Tuesday, June 8, 2010

Using Another James...

You know how I'm always referencing back to Barrie to be able to properly complete Peter Pan: Betwixt-and-Between? Well, I just had to delve into the work of another James... None of other than James Fenimore Cooper. Yes, that's right, I needed information from his pages as well.

Why? Because Barrie said to do so, of course. As if I'm taking orders from the great Scotsman. In a way, yes. You see, in one of his writings on Pan he himself makes a reference how the Redskin/Indian characters perform a particularly nasty task in the Cooper manner. I'm using that idea which Barrie had presented in my novel. Therefore, it became my duty to hunt through Cooper's work. Fortunately, there's a new kind of "Hawkeye" in the form of the 'find' command in a text document. I put in a few keywords from Barrie's desire and voila - I had the very references he intended. I'll do a little more searching (especially the other adventures of Natty Bumpo [aka Hawkeye in Last of the Mohicans]) just to be thorough.

To think, Barrie saw the Turn of the Century (i.e. into the 20th) and crafted his tales of Peter Pan not so far into it. And here I am, just after the next Turn of the Century crafting a Peter Pan tale, tracing his steps in literature and using the latest conveniences to do so.

2 comments:

Daisy Porter said...

You really missed a punportunity in the post title. How about "By Any Other James"? Or....something.

Peter Von Brown said...

Yes, well, even I* have moments of non-cleverness. Please take note of the time that the post had gone up and you might understand why it's not as punny as most titles...

* meant in jest, of course.