400
Considering who jumps up and down and runs circles around the world, those
myriad dramatic personae of Collodi’s tale, we all may one day—if we haven’t
already—look back at Pinocchio and recognize ourselves in this Tuscan mirror,
gaze directly upon the tragic-comedy of the human saga—the insanity of a biological crisis we have unleashed in the name of ourselves, for the sake of our children,
and their children—and know that we can turn tragedy into something altogether
different: the joy and sheer amazement that biodiversity and her gorgeous, endlessly
inventive cleverness provides the human imagination. We feast upon Pinocchio in
the sense that his own love of life is never satiated.
Curiously, Collodi questions childhood in an ambiguous manner, suggesting that
their indifference, at times, to the health of the earth, their stubborn refusal to obey
rules, to step into line, and to be good little boys and girls, may be the salvation, or
the destruction we see everywhere around us in the twenty-first century. Indeed,
Pinocchio is ready to squash the cricket, and there is plenty of evidence within the
tale to indicate ill-boding currents that go far more than merely implicating the lie
of a generic non-violence. Collodi suggests, as Orwell would in Animal Farm, that
power is not merely vested in humanity, but in Nature herself—and Nature is not
without her cruelties—though it is humanity that most easily abuses those privileges
scattered freely by natural selection.
Pinocchio and his habitat is all that (cursed, uncursed, predictable, unpredictable), in addition to being delightful! Hence, a psychological thriller that prefers the
joy of discovery to the dark corridors of what is actually going on. But they are not
mutually exclusive, and what Lorenzini did by joining them was, obviously, a masterful way to unlock that which had been kept secret, far off in a dark forest of his
ancestral landscapes. It started there, in Tuscany, birthplace not only of the
Lorenzinis, but also of Dante and Botticelli, Leonardo da Vinci and Galileo, Petrarch
and Vespucci. The great Puccini hailed from this region where the local word,
pinolo, or pignolia, referring to the native pine nut, has everything to do with
Pinocchio, and the origins of this particular adaptation. Tuscany is to Italy what
Burgundy is to France—biologically and artistically. There could be no more perilous, entrancing, and meaningful paradox than that which begins in humanity’s
childhood, amid an eruption of story-tales that all have something sobering to add.
44.3 The Loyalty of Trees
Of the nearly 125 species of pine worldwide (molecular biologists and botanists
debate the precise number, of course), about 20 of them produce edible seeds, or
nuts. The predominant European pine nut comes from the Stone Pine (Pinus pinea),
and in Tuscany it has been cultivated for some six millennia. Neanderthals probably
harvested it from wild trees, the original members of the Pinaceae family. In the Old
Testament, Hosea 14:8, there is a green fir tree mentioned and scholars recognize in
it a fruit that was probably the same Stone Pine nut found in many parts of Europe,
not just Italy. The tree was worshipped by the Greeks because it was sacred to the
44 Collodi’s Garden and the Misadventures of Pinocchio
Considering who jumps up and down and runs circles around the world, those
myriad dramatic personae of Collodi’s tale, we all may one day—if we haven’t
already—look back at Pinocchio and recognize ourselves in this Tuscan mirror,
gaze directly upon the tragic-comedy of the human saga—the insanity of a biological crisis we have unleashed in the name of ourselves, for the sake of our children,
and their children—and know that we can turn tragedy into something altogether
different: the joy and sheer amazement that biodiversity and her gorgeous, endlessly
inventive cleverness provides the human imagination. We feast upon Pinocchio in
the sense that his own love of life is never satiated.
Curiously, Collodi questions childhood in an ambiguous manner, suggesting that
their indifference, at times, to the health of the earth, their stubborn refusal to obey
rules, to step into line, and to be good little boys and girls, may be the salvation, or
the destruction we see everywhere around us in the twenty-first century. Indeed,
Pinocchio is ready to squash the cricket, and there is plenty of evidence within the
tale to indicate ill-boding currents that go far more than merely implicating the lie
of a generic non-violence. Collodi suggests, as Orwell would in Animal Farm, that
power is not merely vested in humanity, but in Nature herself—and Nature is not
without her cruelties—though it is humanity that most easily abuses those privileges
scattered freely by natural selection.
Pinocchio and his habitat is all that (cursed, uncursed, predictable, unpredictable), in addition to being delightful! Hence, a psychological thriller that prefers the
joy of discovery to the dark corridors of what is actually going on. But they are not
mutually exclusive, and what Lorenzini did by joining them was, obviously, a masterful way to unlock that which had been kept secret, far off in a dark forest of his
ancestral landscapes. It started there, in Tuscany, birthplace not only of the
Lorenzinis, but also of Dante and Botticelli, Leonardo da Vinci and Galileo, Petrarch
and Vespucci. The great Puccini hailed from this region where the local word,
pinolo, or pignolia, referring to the native pine nut, has everything to do with
Pinocchio, and the origins of this particular adaptation. Tuscany is to Italy what
Burgundy is to France—biologically and artistically. There could be no more perilous, entrancing, and meaningful paradox than that which begins in humanity’s
childhood, amid an eruption of story-tales that all have something sobering to add.
44.3 The Loyalty of Trees
Of the nearly 125 species of pine worldwide (molecular biologists and botanists
debate the precise number, of course), about 20 of them produce edible seeds, or
nuts. The predominant European pine nut comes from the Stone Pine (Pinus pinea),
and in Tuscany it has been cultivated for some six millennia. Neanderthals probably
harvested it from wild trees, the original members of the Pinaceae family. In the Old
Testament, Hosea 14:8, there is a green fir tree mentioned and scholars recognize in
it a fruit that was probably the same Stone Pine nut found in many parts of Europe,
not just Italy. The tree was worshipped by the Greeks because it was sacred to the
44 Collodi’s Garden and the Misadventures of Pinocchio