"Pinocchio" by Carlo Collodi

This book is odd.

I thought, from its reputation, that it was written sometime in the 1700s. It wasn't. It was written, and is set, in the 1880s. But it seems older. It's also shorter than I expected; I thought it was going to be really long and take me forever to read, and I was wrong about that.

Pinocchio (which I always want to spell Pinnochio, with two N's and one C) is one of those morality stories that don't even bother to stop just short of hitting you over the head with their moral lessons. It hammers home its point of "boys should be good and not lazy or disobedient" with what may as well be an actual hammer. And also with some really strange situations -- Pinocchio's entire school class going to the Land of Toys for five months and then spontaneously transforming into donkeys comes to mind. As I said, this book is odd.

Early on in the story, Pinocchio visits the Inn of the Red Lobster. I can only assume that they have good biscuits there.

For all that "Pinocchio's nose gets longer whenever he tells a lie" is what everyone thinks of when they hear "Pinocchio", that's not actually a major part of the book. It's in a grand total of one scene. The getting-eaten-by-a-giant-shark, however, is a more major part of the book.

Pinocchio does get better, eventually, but it takes being put into a situation where getting better is literally his only option. It also takes him almost the entire book before he gets put into that situation, so for most of the book, despite his efforts (of varying sincerity) to get better, he keeps being lured away or presented with an easy way out. Which makes him slightly annoying to read.

This review is part of my first completed quest.

Were this a videogame, I'd rate it: E10+ for being weird. There's bits of it that are honestly creepy if you think about them for long enough.

3 stars. 

Favorite lines:

    "I am the ghost of the Talking Cricket."

    Page I-haven't-the-faintest-idea-because-I-read-this-on-Project-Gutenberg-and-it-was-just-one-long-text-file-with-no-page-breaks. It's said by the ghost of the Talking Cricket, and it greatly amused me for some reason. I'm not sure why.

(Endnote: Sadly, my endnote was swallowed by the Terrible Shark.)