The child without character or destiny. Critical note on Giorgio Agamben’s Pinocchio

Abstract

This critical note on Pinocchio. Las aventuras de un títere dos veces comentadas y tres veces ilustradas, by Giorgio Agamben, proposes an interpretation of the book based on the notions of character and destiny according to Walter Benjamin’s conception. The relevance of using this pair of concepts as a hermeneutical key to the book under review lies in the fact that it reveals the philosophical sense of this reading of Pinocchio and, above all, of the propositional theses that Agamben has been deploying in recent years. To this end, a comparison is also made with Rafael Sánchez Ferlosio’s critique of Carlo Collodi’s Pinocchio. It is concluded that Agamben’s Pinocchio is a character who transcends that opposition because of his open character and his literary misfortune.