Something of a literary star by this point, Barrie met the children's mother, Sylvia, and her husband Arthur, at an exclusive dinner party one evening, and thus began an extraordinary friendship.
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The boys adored Barrie, it is said, and when first Arthur, then Sylvia, died, both from cancer and within a short time of each other, it was Barrie who took them into his own home to care for them. His wife, Mary Ansell, had left him for Gerard Canaan at this point.
But the Llewellyn Davieses seemed to be tarred with tragedy — a student at Oxford, Michael, the "favourite" of the boys, drowned in a lake along with a close male friend, and many years later, his elder brother, Peter, leaped in front of a train. Both of these deaths are linked by Dudgeon, in his book, to the tragic early loss of Barrie's own brother, David. It's always been assumed that David died after a day out with a friend skating — he fell after a scuffle between them and hurt his head, dying shortly after.
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What Dudgeon unearths here is a counter report about the circumstances of the boy's death, disputing Barrie's claims about where he was at the time. Perhaps, Dudgeon poses, the friend accompanying David was, in fact, his younger brother James. It would explain, he argues further, some of Barrie's extraordinarily close relationship with his mother thereafter, and his interest in getting to know young boys.
Chapter Six Peter Pan a demon boy. Chapter Seven Sylvias Will. An Awfully Big Adventure. Chapter Two Daphnes initiation. Chapter Three Michaels suicide. Chapter Two Breakdown and suicide. Chapter Four The corruption of Neverland. Chapter One Slipping into madness. Refresh and try again. Open Preview See a Problem? Thanks for telling us about the problem. Return to Book Page. Preview — Captivated by Piers Dudgeon. An extraordinary book about the imagination — and the astonishing force of its creative power.
Captivated is a true story of genius and possession. The central character is the creator of Peter Pan, the novelist and playwright J. Barrie, a man tormented by inner demons since childhood.
- Captivated: JM Barrie, the Du Mauriers and the Dark Side of Neverland by Piers Dudgeon.
- Captivated: J.M. Barrie, The Du Mauriers & The Dark Side of Never Never Land by Piers Dudgeon;
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Barrie developed a consuming interest in the family of Ge An extraordinary book about the imagination — and the astonishing force of its creative power. Barrie developed a consuming interest in the family of George du Maurier, author of Trilby , a bestselling novel featuring his creation Svengali. This fascinating book delves deep, makes links and yields up secrets. Captivated is about writing and the world of the imagination: Hardcover , pages.
To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up. To ask other readers questions about Captivated , please sign up. Lists with This Book. This book is not yet featured on Listopia. Nov 11, N N rated it liked it. The claims Piers Dudgeon makes in this book are so unorthodox that he never actually gets around to summarising them explicitly and concisely, for the very good reason that they would sound so bizarre as to limit the book's readership to the highly eccentric and the extremely open-minded.
Well, then, to summarise for him. He claims that George du Maurier while a poor art student in Paris dabbled successfully in hypnotism and brought the fad with him to England where he possibly practiced it on h The claims Piers Dudgeon makes in this book are so unorthodox that he never actually gets around to summarising them explicitly and concisely, for the very good reason that they would sound so bizarre as to limit the book's readership to the highly eccentric and the extremely open-minded.
He claims that George du Maurier while a poor art student in Paris dabbled successfully in hypnotism and brought the fad with him to England where he possibly practiced it on his own daughter Sylvia among others. Although the excesses of hypnotism and quite likely opium ruined his health, they also gave him a sort of transcendental insight into the 'world of imagination' which Dudgeon keeps referring to as the du Maurier family secret which was passed down along the family tree in some more or less supernatural manner either to Sylvia and her sons or else to Daphne the daughter of Gerald.
I think Dudgeon is rather shaky here on whether the nature of hypnotism is demonic or beneficial or both. He makes a couple of references to Jung and the collective unconscious but it does not feel like he really figured out the mechanics or the implications. So far, so good. Now, he posits that J. Barrie, the future author of Peter Pan , was a psychotic morbidly obsessed with du Maurier and his family, and also with the secret, to which du Maurier apparently referred fairly explicitly in his last, posthumously published novel. Although there is no evidence that George du Maurier and Barrie ever met, Dudgeon thinks they did and that du Maurier took an immediate dislike to Barrie.
Book review: Captivated: JM Barrie, the Du Mauriers and the Dark Side of Neverland
After du Maurier's untimely death Barrie allegedly started stalking his grandsons on the Llewelyn Davies side who later famously served as his 'pegs' for characters from Peter Pan. According to Dudgeon, Barrie used his psychotic cunning to engineer several fateful events from his own first acquaintance with the Llewelyn Davies parents to the much later marriage of Daphne du Maurier to Major later General Sir Frederick Browning. In some way - again, this is rather obscure because all evidence for the claims is by its very nature circumstantial and mostly limited to ambiguous references in works of fiction by Barrie and Daphne du Maurier - in some way, Barrie 'programmed' the du Maurier children with his nihilistic and cynical world view which led them to much future tragedy and heartache.
Among the means he used was possibly hypnosis or some 'hypnotic rituals' Dudgeon is vague and sensibly brief on this but almost certainly what Dudgeon calls 'alchemic text', i. This is gripping material and there is no question that numerous oddities and coincidences, mostly tragic, are scattered through the du Mauriers' lives.
It is also obvious that much of Barrie's own works and preoccupations are odd to say the least, and that Daphne du Maurier had a famously vivid Gothic imagination which filled her books, especially the short stories, with themes ranging from incest to psychic possession and what not.
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The parallels to real events are never less than intriguing, sometimes uncanny. Sadly, Dudgeon does not help his case by withholding references for some of the juicier quotations, misrepresenting facts and quoting out of context. In actual fact this does not seem to be the case - i.
Book review: Captivated: JM Barrie, the Du Mauriers and the Dark Side of Neverland - The Scotsman
Or, when quoting Peter Pan to the effect that he forgets people after he kills them - allegedly Barrie's own not-so-veiled confession - Dudgeon tacks this memorable phrase to another bit of text taken from an entirely different section of the book, to make the quote seem relevant. The whole book, retelling piecemeal the lives of Barrie and the du Mauriers, has that feel of information carefully sieved to leave out all the bits that do not fit.
As food for thought, this is fascinating and certain to add extra levels of insight to some further reading; but as biography, it's not to be taken without much sceptical re-checking of references. Finally, it should be noted that Dudgeon is an extremely annoying writer who insists on referring to George du Maurier exclusively by his nickname of 'Kicky' throughout the book, and to Barrie as 'Jim'.
For readers who are sensitive to this sort of thing it can get pretty nauseating long before the final page.