Publisher's Synopsis
Carlo Collodi, was an Italian children's writer known for the world-renowned fairy tale novel, The Adventures of Pinocchio. (pinocchio story) The Adventures of Pinocchio is a story about an animated marionette, boys who turn into donkeys and other fairy tale devices that would be familiar to a reader of Alice in Wonderland or the Brothers Grimm. However, Pinocchio's world is not in a traditional fairy-tale world, instead containing the hard realities of the need for food, shelter and the basic measures of daily life. In fact, the setting of the story is the very real Tuscan area of Italy. It was a unique literary melding of genres for its time. The story's Italian language is peppered with Florentine dialect features, such as the protagonist's Florentine name. In the 1850s, Collodi began to have a variety of both fiction and non-fiction books published. Once, he translated some French fairy-tales so well that he was asked whether he would like to write some of his own. In 1881, he sent a short episode in the life of a wooden puppet to a friend who edited a newspaper in Rome, wondering whether the editor would be interested in publishing this "bit of foolishness" in his children's section. The editor did, and the children loved it. The adventures of Pinocchio were serialized in the paper in 1881-2, and then published in 1883 with huge success.[1] 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 Fairy with Turquoise Hair (or "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 more suitable for children. In the second half of the book, the maternal figure of the Blue-haired 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 the 19th century. Thus in content and style it was new and modern, opening the way to many writers of the following century. The story begins in Tuscany as Antonio the carpenter begins to carve a leg for his table from a piece of pine wood. However, the log shouts out, "Don't strike me too hard!" Frightened, he does not know what to do until his neighbour Geppetto, drops by looking for a piece of wood to build a marionette. Antonio gives the block to Geppetto. As Geppetto carves the puppet, the nose begins to grow. Geppetto is poor and wants to make a living as a puppeteer. He carves the block into a boy he names "Pinocchio". As soon as his nose is carved, it begins to grow longer and longer. When he is finished, Geppetto teaches Pinocchio to walk, whereupon he runs out the door and into town. He is caught by a Carabiniere, but when people say that Geppetto dislikes children, the carabiniere assumes that Pinocchio has been mistreated and imprisons Geppetto. Alone, Pinocchio goes back to Geppetto's house. Unable to find food, he goes in the middle of the night to a neighbor's house to beg for food. The annoyed neighbor pours a basin of water on him from an upstairs window. Freezing, Pinocchio returns home and tries to warm himself by placing his feet upon the stove. The next morning he wakes to find that his feet have burned off. Geppetto, who has been released from jail and has three pears for a meal, makes him a new pair of feet and clothes to wear. In gratitude, Pinocchio promises to go to school. Since Geppetto has no money to buy a school book (Abbecedario), he sells his only coat. Pinocchio Pinocchio is a naughty, pine-wood marionette who gains wisdom through a series of misadventures which lead him to becoming a real human as reward for his good deeds.
