The Invention of Solitude

sailors were all saved, but the ship went right down to the bottom of the sea, and the same Terrible Shark that swallowed me, swallowed most of it…. To my own good luck, that ship was loaded with meat, preserved foods, crackers, bread, bottles of wine, raisins, cheese, coffee, sugar, wax candles, and boxes of matches. With all these blessings, I have been able to live on for two whole years, but now I am at the very last crumbs. Today there is nothing left in the cupboard, and this candle you see here is the last one I have. ”
    “ And then? ”
    “ And then, my dear, we ’ ll find ourselves in darkness. ”
    For A. and his son, so often separated from each other during the past year, there was something deeply satisfying in this passage of reunion. In effect, Pinocchio and Gepetto are separated throughout the entire book. Gepetto is given the mysterious piece of talking wood by the carpenter, Master Cherry, in the second chapter. In the third chapter the old man sculpts the Marionette. Even before Pinocchio is finished, his pranks and mischief begin. “ I deserve it, ” says Gepetto to himself. “ I should have thought of this before I made him. Now it ’ s too late. ” At this point, like any newborn baby, Pinocchio is pure will, libidinous need without consciousness. Very rapidly, over the next few pages, Gepetto teaches his son to walk, the Marionette experiences hunger and accidentally burns his feet off—which his father rebuilds for him. The next day Gepetto sells his coat to buy Pinocchio an A-B-C book for school ( “ Pinocchio understood…and, u nable to restrain his tears, he jumped on his father ’ s neck and kissed him over and over ” ), and then, for more than two hundred pages, they do not see each other again. The rest of the book tells the story of Pinocchio ’ s search for his father—and Gepetto ’ s search for his son. At some point, Pinoc- chio realizes that he wants to become a real boy. But it also becomes clear that this will not happen until he is reunited with his father. Adventures, misadventures, detours, new resolves, struggles, hap penstance, progress, setbacks, and through it all, the gradual dawning of conscience. The superiority of the Collodi original to the Disney adaptation lies in its reluctance to make the inner motivations of the story explicit. They remain intact, in a pre- conscious, dream-like form, whereas in Disney these things are ex pressed—which sentimentalizes them, and therefore trivializes them. In Disney, Gepetto prays for a son; in Collodi, he simply makes him. The physical act of shaping the puppet (from a piece of wood that talks, that is alive, which mirrors Michaelangelo ’ s no tion of sculpture: the figure is already there in the material; the artist merely hews away at the excess matter until the true form is re vealed, implying that Pinocchio ’ s being precedes his body: his task throughout the book is to find it, in other words to find himself, which means that this is a story of becoming rather than of birth), this act of shaping the puppet is enough to convey the idea of the prayer, and surely it is more powerful for remaining silent. Likewise with Pinocchio ’ s efforts to attain real boyhood. In Disney, he is commanded by the Blue Fairy to be “ brave, truthful, and unself ish, ” as though there were an easy formula for taking hold of the self. In Collodi, there are no directives. Pinocchio simply blunders about, simply lives, and little by little comes to an awareness of what he can become. The only improvement Disney makes on the story, and this is perhaps arguable, comes at the end, in the episode of the escape from the Terrible Shark (Monstro the Whale). In Col lodi, the Shark ’ s mouth is open (he suffers from asthma and heart disease), and to organize the escape Pinocchio needs no more than courage. “ Then, my dear Father, there is no time to lose. We must escape. ”
    “ Escape! How? ”
    “ We can run out of the Shark ’ s mouth and dive into the sea. ”
    “ You speak well, but I cannot swim, my dear Pinocchio. ”
    “ Why should that matter? You can climb on my shoulders and I, who am a fine swimmer, will carry you safely to shore. ”
    “ Dreams, my boy! ” answered Gepetto, shaking his head and smiling sadly. “ Do you think it possible for a Marionette, a yard high, to have the strength to carry me on his shoulders and swim? ”
    “ Try it and see! And in any case, if it is written that we must die,