Carlo Collodi's The Adventures of Pinocchio: Story of a Puppet
Translated, with an "Introduction" and "Notes", by John Hooper and Anna Kraczyna
Don't let's call the whole thing off...
Like Felix Salten's Bambi: a Life in the Woods, Collodi's story of a wooden puppet that desires to be a real boy comes to us as an English translation of the original Italian.
I had thought to read at least one more translation before writing this post, just for comparison, but, by the time that I'd finished reading this version, that plan was out the window. This version has it all: an excellent introduction, an engaging translation, and a multitude of notes (179!) that offer a deeper understanding of the text.
Pinocchio is a story for children but it is not a children's book per se. Collodi - more on the man later - really understood and accurately conveyed the impulsive and at times (too many times!) destructive thoughts and actions of the immature psyche and developing mind left free from guidance and restraint. More simply put, the kid was a brat.
In all fairness, the kid was a piece of wood, so maybe some allowances might be made, but, anyway, in a nutshell, here's the story.
A poor carpenter named Master Antonio, called Mr. Cherry, picks up a piece of wood for a little bit of carving, and the wood vocally protests. Mr. Cherry, who hates his nickname, is then visited by his old friend Geppetto, nickname Cornmush, and the two fall into fisticuffs and mutual insults because both believe that the other is calling them by their despised nicknames. The one doing the calling is the talking stick of wood, which ends up going home with Geppetto, and being carved into a wooden puppet named Pinocchio.
Right off the bat, trouble ensues. Pinocchio won't listen to Geppetto, and runs away. When Geppetto finally catches him, the townspeople looking on mistake Geppetto's remonstrances as ill-treatment, and Geppetto finds himself thrown into jail. Back home, Pinocchio ignores the Talking Cricket, who warns him no good end comes to children who disobey their father and refuse to go to school. The Talking Cricket is killed - not deliberately, I'll give the puppet that much - when Pinocchio, in an effort to get him to stop talking - flings a wooden mallet at him.
And the boulder just keeps rolling downhill from there...
Reunited, Geppetto sells his only coat to buy Pinocchio a spelling book so that he can go to school, an action that Pinocchio fully intends to do, until he is tempted by a puppet show, and sells the book for the cost of admission. He avoids becoming firewood for the owner to roast his dinner, and even leaves with five gold coins, which he firmly intends to bring home to Geppetto, but alas, is waylaid again by two tricksters posing as beggars - a Cat and a Fox - who lure Pinocchio away from his good intentions by promising easy money through the planting of the five gold coins in a the Field of Miracles in DoDoLand (you see where this is going) where the five will miraculously multiply to 500, or even 5000 by the next morning.
The end result of this little escapade is Pinocchio hanging from a tree, the Big Oak, by two murderers who bear an uncanny resemblance to Cat and Fox, and is then saved by the beautiful Little Girl with blue hair. Did he learn his lesson? Absolutely not. He was once taken in again by the Cat and the Fox, mocked by a Parrot, and thrown in jail by a judge because he was robbed.
Several more misadventures occur, the beautiful Little Girl appears in a few more iterations, sometimes as a Fairy, sometimes as a Goat, and, living with her at one point, Pinocchio finally does go to school for a while. Right on the cusp of a celebration where he would become a real boy - he really has been very good - he is lured away by his no-good schoolmate Lampwick to a place called Playland, in a cart full of boys the same age and driven by the Little Man and pulled by donkeys. On the journey to Playland, Pinocchio hears voices that warn him of what befalls boys who neglect their schooling, and at one point he tells the Little Man that one of the donkeys is crying. The Little Man tut-tuts the idea and administers his own version of "care" on the offending creature.
Some time goes by, and, lo and behold, Pinocchio turns into a donkey, and is sold in the marketplace to a man who wants to use his donkey hide as a drum. The man ties a stone around Pinocchio's neck and throws him into the sea to kill him. Pulling him out later, he is amazed to find not a dead donkey, but a talking wooden puppet, who jumps back into the water and swims away.
Pinocchio is then swallowed by a giant shark, along with Tuna, and, in his search for a way of escape, stumbles upon poor Geppetto, who had been swallowed two years previous when he took to sea in a small boat in search of the missing Pinocchio. Geppetto has survived these two years by living off the remains of a sunken ship the shark had also swallowed. But now, the supplies were gone, and the lit candle on the table is his last one.
Pinocchio tells his father that they can escape through the shark's mouth. Geppetto protests that he cannot swim. Pinocchio replies not a problem, Dad, just climb on my shoulders and I'll swim for both of us. Candle in hand, the two make their way to the shark's mouth. But when the predator sneezed, it threw them back into his stomach. The candle went out, and in total darkness, Pinocchio led his father back, and, telling Geppetto to jump on his shoulders, leaped out into the sea and began swimming for land.
But land was further away than it looked, and finally, Pinocchio tells his father to save himself, because he is dying. Just in time, the Tuna, also swallowed by the big shark, comes along. The Tuna tells Pinocchio that he escaped the shark by following Pinocchio's example. The Tuna then tells father and son to get on his back, and swims them back to shore.
As the two walk, they come across Cat and Fox, begging by the side of the road having fallen into wretched poverty. They plead with Pinocchio to help them, but Pinocchio refuses, and tells them that they brought their current fate upon themselves.
Coming up to a small hut, they knock, and discover that the Talking Cricket is the owner. (Talking Crickets seem to have nine lives in Collodi's world) and after scolding Pinocchio for his former treatment - no one appreciates getting smashed by a wooden mallet - they settle in. Pinocchio thens goes to work for John Joe, a man who raises vegetables and cows, so he can afford to buy Geppetto a glass of milk. He works every day for five months.
One day, on his way to the market, he encounters Snail, who informs him that that the Blue-haired Fairy is very ill. Pinocchio takes the money he was going to use to buy a new outfit and gives it to the Snail to help the Fairy. He tells Snail that from then on, he'll work extra hours every day to provide not only for his dad, but also his mom, a.k.a., the Blue-haired Fairy.
In a dream that night, the Fairy appears to him, and says because of his kind heart, she will forgive all of his bad behavior up til then. She tells him to use good judgement in the future, and that it will make him happy.
The next morning, Pinocchio wakes up, his straw hut now a cozy little cottage, an ailing Geppetto now hale and hearty, and most important of all, Pinocchio is now a real boy.
And the wooden puppet? Propped up in a chair across the room.
Hopefully, he stays there.
A few thoughts ...
Similar to Bambi, my only exposure to Pinocchio was the 1940 Disney film. I haven't seen Guillermo del Toro's 2022 version or Disney's live-action remake directed by Robert Zemeckis, so I can't make any comparisons between the three. Suffice to say, the 1940 version is a much lighter treatment of the story than the actual book (except for the boys turning into donkeys at Pleasure Island - that was scary as all get out).
In the book, Pinocchio's nose will sometimes grow when he tells a lie, but not always. Nobody in the book breaks into song, and Talking Cricket is a pretty dour fellow compared to the lively Jiminy Cricket.
Pinocchio's world as written by Collodi is one of extreme poverty, where hope for a better future lies in education.
Collodi, born Carlo Lorenzini in Florence in 1826, fought in both of Italy's Wars of Independence, and witnessed the unification of Italy and establishment as an independent country. As a writer and journalist, he championed the cause of education, and with the enactment of free compulsory education, saw a rise in literacy rate at unification from 25 percent of the populace to almost 40 percent twenty years later.
This was not simply a matter of teaching everyone Italian, because only a minority of the new nation spoke Italian. There were many different dialects and traditions from the different areas, and if you can't speak or read the language, communication between individuals is a serious problem. Several times in the book, Pinocchio and others speak "in dialect", a reference to the situation.
Collodi became disenchanted by the politics of reunification, the Risorgimento in Italian, and starting writing children's books in 1881, the year the first chapter of Pinocchio appeared as Story of a Puppet in the Giornale per i bambini - Newspaper for Children - and ending after 19 installments in 1883. At that point, the stories were repackaged into a book titled The Adventures of Pinocchio: Story of a Puppet.
Collodi's dedication to education shone through in the story. Pinocchio kept falling into trouble because he refused schooling and hung around with unsavory characters. One character after another warns Pinocchio of his dire fate if he remains a virtual blockhead, and Pinocchio suffers numerous consequences as a result when ignoring their advice.
Collodi, in my opinion, really captures the vulnerability of children in making good choices, despite their best intentions. How many times in the book does Pinocchio start out on the right path, the one he knows is correct, be it school or work, and then gets led astray by temptation, in the form of puppet shows or bad companions? Many, many, times. Good choices require education and the hard work of thinking.
At times, through various characters, Collodi delivers his message with the nuance of a sledgehammer, but he is, after all, writing for children. Sometimes, you really do need to lay it on the line.
What keeps these little homilies from getting out of control is Collodi's wonderful imagery of a world of talking puppets, Blue-haired Little Girls that become Fairies, reincarnated Talking Crickets, his humor (there is a lot, some dry, some wry, some much more obvious in Italian), and despite some scary happenings (no one wants to get rolled in flour and fried for someone's dinner), the sheer joy of the story.
Pinocchio is an excellent read-aloud for the intermediate grades and up, and, because it began in serial form, every chapter ends in a cliffhanger, leaving the listeners eager for more. There are thirty-six chapters, most only a few pages long, so you're not looking at a heavy time investment.
I don't know if Italian is still offered in many high schools, but if it is, this book would be a wonderful addition to the curriculum, and particularly this version.
I discovered an 2022 article from Smithsonian Magazine about Pinocchio with a lot of interesting information on the books impact in Italy and about Carlo Collodi. You can read it here.
Coming up next: E. Nesbit's Five Children and It.
