Retelling Peter

I'm taking the day off of work today, having slaved for 13 hours on Saturday to lay out and print a proposal, and I've vowed to do nothing that isn't fun: no cleaning, no extracurricular work, lots of lounging. I am, in fact, still in my pajamas and yukata, which is probably TMI. To this end, I open my bookmark for Christopher Baldwin's "Bruno," which always makes me feel better because Bruno's life so much more messed up existentially than mine, and get a bonus: the link to Bill Mudron's retelling of Peter Pan. Only 19 pages so far, but it looks to be amazingingly ambitious and is full of twists and turns, visual and plot-wise. Lovely artwork, clever pacing, and slightly jarring dialogue. This isn't, by any means, your childhood Peter Pan, although I think it's one that carries on the darker impulses you can see in the original. And while I don't claim to be a Peter Pan wonk (as I could, without bragging, claim to be both a Tolkien and Star Wars wonk), this strikes me as grittier than the original, because the original wasn't nearly as cute as the Walt Disney version. (What is?) One of the good things about encountering this comic is that it's made me want to re-read the original, and catch up on the newer versions of the movies, including "Finding Neverland" which stars the luscious and brilliant Johnny Depp. Hmm, I see a Peter Pan marathon in the offing.

I love the way stories like this get retold, and it's a shame that it doesn't happen more often, although I suppose if you count movie adaptations it does. I'm not even venturing into the realm of fanfic, which is the nearest thing we really have to a communal retelling of (and reshaping) of stories we like, the place where stories become public property whether the originator likes it or not. This opportunity to retell is one of the reasons it's important to let copyrights expire within a reasonable time. Certainly 75 years after the author is dead is not too soon. I'm sure even Christopher Tolkien will have reaped enough lucre from his dad's genius by then, thanks to Peter Jackson.

(As a side note here, I don't quite understand people's resentment at family members reaping the rewards of their ancestor's talents for a reasonable amount of time. This is, after all, what people whose ancestors started successful businesses do. And their patents expire after a time too, unless renewed. It's also wildly more likely that children of authors and artists are eventually going to have to get out and scratch for a living when the money runs out, cuz, face it, artists and writers don't make near the capital that corporate robber barons do, and even get their hands on venture capital, unless you count grants.)

Spider Robinson has written an intriguing if polemical story on the dangers of unending copyrights called "Melancholy Elephants." The gist of it is laid out in one of the character's (a woman I suspect is based on Virginia Heinlein, Robert's wife) speeches:

" `Ars longa, vita brevis est,' " she said at last. "There's been comfort of a kind in that for thousands of years. But art is long, not infinite. `The Magic goes away.' One day we will use it up—unless we can learn to recycle it like any other finite resource." Her voice gained strength. "Senator, that bill has to fail, if I have to take you on to do it. Perhaps I can't win—but I'm going to fight you! A copyright must not be allowed to last more than fifty years—after which it should be flushed from the memory banks of the Copyright Office. We need selective voluntary amnesia if Discoverers of Art are to continue to work without psychic damage. Fact should be remembered—but dreams?" She shivered. ". . . Dreams should be forgotten when we wake. Or one day we will find ourselves unable to sleep. Given eight billion artists with effective working lifetimes in excess of a century, we can no longer allow individuals to own their discoveries in perpetuity. We must do it the way the human race did it for a million years—by forgetting, and rediscovering. Because one day the infinite number of monkeys will have nothing else to write except the complete works of Shakespeare. And they would probably rather not know that when it happens."

Now I don't think this is one of Spider's better stories, but the premise scared the crap out of me when I read it, so it's at least successful, as I'm pretty sure that was his intention. I recently read a new Lord Peter Wimsey novel that I thought was rather indifferently written but which I enjoyed anyway because it was a chance to visit Peter and Harriet and the marvelous Mrs. Malaprop-like Dowager Duchess again. You might almost call authorized continuations of series like this legal fanfic, and like fanfic, you get varying degrees of competency in the writers. Somewhere out there is another really splendid writer who is capable of really capturing Sayers' wit, erudition, style, and masterful plotting. Alas, that person has not yet been found, but I'd love to see other folks give it a whirl, as many have with Sherlock Holmes.

There again, some are better than others, and it's not always true that the good writers prevail. I realize the publishing companies and literary executors do this to keep what is in essence a lucrative franchise going. But it serves the purpose of perpetuating the stories and characters as well, until they become part of the cultural consciousness. I suppose movie remakes serve something of the same purpose, though I'm not sure either Scooby Doo or Starsky & Hutch need to become part of our zeitgeist—at least not the way, say, Tolkien or Star Wars or Peter Pan have. But that's my personal prejudice.

Anyway, go visit this new Peter and enjoy the artistry, derivative as you might think it is.

Comments

[Rob]

You will love Finding Neverland, and not just because Johnny Depp is lovely (though he is, of course). It's a great meditation on the creative process, and gorgeous to look at to boot. Enjoy, enjoy! Rob