Pinocchio’s ruthless honesty

By Thomas V. Mirus ( bio - articles - email ) | Aug 02, 2024

When Carlo Collodi was writing The Story of a Puppet as a serial for an Italian weekly children’s magazine, the story originally ended with its protagonist dead by hanging at the hands of bandits, a stark lesson about what happens to children who disobey their parents and run away from home. Only after letters in protest came in from children all over Italy did Collodi write the second half of the book which became Pinocchio, in which the puppet is brought back to life by a blue-haired fairy, goes through more misadventures, rescues his father Geppetto from the belly of a whale, and finally becomes a real boy. The final version is no less didactic, to be sure, but rather more hopeful.

For those who may be familiar with the story but, like me, have never read the original 1883 novel, a new edition published in collaboration between Wiseblood Books and Well-Read Mom serves as a good introduction. Aside from some very attractive illustrations, the volume’s chief feature is a newly translated chapter-by-chapter theological commentary by Catholic writer Franco Nembrini, an educator and leader in the Communion & Liberation movement.

While the completed story redeems Pinocchio in the end, it still derives much of its power from its original focus: ruthless honesty about the evil inclinations right at the heart of man. As Geppetto works to carve his piece of wood into a puppet, the mystery of iniquity immediately appears: “The mouth was not even completed when it began to laugh and deride him.” The carpenter scolds, “You young rascal! You are not yet completed, and you are already beginning to show want of respect to your father!”

The moment Geppetto teaches Pinocchio to walk, he runs away from home. When we realize that we are ourselves still in the process of being created and formed by God, it highlights the childish absurdity of our attempts to run on our own, determining our own destiny. Adam and Eve, not yet having reached full spiritual maturity, chose to leave the Garden, and imprinted that impulse to run away from home on all their descendants.

Collodi’s unflinching portrayal of wanton disobedience continues as Pinocchio over and over betrays his good resolutions and promises to reform. As with many children’s stories and fairy tales from earlier eras, this one does not spare us the consequences. Pinocchio shows some signs of a good heart, but the arbitrary, willful arrogance and ingratitude with which he treats his father, and his contemptuous dismissal of every warning from the wise, is such that even though this is a cute kids’ story about a walking, talking puppet, we really believe he has no right to complain when he ends up hanging from a tree.

This makes his resurrection, and all the other second chances Pinocchio receives throughout the story, seem all the more gratuitous in the good sense of that word. Unfortunately, on a literary level, the puppet’s revival after hanging is not treated by Collodi with the drama, wonder and dignity it deserves, instead being crowded by nauseatingly whimsical details about a poodle who walks on two legs and his posh habillement, his carriage “lined in the inside with whipped cream, custard, and Savoy biscuits”, etc. Whatever Collodi’s intent, the effect is as though the author, giving in to his readers’ demands for a continuation, is rolling his eyes as he gets the wish-fulfillment over with. Thankfully, Pinocchio’s final transformation into a real boy is treated with a soberer simplicity.

Though no psychological excuses are made for Pinocchio’s sins, Collodi still shows keen understanding of the mental logic of transgression, as well as the gradual process of maturation Pinocchio must undergo, mixed in of course with further backsliding and mistakes. This is where Franco Nembrini’s commentary excels at drawing out details. For instance, when Pinocchio is tempted by his friend Candlewick to run away from school and seek the “Land of Boobies” where boys never have to work or study, Nembrini points out the many signs that even while Pinocchio claims resistance to temptation, his mind is already made up to give in:

“No, no, no, and again no,” he says, when a nice, flat “no” would have been much more serious. Four times is too many. If you start by saying “No, no, no, and again no,” it means you are already trying to convince yourself, and surrender is near. There are times when an apparently resolute resistance to wickedness is really little more than a white flag, a surrender to wickedness that we attempt to disguise behind a false option for goodness that is already dead in the water.

After this useless flood of “no,” Pinocchio raises the stakes: “I [already] promised my good Fairy.” The word “already, appearing in the original Italian, means that Pinocchio regrets having promised. What he means is: At this point I can’t go back on my word—too bad. This is repentance in reverse: we can regret the goodness we have known and received. We can go back even on our experience of goodness.

Nembrini, who has also written a commentary on the Divine Comedy, goes on to parallel this chapter with the famous incident of Paolo and Francesca.

The theme of obedience present in so many fairy tales, and neglected or subverted in modern renditions, is not just a matter of social control: it is central to the whole human tragedy and to our comedy as well. If disobedience is fatal, Pinocchio also shows that obedience is for our good. If we stop fighting to avoid it, the practice of obedience has the power to re-create us, giving God free rein to turn a heart of stone (or in this case, wood) into a heart of flesh. And if we recognize our sins as not just the product of psychological and environmental factors but above all, the desire to keep our own will independent of the Father’s, we will rightly see ourselves not as victims entitled to clemency, but as rebels in need of it.

Only when we are truly honest about ourselves and our evil tendencies can we then turn in gratitude and submit to the Maker for the needed adjustments. The irony is that our own self-aggrandizement blinds us to the full measure of good that God has placed in us, and which He (in close cooperation with the “blue fairy” to whom He has entrusted us as Mother) is so eager to repair, perfect, and augment.