Monday, June 8, 2009

A giant awakes in Nantes / and that other puppet, P

A big yo yo yo to any Jules Vernes fans out there. (I am not one, myself, but...) Great pics at Socyberty, via almost everywhere. Check out the various Royale De Luxe vidi at youtube. Wiki.

And, speaking of wooden heads, yesterday I started reading Carlo Collodi's Pinocchio, in a new translation by Geoffrey Brock. Totally whacked. That is one unruly kid, and the relationship to Disney is razor thin. ADD /ADHD for sure. Older translations online here. I'm hoping someone I know reads it real soon, so I have someone to talk to about this.

2 comments:

GOT said...

Got up to chapter 12 and can see that you are right about the vast differences between Disney and the original post. The original to me is much more action packed and exciting. It is also similar to the German folk tales about Max and Moritz. The boys are very adventurous, know what they want and manage to get themselves into all kinds of trouble. The message is usually that you should really obey your parents because they are the only ones who will care if you accidentally burn your feet off. Everyone else, being pretty annoyed with your antics would sooner see you ground up into bits and fed to the birds. (That's what happened to Max and Moritz, anyway). Am looking forward to reading the rest.

Steve Lewis said...

For me, chapter three, when he kills the talking cricket with a mallet, and the cricket sticks to the wall, dead, was the "Oh" moment.