Pinocchio

Description

Though one of the best-known books in the world, Pinocchio at the same time remains unknown-linked in many minds to the Walt Disney movie that bears little relation to Carlo Collodi's splendid original. Yet it is hardly a sentimental or morally improving tale. To the contrary, Pinocchio is one of the great subversives of the written page, a madcap genius hurtled along at the pleasure and mercy of his desires, a renegade who in many ways resembles his near contemporary Huck Finn. Pinocchio the novel, no less than Pinocchio the character, is one of the great inventions of modern literature. The book merges the traditions of the picaresque, of street theater, and of folk and fairy tales into a work that is at once adventure, satire, and a powerful enchantment. Thronged with memorable characters and composed with the fluid but inevitable logic of a dream, Pinocchio is an endlessly fascinating work that is essential equipment for life.

Carlo Collodi (1826-1890) is the pen name of Carlo Lorenzini. He worked as a journalist before publishing The Adventures of Pinocchio in 1883. Translated into more than ninety languages, Pinocchio has never been out of print. Umberto Eco is an Italian philosopher and novelist, best known for his novel The Name of the Rose (Il nome della rosa) and his many essays. Geoffrey Brock is a poet and the translator of many books, including Disaffections by Cesare Pavese and The Mysterious Flame of Queen Loana by Umberto Eco. He teaches in the University of Arkansas Programs in Creative Writing and Translation in Fayetteville.

The book has the manic energy of 'Candide', as it rushes from one extreme situation to another. The new translation by Geoffrey Brock is wonderfully faithful to Collodi's speed and vigour. Until now, the best-known modern translation has been Ann Lawson Lucas's... Judged purely as a translation, however, Brock's version is more natural and engaging with a better feeling for how to turn colloquial 19th Century Tuscan into colloquial modern English. Brock is better at the humour, and unlike Lucas doesn't use quaint idioms or over translate. Sentence by sentence, Brock's Pinocchio has better rhythms. London Review of Books Disney's sentimental depiction of Pinocchio bears little resemblance to Collodi's unscrupulous puppet. This new translation revives the sardonic wit and black humour of the original. Times