Pinocchio: The Tale of a Puppet

The original Pinocchio is nothing like the Disney film. This is a savage, funny, deeply strange fairy tale about a wooden puppet carved by the poor carpenter Geppetto, who longs for a son. From the moment Pinocchio comes to life, kicking, screaming, and immediately lying, nothing goes right. He lies and his nose grows. He runs away and gets murdered by the Cat and Fox. He drowns and is rescued only to starve. The fairy with green hair isn't a gentle guide but a menacing figure who presides over his near-execution. And yet somehow, through all the violence and chaos, Collodi tells a story about what it means to become human: to learn compassion, responsibility, and love. Written as a serial in 1883, this is also a sharp satirical masterpiece, a send-up of the newly unified Italy, of progress, of the lies adults tell children about what growing up means. It is bizarre and brutal and absolutely brilliant.