Peter Ibbetson, by du Maurier (1891)
Jan. 29th, 2026 08:31 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lb_leeRogan: I did it! My con crud lasted the exact amount of time for me to finally read Peter Ibbetson, and I’m super glad I did!
So, like other 1800s novels I’ve read, the first half of the book is focused mostly on the ordinary childhood of the protagonist. You know how the Jane Eyre movies all speed through to her going to Edward Rochester, but the book has nothing involving him for the first half? Same deal. Honestly, had I not been sick as a dog and pole-axed by NyQuil, I'm not sure I would've been willing to hold still long enough to forge through those first 150 pages, especially since I wasn't sure how much lucid dreaming/spirit spouse stuff existed, only that it did, and was important enough to keep turning up in the nonfiction records.
Turns out the book breaks almost perfectly in half: the childhood half, and the dreamworld half.
At the halfway point, our protagonist (one of those guys who has ennui and depression and is vaguely unhappy but not clear as to why) "dreams true" for the first time, with the help of his wife-to-be, whose dream he blunders into by accident and who rescues him from his bad dream. She tells him how to "dream true," and... it's a straightforward description of lucid dreaming protocols that I still see today, basically. And she's pretty thorough about it, to the point that I feel like the author had to have had some experience with it, or knew someone who did. (Possibly his wife? Apparently the characters of Peter Ibbetson and the Duchess of Towers are self-inserts of he and his wife. Du Maurier apparently really adored his wife.) No wonder Ida Craddock, Soph, and whoever the fuck it was in Beyond the Body described using the procedure themselves! The book doesn't do a half-bad job telling you how!
And then Peter Ibbetson ends up murdering his dirtbag uncle (for possibly raping Peter's mom, who is ALSO uncle's cousin, and thus being Peter's biological dad!) and in prison for the rest of his life, at which point he finds happiness entirely in his shared dream life with the Duchess of Towers, who divorces her dirtbag husband so as to be with him.
I heard that Peter Ibbetson was an intensely nostalgic novel, and hoo boy, is that true. To du Maurier, Peter's happy ending is to just live his "real" life entirely in a replication of his idyllic childhood, in a house created by him and the Duchess of Towers together. Their child selves still inhabit this past world, endlessly repeating those years, but Peter and the Duchess can't really interact with them, only watch and listen to them... though the Duchess's child self perceives the adult selves as imaginary friends le Prince Charmant and the fairy Tarapatapoum.
Time is a fascinating non-linear thing in Peter Ibbetson. Peter and the Duchess can retreat into their childhood years, unable to influence anyone around them, and Peter calls them memories, but he also remarks with bemusement how they can see things that their child selves couldn't have (like the backs of their own heads), and they're still able to create their own architecture there, though none of the contemporary shades can see or interact with them. Later in the book, they go back into their own genetic family trees to see their mutual great-great grandmother, learn how to inhabit as spectators the vessels of those shades long dead as they perform, share memories and experiences with each other... it's really fascinating!
And the romance even after a century is sweet; I totally see why Ida Craddock was into this. Interestingly, though Peter Ibbetson is the narrator and protagonist, he is 100% a "my wife is the best wife" guy, and it's the Duchess of Towers who has the much richer outer life. Ibbetson does penal labor all day and readily admits that he lives to sleep and dream, while the Duchess runs all sorts of charitable institutions, hospitals for orphans and homes for wayward women and all the rest. And Peter is super supportive of all of this! He's so happy for her! They never see each other in waking life; their marriage is conducted entirely through letters and dreams.
The Duchess happens to die first, and she manages to come back to tell him some cosmic truths, saying the reason she is able to come back is, they've shared so many dreams and experiences that they're somewhat merged now, and the part of her that lives in him remains alive, allowing the rest of her to come back to him, however temporarily.
On the whole, this was a really interesting and oddly sweet book, even though I myself can't enjoy the nostalgia the same way. (In my mind, retreating to a world that I can neither influence nor change but merely replays my nicest moments over and over sounds kinda horrifying.) But I'm really glad I read it!
So, like other 1800s novels I’ve read, the first half of the book is focused mostly on the ordinary childhood of the protagonist. You know how the Jane Eyre movies all speed through to her going to Edward Rochester, but the book has nothing involving him for the first half? Same deal. Honestly, had I not been sick as a dog and pole-axed by NyQuil, I'm not sure I would've been willing to hold still long enough to forge through those first 150 pages, especially since I wasn't sure how much lucid dreaming/spirit spouse stuff existed, only that it did, and was important enough to keep turning up in the nonfiction records.
Turns out the book breaks almost perfectly in half: the childhood half, and the dreamworld half.
At the halfway point, our protagonist (one of those guys who has ennui and depression and is vaguely unhappy but not clear as to why) "dreams true" for the first time, with the help of his wife-to-be, whose dream he blunders into by accident and who rescues him from his bad dream. She tells him how to "dream true," and... it's a straightforward description of lucid dreaming protocols that I still see today, basically. And she's pretty thorough about it, to the point that I feel like the author had to have had some experience with it, or knew someone who did. (Possibly his wife? Apparently the characters of Peter Ibbetson and the Duchess of Towers are self-inserts of he and his wife. Du Maurier apparently really adored his wife.) No wonder Ida Craddock, Soph, and whoever the fuck it was in Beyond the Body described using the procedure themselves! The book doesn't do a half-bad job telling you how!
And then Peter Ibbetson ends up murdering his dirtbag uncle (for possibly raping Peter's mom, who is ALSO uncle's cousin, and thus being Peter's biological dad!) and in prison for the rest of his life, at which point he finds happiness entirely in his shared dream life with the Duchess of Towers, who divorces her dirtbag husband so as to be with him.
I heard that Peter Ibbetson was an intensely nostalgic novel, and hoo boy, is that true. To du Maurier, Peter's happy ending is to just live his "real" life entirely in a replication of his idyllic childhood, in a house created by him and the Duchess of Towers together. Their child selves still inhabit this past world, endlessly repeating those years, but Peter and the Duchess can't really interact with them, only watch and listen to them... though the Duchess's child self perceives the adult selves as imaginary friends le Prince Charmant and the fairy Tarapatapoum.
Time is a fascinating non-linear thing in Peter Ibbetson. Peter and the Duchess can retreat into their childhood years, unable to influence anyone around them, and Peter calls them memories, but he also remarks with bemusement how they can see things that their child selves couldn't have (like the backs of their own heads), and they're still able to create their own architecture there, though none of the contemporary shades can see or interact with them. Later in the book, they go back into their own genetic family trees to see their mutual great-great grandmother, learn how to inhabit as spectators the vessels of those shades long dead as they perform, share memories and experiences with each other... it's really fascinating!
And the romance even after a century is sweet; I totally see why Ida Craddock was into this. Interestingly, though Peter Ibbetson is the narrator and protagonist, he is 100% a "my wife is the best wife" guy, and it's the Duchess of Towers who has the much richer outer life. Ibbetson does penal labor all day and readily admits that he lives to sleep and dream, while the Duchess runs all sorts of charitable institutions, hospitals for orphans and homes for wayward women and all the rest. And Peter is super supportive of all of this! He's so happy for her! They never see each other in waking life; their marriage is conducted entirely through letters and dreams.
The Duchess happens to die first, and she manages to come back to tell him some cosmic truths, saying the reason she is able to come back is, they've shared so many dreams and experiences that they're somewhat merged now, and the part of her that lives in him remains alive, allowing the rest of her to come back to him, however temporarily.
On the whole, this was a really interesting and oddly sweet book, even though I myself can't enjoy the nostalgia the same way. (In my mind, retreating to a world that I can neither influence nor change but merely replays my nicest moments over and over sounds kinda horrifying.) But I'm really glad I read it!
