Pinocchio (22 page)

Similarly, the mecha David is “reunited” briefly with the mother of his dreams at the end of
A.I.
, but neither she nor he is real, and their “perfect day” of mother-son bonding is disturbingly hollow. Pinocchio's and David's “dreams come true,” as Disney's Jiminy Cricket so movingly sings, but at what price? Who put these dreams of perfect goodness and filial bonding into their heads? In reality, boys' dreams of idealized mother figures might be comforting to them, but the dreams of their fathers or father figures who are avid for total control of their sons—effectively the motherless puppets that male children so often are in societies and cultures in which the feminine symbolic is radically marginalized—can be, if realized, our worst nightmares come to life.

—
REBECCA WEST

[1]
Glauco Cambon, “
Pinocchio
and the Problem of Children's Literature,” in
The Great Excluded: Journal of MLA Seminar in Children's Literature
(1973), 50–60.

[2]
Eugenio Scalfari, “Vi racconto il mio
Pinocchio
.” Interview with Roberto Benigni, (February 7, 2001), available at www.larepubblica.it.

[3]
Nicolas J. Perella, “An Essay on
Pinocchio
” in
Le avventure di Pinocchio/The Adventures of Pinocchio
, by Carlo Collodi, trans. by Perella (University of California Press, 1986), 1–69.

[4]
Mary Russo,
The Female Grotesque: Risk, Excess and Modernity
(Routledge, 1994).

[5]
Rodolfo Tommasi,
Pinocchio: analisi di un burattino
(Florence: Sansoni, 1992).

[6]
Roger Ebert,
The Great Movies
(Broadway, 2002).

THIS IS A NEW YORK REVIEW BOOK

PUBLISHED BY THE NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKS

435 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10014

www.nyrb.com

Translation copyright © 2009 by Geoffrey Brock

Introduction copyright © 2009 by Umberto Eco

Afterword copyright © 2009 by Rebecca West

All rights reserved.

Cover image: Tim Rollins and K.O.S., Pinocchio (detail), 1991; photo: Zindman/Fremont; courtesy of the artist and Mary Boone Gallery, New York

Cover design: Katy Homans

The Library of Congress has cataloged the earlier printing as follows:

Collodi, Carlo, 1826–1890.

[Avventure di Pinocchio. English]

The Adventures of Pinocchio / by Carlo Collodi; introduction by Umberto Eco; translation by Geoffrey Brock.

   p. cm. — (New York Review Books classics)

ISBN 978-1-59017-289-6 (alk. paper)

I. Brock, Geoffrey, 1964– II. Title.

PQ4712.L4A713 2008

853′.8—dc22

2008019734

Interior illustrations adapted from Attilio Mussino's drawings for
Le Avventure di Pinocchio
, published in 1911

eISBN 978-1-59017-549-1
v1.0

For a complete list of books in the NYRB Classics series, visit
www.nyrb.com
or write to:
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