that some of these books listed on the back of Ringblume are not included in the official box of “papers.” What happened to them?  I will have to wait another day to find out because though my interest in Ms. Fry has not diminished, additional non-fiction projects have found their way to my plate so it will be a while before I can return to my search for the person who set aside the creation of lovely worlds in order to decode for king and country.

http://www.lib.usm.edu/~degrum/html/research/findaids/fry,rosalie.htm

Excerpt from the one-man play "A Slight Limp -- The Later Life and Adventures of Tiny Tim" by Steven Korbar

This an excerpt from a short, hilarious one-man play that features Tiny Tim as a grown man who has not fared well with his famous childhood.

"Maybe it wouldn't be so bad if people could at least get the saying right, but I'm constantly getting requests for things like "God bless everybody all the time."  But wait, it gets even balmier, sometimes they ask me for, "Please sir, can I have some more." "It is a far, far better thing I do."  "Out damn spot!"  "Oh Heathcliff!  I'll meet you in the Heather" and occasionally even, "Looky there, Gretel!  I think I sees me a gingerbread house!"  Bloody uneducated dolts.  And you know, if you really want to get the quote correct, what I actually said was, "God bless us, everyone."  No "all."  I was referring only to members of me immediate family, and if I recall properly, at the time I was excluding my older brother Peter, as he was a bit of a git and had the habit of repeatedly tying me in a flour sack and trying to throw me into the Thames . . ."

From page 67 of the collection titled "Stage This! Volume 3: Monologues, Short Solo Plays and 10-Minute Plays" published by E-Merging Writers.com and Fn Productions, 2009.

http://www.amazon.com/Stage-THIS-Monologues-Short-10-Minute/dp/1442184183

Postcards from another world

What if someone in the future found my personal correspondence worthy of purchase?  Some people -- like Jane Austen -- give deathbed directives to destroy certain correpondence and I've actually never thought anyone but my kids might someday check out my old letters and cards that have somehow managed to survive repeated winnowings. But after two recent trips to an antique store in west suburban Chicago, I've changed my mind: if cards are pretty enough, they have the power to move someone to part with a few dollars and send said purchaser on a momentarily trip back in time.

Here's the first one:

No apparent reason for this card being sent, just some wishes that are the best.  But wait, there is a message on the back:

Uh-oh, Lena Falk's friend missed church on Friday and wanted to let her know!  Obviously, there wasn't emailing or texting back in 1910 and possibly not a plethora of telephones either.  After all, Minonk, IL, was a central Illinois farming community founded only six decades before this card was sent so perhaps these people didn't own personal telephones yet. So "Anna" (I think that was her name), who was probably separated from her friend by vast stretches of farmland, let Lena know about her non-attendence via a pretty little card.  Very charming.

I bought this one for four dollars because it was so beautiful that I thought I could start posting it on FB friend's pages for their B-days.  People in the 21st century still do send B-day cards but crickey, it's SO much easier to send and receive these greetings via FB, a phenomenon that nearly makes the entire crazy, weird, addicting, marvelous, maddening application worthwhile for that aspect alone.  The one drawback is that one cannot save and store FB greetings in the same way that Lena Falk was able to save this one.  Here's what it says on the back:

Speaking of celebrations worthy of involving the post office, the rest of these cards, with various addressees, are Christmas/New Years themed:

This one was sent at 5PM, December 24 (can't make out the year), and addressed to Mrs. Eva Jennings, Streator, Illinois, Box 25.  As far as I can tell, most of it says the following: "Mrs. Jennings: Will send you a card.  Received the present you sent and was so glad to get these pictures was just fine.  I hung it on the tree this morning.  How are every body up there?  We are all well.  We were in Varma last night and about 8 oclock Mr. Johny Murphy was killed with the train.  It was a terrible sight to see.  He was all cut to pieces.  Yours as ever, "

The top, upside down, reads "Wish you all a merry Xmas, answer soon." 

It seems to me that the violent death of Johnny Murphy might possibly have deserved a separate missive.  This card doesn't have a legible date but it seems odd in any time period -- aside from wartime when death unfortunately becomes commonplace -- that the violent death of a human be announced as a footnote in a holiday card doublling as a thank-you note.  But perhaps this is where the card-substituting-as-a-phone-call idea comes in: yes, it's odd to place all three of these items in on one card but it wouldn't be strange at all if they came up in a single phone conversation.

Next, a Christmas/New Years card addressed to Miss Lena Falk and postmarked December 22, 1909:

The back is difficult to read but here's what I can decipher:

"Dear Lena, Received your kind letter and was glad to hear from you. We are threw building are red barn. (sic).  We are all well and I hope the same of your Folks. With a merry Christmas and a happy new year, Mrs. Falk Falk"  I had to look up Minonk on the web to discover that it was a farming community but if I hadn't, the occasional RR number in the address portion and this mention of a barn would have been dead giveaways.

The next one was also addressed to Miss Lena Falk, was postmarked December 31, 1910, and contained a lengthy, mostly-illegible, pencil-written note on the back.  The addressor obviously wasn't trying to create something for posterity:

The next one, addressed to Miss Lena Falk, postmarked December 23, 1909, 230P, with nothing but "From Ella Ahlers" written on the back:

The next one was addressed to “Miss Lydia Metras, 37 Mt. Pleasant, Lynn, Mass” and postmarked December 31, 1906, 10 AM.  A fairly normal address that takes up the entire back of the card: there's no missive.  Perhaps people in New England of 1906 had more frequent access to phones -- unlike those in central Illinois -- and they didn't have to cram all their non-facetime communications onto the back of a card.  Or perhaps this person just wanted to send a New Years Day card to Miss Lydia.

Spoken words evaporate on the spot or are kept in the memory of the speaker and hearer.  Written words last much longer than mere mortals which is why some writers do what they do: to leave behind something significant, words that will continue to speak long after those who placed them in a particular order have passed on.  These missives to Miss Lena Falk and others may not be worthy of inclusion in a literary collection but there is something infinitely charming about these little cards that were written, addressed, and mailed over one hundred years ago in a world that no longer exists.

Mr. Collins is asked to read aloud to the ladies. From chapter 14 of "Pride and Prejudice"

Mr. Collins readily assented and a book was produced; but on beholding it (for everything announced it to be from a circulating library) he started back, and begging pardon, protested that he never read novels.