In my last post I spoke about reading for the pleasure of reading. Interestingly, my randomizer picked up a children’s book for me. It is the story of the puppet whose nose grows longer whenever he lies. The book Pinocchio by Carlo Collodi adds so much to the well known tale of the sentient puppet.

If you have seen the Disney animated movie, reading the book will have surprises for you. Pinocchio is one of the greatest and most celebrated animated movies. But the book that inspired the movie has details that will shock you. Imagine Jiminy Cricket, the narrator of the Disney movie and the conscience keeper for Pinocchio, as the “talking cricket” who gets killed in the first encounter with Pinocchio. Just imagine…

The book is a tale for boys (not kids, boys) and attempts to teach them the morality of the day and age. The moral lessons are simple – listen to your elders, go to school, do not lead a life a laziness and play, work for your needs and wants. If you do all of this, you will grow up to be a boy. If you don’t do this, you will eventually become a donkey. Have you heard this mentioned so literally? I hadn’t. If you don’t follow what we tell you, you will become a donkey and Pinocchio turns into a donkey (a full fledged donkey, and not the cute one as in the movie).

The story, as expected, is fantastical. Everything is possible in the world that Pinocchio inhabits. The tale starts with a carpenter encountering a piece of wood which cries when it is hit by the tools of carpentry. After an episode of slapstick comedy, the carpenter gives the piece of wood to his neighbour Geppetto. Geppetto makes that piece of wood in to a puppet and the proper story starts from there.

Pinocchio is portrayed as a nasty kid to start with. He doesn’t care about anyone and proceeds to run away from home. The police assumes that he has been mistreated and arrests Geppetto. However, the school of hard knocks that is life teaches Pinocchio some lessons and he comes back to home, hungry and miserable. He is unable to find anything to eat and terribly misses Geppetto. The talking cricket, more than a hundred years old, gives some life advice to Pinocchio. He tells Pinocchio that he should listen to his elders and be a good boy. In return, Pinocchio gets angry and throws a hammer at the cricket, killing him.

There is no Geppetto and there is no one to provide food in the house. Pinocchio tries to find food, but his luck is such that when he finds an egg and breaks it, a chick comes out and flies away. Leaving him hungrier than before. Pinocchio then goes out in the night to find some food, encounters a neighbor who doesn’t trust young boys and dumps cold water on him. Pinocchio returns home wet and much more miserable than before. To feel warmth, he puts up his feet close to the fireplace and his legs burn off while he is sleeping. All of this during the first day of his life as a sentient being on this planet.

Collodi has written a book for boys and he doesn’t leave any opportunity to “hammer” his worldview about morality to the boys who will read the adventure story.

During the story Pinocchio goes through all the perils that the boys who do not listen to their elders might go through during those times. Geppetto takes Pinocchio as a son. He wants him to study and be a good boy. But going to school means access to a Primer and the books were expensive during those days. Gepetto sells his old coat to buy a Primer for Pinocchio. But Pinocchio sells the Primer in exchange for a ticket for a show at the theatre. At the theatre, the other puppets recognize him as part of the puppet family and “recruit” him in their team. Ultimately, Pinocchio pleases the puppet master so much that he releases him and gives him five gold pieces. A much reformed Pinocchio heads for home and wants to buy his father a new coat and become a good boy hereafter.

But on his journey back he encounters a fox and a cat, who tell him tall tales about a field of miracles where you can grow trees of gold from the pieces of gold that you have. The reader knows that even in this world of fantasy this is a con-scheme. But Pinocchio believes them and at huge perils to his life and limb, ultimately loses everything. Many more such episodes are there – involving the blue fairy, the great terrible fish and Toyland. It is the Toyland where Pinocchio turns into a donkey – very apt for the day and age.

And yes, the book has the reference to growing nose of Pinocchio when he lies. That is how the blue fairy catches him lying. But when he accepts his lies, the fairy calls woodpeckers who peck away his nose to the normal size.

In this world, the only saving grace for Pinocchio is that he has a heart of gold. After the first day of his life, he always wants to do the right thing, it’s the circumstances and the people who lead him astray. The tale is a warning against the people who talk about the importance of play and the boys who do not take work seriously. Pinocchio is a wooden puppet who is sentient, but if he wants to become a boy – he should study, he should work and he should be good. In the story Pinocchio does all this and becomes a boy. The metaphor is that if the real boys do not do all this then they are no better than puppets and if they go too far in the Toyland, they can become donkeys as well.