Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi

First a disclaimer: It feels impossible to talk about my experience of this book without dealing with the Disney cartoon....so Disney, please don't sue me, I have not nice things to say about what you did to this story.

Alright, but what's new about that. Disney is forever adapting classic stories and departing mightily from their base material. So, I wasn't exactly shocked. Although in this case, it feels like Disney really tried to preserve the basic lesson of the story but ended up stripping away much of Pinocchio's character development.

I'm getting ahead of myself.

Pinocchio was first published in 1883 and is the fable about a sentient wooden puppet who wishes to be a real boy. Pinocchio, however, starts out as one of the most impossibly awful kid imaginable. He lies, he argues, he's violent, and he never does what he's told. I mean kids do all those things, but not generally to the exclusion of all other behavior. Pinocchio then spends the two or so years of the narrative going through a constant series of adventures that would be more properly labeled trials. Each of these adventures begins when Pinocchio does something bad and, as a result of his actions, horrible things happen to him and usually ends with him crying and lamenting both his behavior and his situation. At that point, a parental figure of some sort forgives him and he resolves to be better. Of the entirety of the novel Pinocchio gradually improves and does eventually become a real boy.

The fable works really on only one level, but there is some interesting subtly to it. Pinocchio is a puppet and therefore not real. In order to become real, he must learn to act as a 'good boy.' So to be human is to act in accordance with virtue.  To act out of step with this virtues makes a person less than human. These virtues are explicitly stated several times. Good boys listen and obey their parent figures, they go to school, study, and work hard. They also are selfless to the needs of others, generous, industrious, and honest. Failing any of these virtues lands Pinocchio into trouble, but Collodi seems feel that dishonesty and slothfulness are particularly bad and reserves special punishments for them. When Pinocchio is dishonest his nose grows and slothfulness turns little boys into donkeys.

Pinocchio also fits the mold as an epic hero in the sense that he descends into the underworld (several times actually) and is transformed by it.

Collodi was writing in the time right after the unification of Italy and all his children's books are apparently didactic. He was addressing what he felt were the ills of the youth of his time. Apparently Italian youth were particularly dishonest and idle.

As is always the case, the book is better than the movie. Pinocchio is actually one of my least favorite Disney movies because it all seems so disjointed and episodic. The book puts those disjointed scenes in context and gives Pinocchio a real character arc.