Should I read Carlo Collodi's The Adventures of Pinocchio before reading the book?
There's no need. The first part of the book already revisits Pinocchio's story.
It may be even better not to read it, because the Italian original often gets lost in translation.
Can you imagine there are almost 50 translations by now in German alone?
Each word in the story has a meaning, at times hidden below the surface.
Isn't Pinocchio symptomatic of a world full of fake news?
It's commonly believed that Pinocchio's nose grows when he lies.
But let's look at the facts: In the story, Pinocchio lies little actually.
For most lies, nothing happens. Most often, his nose grows when he doesn't lie.
It doesn't grow because of lying...
Pinocchio was published 150 years ago. How come his secrets remained undiscovered?
They are very well hidden.
I suspect Collodi could not not express them openly at the time he was writing.
But he left us concrete hints - like puzzle pieces, scattered across the text.
They lead deep into ancient Indian cosmology, Jewish mysticism, Egyptian and Greek mythology, and the Bible.
Is it fun to read the book?
There are about 20 entertaining dialogues.
Prometheus and Jesus speak with each other, Moses meets Plato, and we sail with Noah's ark.
We learn about love, from Paradise to quantum physics.
And a certain stone just can't help imitating a famous movie character...
