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'''The Adventures of Pinocchio''' (Italian: '''Le avventure di Pinocchio''') is a novel for children by Italian author Carlo Collodi.
The first half was originally a serial between 1881 and 1883, and then later completed as a book for children in February 1883. It is about the mischievous adventures of Pinocchio (IPA: [pi'nok:jo]), an animated marionette, and his poor father, a woodcarver named Geppetto. It is considered a classic of children's literature and has spawned many derivative works of art, such as Disney's classic 1940 animated movie of the same name, and commonplace ideas, such as a liar's long nose.

Contents

Background

Analysis

Derivative works

See also

Notes

Further reading

External links

Background

''The Adventures of Pinocchio'' is a story about an animated puppet, talking crickets, boys who turn into mules and other fairy tale devices that would be familiar to a reader of ''Alice in Wonderland'' or Brothers Grimm; in fact earlier in his career Collodi worked on a translation of Mother Goose. However, ''Pinocchio's world is not a traditional fairy-tale world, instead containing the hard realities of the need for food, shelter, and the basic measures of daily life. The setting of the story is in fact the very real Tuscan area of Italy. It was a unique literary melding of genres for its time.
''Pinocchio'' (literally ''pine eye''; Tuscan term for a pine nut or kernel) draws from classical sources, such as Homer and Dante, but, more significantly, it is part of the Tuscan ''novella'' (short-story) tradition whose genesis is in Boccaccio's ''Decameron'' (1353). As Glauco Cambon wrote:
:"Storytelling is a folk art in the Tuscan countryside, and has been for centuries . . . Pinocchio's relentless variety of narrative incident, its alertness to social types, its tongue-in-cheek wisdom are of a piece with that illustrious tradition."
Collodi originally had not intended the novel as children's literature; the ending was unhappy and allegorically dealt with serious themes. In the original, serialized version, Pinocchio dies a gruesome death — hanged for his innumerable faults, at the end of Chapter 15. At the request of his editor, Collodi added chapters 16–36, in which the "Blue Fairy" (as the Disney version names her) rescues Pinocchio and eventually transforms him into a real boy, when he acquires a deeper understanding of himself, making the story suitable for children. In the second half of the book, the maternal figure of the Blue Fairy is the dominant character, versus the paternal figure of Geppetto, in the first part.
Children's literature was a new idea in Collodi's time, an innovation in nineteenth-century Italy (and elsewhere). Thus in content and style it was new and modern, opening the way to many writers of the following century. Collodi, who died in 1890, was respected during his lifetime as a talented writer and social commentator, but his fame did not begin to grow until after ''Pinocchio'' was translated into English, for the first time in 1892, but, in particular, with the widely-read Everyman's Library edition of 1911. The popularity of the story was bolstered by the powerful philosopher-critic Benedetto Croce who greatly admired the tale.
Several of the book's concepts have become commonplace, particularly the long nose for liars. The story's Italian language is peppered with Florentine dialect features, such as the protagonist's name ''Pinocchio'', a Florentine male name meaning ''pine nut'' or ''kernel''.

Analysis

''Pinocchio'', in addition to being a children's tale, is a novel of education, with values expressed through allegory. There are many ways of viewing these allegories. One is that they mirror the values of the middle class of the nineteenth century, in particular, that of Italy, as it became a nation state.^[1] For example, not following the schemes of the fox and cat (i.e. the thieving noble class), but, instead, honestly working for money, and obtaining an education, so that one is not treated like an ass (the mule working class). Unsurprisingly, although the book was very popular, in many upper-class families of the time it initially was not a book regarded suitable for "well-educated" children.
It also is an allegory of contemporary society, a look at the contrast between respectability and free instinct in a very severe, formal time. Behind the optimistic, pedagogical appearance, the romance is sadly ironic, and sometimes a satire of that very formal pedagogy and, through this, against the nonsense of these social manners in general.
It contains many covert literary allusions. For example, the basic plot in which Pinocchio, through idle curiosity, is transformed into a donkey and is then restored through the intervention of a benevolent female spirit is taken from Apuleius' ''The Golden Ass'', while his being swallowed by a giant fish may owe something to the story of Jonah.

Derivative works

There are at least fourteen English-language films based on the story, not to mention the Italian, French, Russian, German, Japanese, and many other versions for the big screen and for television.

Notable film versions include:
:''See also:The Adventures of Pinocchio (film)''

★ The Disney animated film ''Pinocchio'' (released February 7 1940), although a free interpretation of the Collodi story, is considered a masterpiece of the art of animation, and was deemed culturally significant by the Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry. It is this version that first refers to the principal female character as the "Blue Fairy".

★ ''GoodTimes' Pinocchio'', a Golden Films-produced animated adaptation of the tale.

★ ''The Adventures of Pinocchio'' (1936), an historically-notable, unfinished Italian animated feature film.

★ ''Pinocchio'', a 1957 TV musical broadcast live during the Golden Age of Television, directed and choreographed by Hanya Holm, and starring such actors as Mickey Rooney (in the title role), Walter Slezak (as Geppetto), Fran Allison (as the Blue Fairy), and Martyn Green (as the Fox). This version featured songs by Alec Wilder and was shown on NBC. It was part of a then-popular trend of musicalizing fantasy stories for television, following the immense success of the Mary Martin ''Peter Pan'', which made its TV debut in 1955.

★ ''Pinocchio in Outer Space'' (1965), a feature where Pinocchio this time have adventures in outer space, with an alien turtle as a friend.

★ ''Pinocchio'' (1968), a musical version of the story that aired in the United States on NBC, with pop star Peter Noone playing the puppet. This one bore no resemblance to the 1957 television version.

★ ''The Erotic Adventures of Pinocchio'' (1971), which was advertised with the memorable line, "It's not his nose that grows!"

★ ''Pinocchio'' (1976), still another live-action musical version for television, with Sandy Duncan in a trouser role as the puppet, Danny Kaye as Geppetto, and Flip Wilson as the Fox. It was telecast on CBS, and is available on DVD.

★ ''The Adventures of Pinocchio'' (1996), a film by Steve Barron starring Martin Landau as Geppetto and Johnathan Taylor Thomas as Pinocchio

★ ''Geppetto'' (2000), a television film broadcast on The Wonderful World of Disney starring Drew Carey in the title role and Julia Louis-Dreyfus as the Blue Fairy.

★ ''Pinocchio'' (2002), a live-action film directed by and starring Roberto Benigni.

★ ''Pinocchio 3000'' (2003), a Canadian CGI film.
Other adaptations include:

★ In 1911, Italian author E. Cherubini wrote ''Pinocchio in Africa'' about how Pinocchio goes to Africa where he has a series of adventures.

★ Japanese manga Artist Osamu Tezuka was inspired by this charming tale when he created the popular icon Astroboy. In addition, the story of Pinocchio was made into an anime television series by Tatsunoko Productions in 1972 as ''Kashi no Ki Mokku'' (''Mokku the Oak Tree''), and again by Nippon Animation in 1976 as ''The Adventures of Piccolino'' (Pinocchio was renamed "Piccolino" in this version). Tatsunoko's series was shown on HBO in the United States in 1992 as ''Saban's Adventures of Pinocchio''.

★ The Japanese superhero Kikaider (1972), created by Shotaro Ishinomori, was partly inspired by Pinocchio (and by Frankenstein's monster).

★ Though not actually an adaptation of the story proper, the video game Toy Pop released by Namco in 1986 features a character named "Pino", who was inspired by the Pinocchio character. It was a Japan-only release until it was included in Namco Museum Vol.1, which was released in the United States in 1995.

★ In a similar vein, the 1995 Super Famicom title ''Wonder Project J'', released in Japan by Enix (now Square Enix), is a raising simulation in which a robot child named "Pino" is taught human emotions and feelings by the fairy helper of Dr. Geppetto in the hopes of eventually becoming a human boy. In the canon ending, Pino will activate the J circuit, appearing to die, but the sequel reveals that he has been reborn as a human child.

★ Aleksei Nikolaevich Tolstoi wrote a famous Russian adaptation of the book, entitled ''The Little Gold Key or the Adventures of Buratino'' (1936) illustrated by Alexander Koshkin, translated from Russian by Kathleen Cook-Horujy, Raduga Publishers, Moscow, 1990, 171 pages, SBN 5-05-002843-4 (''burattino'' is Italian for "puppet").

★ Steven Spielberg's film, '' (2001), based on a Stanley Kubrick project that was cut short by Kubrick's death, recasts the Pinocchio theme; in it an android with emotions longs to become a real boy.

★ Pinocchio briefly appears in the 2001 movie ''Shrek'' and has a larger role in the 2004 sequel ''Shrek 2'' and the 2007 sequel ''Shrek the Third''.

★ Pinocchio and Geppetto are both major characters in the ongoing comic book series ''Fables'', written by Bill Willingham, first published in 2003.

★ Pinocchio appears in two episodes of the animated TV show ''The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy'': "Nursery Crimes / My Peeps" and "Billy Ocean".

★ The computer-animated television series ''Pet Alien'' features Geppetto as a minor character, where he is searching for Pinocchio.

★ Fascinated by Collodi's tale throughout his career, artist Jim Dine has made drawings, photographs, sculpture, and paintings inspired by the boy puppet. In 2006 Steidl Publishing released a version of the Collodi story with illustrations by Dine. In 2007 the New York gallery PaceWildenstein showed an exhibition of primarily sculptural work by Dine -- Jim Dine: Pinocchio.

★ The first episode of season 4 the of animated TV show ''Family Guy'' (aired in the UK in 2007) contains a brief spoof sketch featuring Pinocchio and Geppetto (the Disney versions of the characters).

★ A new opera composed by Jonathan Dove, ''The Adventures of Pinocchio'', commissioned by Opera North, will be premièred at the Grand Theatre in Leeds, England on 21 December, 2007.

★ On January 1st 2007, an adapted parody of the famous story was created on the popular website Freak Safari. [1]

★ Pinocchio story was one of the episodes of Juuni Sensehi Bakurestu Eto Ranger.
Russian-born disco composer ''Boris Midney'' produced a twelve inch "Pinocchio" album, sung by his incidental vocal group Masquerade including tracks like "I'm Attached to You" and "Wooden Wooden Puppet".

See also

★ Jiminy Cricket

★ Blue Fairy

Notes

1. "The Persistent Puppet: Pinocchio's heirs in contemporary fiction and film" — a seminar by Rebecca West from the University of Chicago

Further reading

★ Dual Language Version, translated by Nicolas J. Perella, 1986, and several later reprints, ISBN 0-520-07782-2, ISBN 0-520-24686-1

External links

★ (translated from Italian by Carol Della Chiesa)

★ (illustrated by Alice Carsey 1916)

★ ''The Adventures of Pinocchio, 1926, a 400+ page edition translated by Carol Della Chiesa, illustrations by Attilio Mussino (1878-1954, Italy) from the 1911 edition.

★ ''The Adventures of Pinocchio'' — the book, in Italian.

★ Pinocchio website, by the Carlo Collodi National Foundation

★ The Adventures of Pinocchio AKA Un burattino di nome Pinocchio Directed by Giuliano Cenci. Written by Mario Verger with an Introduction by Carlo Rambaldi. (In Italian)

★ Pinocchio's Page: Illustrated guidebooks with Pinocchio

★ Pinocchio's locations movie on Google earth