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Revision as of 09:35, 19 October 2013
, 09:35, 19 October 2013no edit summary
But that's in the original – and that will always be the delight of the original, to see quite a lot of morals and aphorisms delivered in such a nice way; that and the fact that Collodi actually had far more talking animals that Disney ever dreamt of. Every beat of the original is replicated here, apart I think from Gepetto's friend at the beginning. There is certainly a case for saying that the immediacy of the first person narration will aid in getting the story across, and we do gain the 'other', modern time Pinocchio looking back on his story, talking about how it became a film, and admitting he was a fool. But a slip in printing where we get a short paragraph in the third person suggests Morpurgo was actually at one time just intending a straight translation of his own, and all power to his elbow I don't think he's varied the content enough to really justify his change.
What's more, with a fine translation such as that by [[Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi, Geoffrey Brock, Umberto Eco and Fulvio Testa|Geoffrey Brock]]you don't need anything to be made more immediate or overt – the writing is fresh enough and clear enough. Plus, you don't get modern colloquialisms such as here. I gave up counting the number of times this Pinocchio ''legged it'', ''lickety-spit'' or otherwise. I was waiting for one of the famous characters to ''rock up'', and for him to ''be across'' story.
Still, I will admit that in getting the name Pinocchio back into everyone's thoughts it might have been necessary to add Morpurgo's name to that of Collodi. You can also add that of Emma Chichester Clark, for her work is great – nicely painted scenes, with what I guess are pencilled or crayoned characters and collaged tree textures and fabric patterned birds overlain. But I go back to my hope that the original creator was enough, and say again that really this isn't the most necessary edition ever. Just as Ms Clark's image of the policeman poised to nab Pinocchio looked far too similar to that in the [[ ]]Brock, so this does not go far enough in its changes. My edition is ''Pinocchio by Pinocchio'' on the paper cover, and just ''Pinocchio'' on the hardback within. Proof, I think, that for all his work and cleverness, Morpurgo has not altered the contents as much as he was able.
I must thank the publishers for my review copy of this book, which remains a classic, in whichever edition you choose.
