The Adventures of Pinocchio (Oxford World's Classics)

My review is for the OUP edition of The Adventures of Pinocchio. What a lovely, lively and exuberant tale. This is the first time reading this COMPLETE tale of the famous puppet.It is very interesting because the lively puppet very easily make promises and yet he cannot keep any of them. At long last, he learns to keep his promise and matures over a period of time, beset and humbled by experience.I used to believe that the puppet is eaten up by a whale; it turns out near the end of the story, he is eaten up by a very big shark.This new translation captures the liveliness of the fairy tale. easy to read and graceful. The introduction also gives a very good assessment of the book as work of world literature!

most of us are working the other direction these days we come in human and go out puppet

i love the story good moral

I've known the original story since I was a child, but I wanted to read it with the exact words. Some people say that it's too violent and cruel for children, but I find it charming and with lots of tender elements among the cruel ones. It is a book that both children and adults can enjoy; and also a good device to analyse how morals where taught during the 18th and 19th centuries.

Very good moral for children who lie

The notes and chronology in this edition are informative but Penguin Classics has an excellent introduction to the story by Jack Zipes and the translation there reads better. Here, the use of “Old Joe” for Geppetto and “Swallowfire” for Magiafuoco (usually known in English as Fire-eater) are particularly jarring.Here also the introduction first says that the story is not a “moral tract,” then contradicts itself by calling it a “moral tale”, noting that Pinocchio matures morally. The novel is, of course, moralistic throughout; the message being that bad boys end up in prison or as stupid donkeys – both states that Pinocchio endures. Beyond its fairy-tale of a puppet without strings, this is a symbolic development narrative of a boy going from mere pleasure seeking to honesty and assuming responsibility for his actions when he rescues and then looks after Geppetto and is rewarded by transforming into a real boy. “How ridiculous I was as a puppet” he says at the end.By far the finest dramatization of the novel is the film by Luigi Comencini, where Pinocchio is a tragicomic figure, far removed from the cute puppet in Disney’s travesty of Collodi’s imaginative tale.

I'm astonished that OUP issued this translation in 1996. Inserting Old Joe for Geppetto and Steak and Kidney Pudding for Italian foodstuffs amongst other things just strikes me as wrong. The translation may at least be faithful in other respects but I just don't like it. I hope OUP will take the forthcoming occasion of Collodi's bicentennial birthday anniversary in 2026 to issue a new version and destroy this one. Sooner would be better as there will be 2 more Pinocchio films issued this year.

There has been a surge of translations of Collodi's original Pinocchio. As a result, they have kept Collodi's original story in the public eye and allowed readers to put aside the notions they have had of Pinocchio as a Disney-specific story.For many years, the 1892 Mary Alice Murray translation and the 1944 Ernest (E.) Harden translation were the only two accessible English translations available. They continued to hold sway despite the ubiquity of the Disney film. However, in the late 1990s, Oxford published a new translation by Ann Lawson Lucas in its World's Classics series. Since then, others have written and published their own translations of Collodi's story, including Geoffrey Brock, Emma Rose and M.L. Rosenthal.As a reader, I appreciate Lucas's attempts to keep to the feel and tone of the late-19th century when Collodi first published the story. She still uses sprightly language as befits the original Italian and matches his tone in her choice of words. I cite the example of chapter 21, after Pinocchio gets caught in a trap while attempting to pick (or steal) some grapes. Lucas, like Murray, uses the word "pity" when Pinocchio begs the passing firefly for help.Despite Lucas's attention to detail in her translation, it falls short in the way that she removes the original Italian ambience of the story. In her translator's note she states that she translated the names and cultural references so that the text would not be too quaint and old-world, let alone too Italian for international readers. She also desires to move away from the "awful, denaturing "cuteness" of the Disney school of thought." It must sound a trifle odd to read Old Joe in place of Geppetto, as his original name has universal currency even without the Disney film. However, for other names such as Swallowfire (her name for Fire-eater), it isn't too bad because Collodi named these characters after common Italian words. I am prepared to leave these alone. I merely tend to worry that this translation does not tip its hat to the Italian roots of the original story as some others do.How does this compare to the other Pinocchio translations that have been made since? Very respectably, I must say, as long as you forget about the out-of-place foods or idioms. So far, I have only read the Brock and Rose translations, but not Rosenthal or the Sartirano & Havill translation in the 2010 Quentin Greban picture book edition. Brock's translation has a more modern tone than Murray or Harden, but he is direct in his choice of words. It has an occasional American turn of phrase, but it does not affect the overall tone of the story. Rose's translation is clearly aimed at children. Although it is sprightly, it softens the tone of the original and lessens the emphasis and certainties. Yet it still does its job of engaging children. Murray's translation is established, but it is a little wordy and occasionally uses some long words. The Harden translation maintains the old-world feel as Murray's text does. Despite some blatant, glaring mistranslations, it is still a balanced translation that uses unpretentious language and maintains the tone of the original.Like all translations, Lucas's translation may have its shortcomings. However, it still fares well when up next to all the other Pinocchio translations out there. I wouldn't choose this as my first choice because of its occasional denaturing of the atmosphere. My first choice would probably be Harden (available in the Puffin Classics series), followed by Brock and Rose.While I say this, it would be good if OUP could update this translation to address some of the shortcomings in this effort. Twenty years have passed since it was first published, and this might be a good time to update it, improve it and restore the innate Italian ambience of the story.

Can't wait to read this. Shame the book came delivered with a damaged cover.

I've been trying to find a book with the original illustrations and everything. I think Amazon offered a fair price for the book on their website! I'd recommend this for the Pinocchio fan in your life, or to give it a read yourself! Especially with the original illustrations! :D

The original is not Disney. Nice short chapters. Good for reading to a child.

Most everyone is generally familiar with the story of Pinocchio, although this familiarity is usually the result of the Walt Disney animated film. Actually, the movie does a reasonably good job of following the book, although it leaves a lot out and makes quite a few changes. A master carpenter named Anthony, whom everyone calls Maestro Cherry, comes across a piece of magic wood. He gives it to his friend Geppetto, a puppeteer who fashions a puppet whom he names Pinocchio. The puppet immediately runs off. Geppetto chases him and is put in jail when he tries to punish his wayward puppet. When Pinocchio returns home, the Talking Cricket tries to warn him about the error of his ways, but he kills it with a hammer, though it reappears two or three times later as a ghost. Geppetto gets out of jail, but instead of going to school Pinocchio wanders off again to see a puppet show and is taken by the puppeteer Swallowfire who eventually releases him and sends him back to Geppetto with five coins. However, Pinocchio meets the Fox and the Cat, who talk him into going to the Field of Miracles in the land of Boobies where they tell him he can plant his five coins and they will grow into thousands. The two swindle him out of one coin for dinner and then leave him at an inn. When Pinocchio goes out to find them, they disguise themselves, try to rob him, and eventually hang him. He is saved by a little girl who turns out to be "the fairy with the blue hair." She invites him to live with her and even sends for Geppetto, but he follows the Fox and Cat again and loses his coins to them. Later, after several other adventures, he returns to find that the little girl has died and shortly after that learns that Geppetto went to sea in search of him and was lost, perhaps swallowed by the great shark (not Monstro the whale) swimming in that area. He even ends up with his friend Candle-Wick in "The Land of Toys" and turns into a donkey. Will Pinocchio ever make it home? Will he find his Papa? Will he see the Blue Fairy again? It appears that Collodi, penname for Carlo Lorenzini, originally had not intended the novel as children's literature. However, the first fifteen chapters, at the unhappy ending of which Pinocchio dies a gruesome death by hanging, were serialized in a children's magazine between 1881 and 1883. At the request of his editor, Collodi added chapters 16-36, in which the Fairy rescues Pinocchio and eventually transforms him into a real boy. The entire story then was published as a book for children in February, 1883. Thus, it allegorically deals with some serious themes but in the end Pinocchio acquires a deeper understanding of himself, making the story suitable for children. The original English translation was made in 1892 by Mary E. Murray and is used in the Penguin Classics edition (2002). The Puffin Classics edition (1996) uses a translation by E. Harden. New York Review Books published a new translation in 2008 by Geoffrey Brock. The Oxford University Press edition that I bought has "an authoritative new translation" by Ann Lawson Lucas. I suppose that Lucas's translation is all right, but instead of leaving Gepetto's name as it is, she translates it as "Old Joe." Personally, I think that I would have rather read Murray's translation. All in all, I enjoyed reading the book. Though a little grim at times, it does teach some important lessons.

Calling Geppetto “Old Joe,” might be an accurate English equivalent to the Italian original, but when translating a tale that has become a staple of Western children’s stories, regardless of language, changing a well known name is annoying!