I think reading this book in the post-Freudian world is completely impossible, because even though I basically mentally live in the 19th century, I still found parts of it really uncomfortable to read. Our societal norms are very different from the ones that operated at the time, and the 'cult of childhood' of the late Victorian age just reads as incredibly creepy today. Even though it's well known that Barrie's relationships with children were entirely innocent, I couldn't imagine a parent today allowing their child to form as close a relationship with a stranger as the parents of David in this book allow him to form with the narrator, nor do I think it was wise of them to do so then. But putting that aspect of the book aside, I absolutely adore Barrie's style (although it's a bit over-saccharine, it made my teeth ache a little), it's poised perfectly on the line between reality and fantasy, so that the two are often intertwined inseparably (as when the narrator's dog transforms into a person and then back again). I love what he does with linear time and linear narrative structure; there are parts where, in the telling of the story, it seems to be happening again, so that the outcome can be changed by the telling. The line between saying and doing is almost completely erased in this book. I can't really describe his style properly, except that it seems like ordinary life becomes infused with magic through it. It's also pathetically touching and funny, I feel like a sentimental Victorian spinster reading it, the narrator puts on a whole show of being a stiff, irate, selfish gentleman, when in reality he is always compassionate, 'whimsical', and generous. Barrie has a really lovely and gentle sense of humour (in contrast to the sort of vicious satire and depressive black humour I'm used to), and parts such as the narrator helping a couple reconcile a disagreement supposedly just because it annoys him so much to see them be miserable utterly won my (apparently very easily swayed) heart.
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