Spécial Dre (si tu passes encore par ici…)
Liiiiiis Peter Pan [Pitoeur Pâne] , qu’elle me serinait…
Quelques a priori. Nevertheless, I had fun in the Neverlands.
Incipit :
« One day when she was two years old [Wendy] was playing in a garden, and she plucked another flower and ran with it to her mother. I suppose she must have looked rather delightful, for Mrs Darling put her hand to her heart and cried, ‘Oh, why can’t you remain like this for ever !’ This was all that passed between them on the subject, but henceforth Wendy knew that she must grow up. You always know after you are two. Two is the beginning of the end. »
« The way Mr. Darling won her was this : the many gentlemen who had been boys when she was a girl discovered simultaneously that they loved her, and they all ran to her house to propose to her except Mr. Darling, who took a cab and nipped in first, and so he got her. »
« For a week or two after Wendy came it was doubtful whether they would be able te keep her, as she was another mouth to feed. […] ‘Mumps one pound, that is what I have put down, but I daresay it will be more like thirty shillings-don’t speak- measles one five, German measles half a guinea, makes two fifteen six-don’t waggle your finger- whooping-cough, say fifteen shillins’- and so on it went, and it added up diffrently each time ; but at last Wendy just got through, with mumps reduced to twelve six, and the two kinds of measles treated as one.
There was the same excitement over John, and Michael had even a narrower squeak […] »
Wendy and Peter – rencontre du deuxième type :
« ‘What is your name?’
‘Peter Pan.’
She was already sure that it must be Peter, but it did seem a comparatively short name.
‘Is it all ?’
‘Yes’, he said rather sharply. He felt for the first time that it was a shortish name. »
« When people in our set are introduced, it is customary for them to ask each other’s age, and so Wendy, who always liked to do the correst thing, asked Peter how old he was. It was not really a happy question to ask him ; it was like an examination paper that asks grammar, when what you want to be asked is Kings of England. »
La chaîne alimentaire qui tourne en rond :
« On this evening the chief forces of the island were disposed as follows. The lost boys were out looking for Peter, the pirates were out looking for the lost boys, the redskins were out looking for the pirates, and the beasts were out looking for the redskins. They were going round and round the island, but they did not meet because they were all going the same rate. »
Foutage de gueule permanent :
« The pirate attack had been a complete surprise: a sure proof that the unscrupulous Hook had conducted it improperly, for to surprise redskins fairly is beyond the wit of the white man. »
Les interventions de l’auteur, qui fait passer le ludique de la fable au sujet :
« Let us now kill a pirate, to show Hook’s method. Skylights will do. As they pass, Skylights lurches clumsily against him, ruffling his lace collar; the hook shoots forth, there is a tearing sound and one screech, then the body is kicked aside, and the pirates pass on. He has not even taken the cigars from his mouth. »
« To describe them all [their adventures] would require a book as large as an English-Latin, Latin-English Dictionary , and the most we can do is to give onea a specimen of an average hour on the island. […] Which of all these adventures shall we choose ? The best way will be to toss for it.
I have tossed, and the lagoon has won. This almostmakes one wish that the gulch or the cake or Tink’s leaf had won. Of course, I could do it again, and make it best out of three; however perhpas fairest to stick to the lagoon. »
Comme quoi, contrairement aux Petits écoliers, le bouquin de J. M. Barrie n’est pas que pour les enfants. Qu’on emmerde doublement, parce que les biscuits Lu – Côte d’or sont cent fois meilleurs. (Il y a des associations, comme ça, qui ont du bon ; je recommande la tuile chocolat noir-oranges confites, aussi, dans la même collection, et il faudra que je goûte les cookies Granola)