Bambi, A Life In The Woods is not a children's book.
This was the inspiration for Walt Disney's 1942 animated film Bambi, a ballet, and a stage play, but the original 1923 coming-of-age novel by Felix Salten has very adult themes mixed with a love for all the different beings who populate the forest.
It is one of the very first environmental novels.
Felix Salten writes this life study of a forest deer like a poet, deeply feeling the rhythm of nature beyond conversation.
Bambi came into the world in the middle of a thicket. "What a beautiful child," cried the magpie. It was early summer and the trees stood still. "Out of the earth came whole troops of flowers, like motley stars, so that the soil of the twilit forest floor shone with a silent, ardent, colourful gladness. Everything smelled of fresh leaves, of blossoms, of moist clods and green wood.
Bambi lived with his mother in a little glade, the whole wood resounding with a thousand voices, and Bambi befriends the crows, hares, butterflies, grasshoppers, screech owls - but no one speaks to the fox. Bambi learns his father, like all stags, lives apart from his mate and children - as Bambi himself will do one day. He plays with his aunt and cousins, ever watchful of - Him. If you smell when He enters the meadow, you must run and not look back. He has outwitted many families, shooting down pheasants or hare with a crash like thunder. He kills what He wants, nothing can help them. This is especially heartbreaking as we watch the families terrorized, crying out in panic when He is in the forest, many times the parents shot in front of the children. One day the danger arises and they all flee into the forest. Bambi never sees his mother again.
He experiences his first winter, mates with the young doe Faline, and continues his adventures alone, as stags do. There is a strong bond between Bambi and the one called Old Stag - a bond they share throughout his life, the love and respect of an absent father.
While the character of Bambi may have changed over the years, the original novel has deep undertones meant for adults more than children. When He attacks it is ruthless, with deer falling in a wailing death shriek; the violent deaths of both parents and children torn from the sky as they escape in flight; friends shot right in front of you.
But there is also the joy and wonder of the forest as nature is inbued with feeling; the ducks talking endlessly in a serious capable way, not nonsense like Bambi so often heard from others; the helpful advice from the magpies, who see further than the forest; and in a special section, a touching anthropomorphized conversation between oak leaves, on a branch high above the others who have already fallen:
"You never know who is going to go next," said the first leaf. "Even when it was warm and the sun shone, a storm or a cloudburst would come sometimes, and many leaves were torn off, though they were still young. You never know who is going to go next."
"The sun seldoms shines now," sighed the second leaf, "and when it does it gives no warmth. We must have warmth again."
"Can it be true," said the first leaf, "Can it really be true, that others come to take out places when we're gone and after them still others, and more and more?"
"It is really true," whispered the second leaf. "We can't even begin to imagine it, it's beyound our powers."
"It makes me very sad," added the first leaf. They were silent for a while. Then the first leaf said silently to herself, "Why must we fall?..."
The second leaf asked, "What happens to us when we have fallen?"
"We sink down..."
"What is under us?"
The first leaf answered, "I don't know, some say one thing, some another, but nobody knows." The second leaf asked, "Do we feel anything, do we know anything about ourselves when we are down there?"
The first leaf answered, "Who knows? Not one of all those down there has ever come back to tell us about it." They were silent again. Then the first leaf said tenderly to the other, "Don't worry so much about it, you're trembling."
"That's nothing," the second leaf answered, "I tremble at the least thing now. I don't feel so sure of my hold as I used to."
"Let's not talk any more about such things," said the first leaf. "Let's remember how beautiful it was, how wonderful, when the sun came out and shone so warmly the we thought we'd burst with life. Do you remember? And the morning dew, and the mild and splendid nights..."
"Now the nights are dreadful," the second leaf complained, "and there is no end to them."
"We shouldn't complain," said the first leaf gently. "We've outlived many, many others."
I include this as Bambi was also written at the time as a parable of the dangers and persecution faced by Jews in Europe, and many conversations between the forest dwellers are reminiscent of Austrians you would hear around Vienna cafes. It surprised me to discover it can be read as a human story of persecution, or a story of conservation and protection of animals. This was very touching, not to be forgotten, and I recommend it to anyone who can feel the connection to nature and the life around us.
Bambi was well received and sold more than 650,000 copies between 1928 and 1942 alone. It is considered a literature classic, and as such it is widely available in book, eBook, and audiobook format.
I was lucky to find a 1929 hardcover translated by Whittaker Chambers, with illustration plates by Kurt Wiese. On the art-deco flyleaf it is inscribed: "To Kenneth and Marjorie. Christmas 1931"
Other reviews of animal novels:
1923 / Hardcover / 293 pages
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