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Bambi #1
Bambi: A Life in the Woods
Bambi comes into the world in a forest glade, loved by his mother, protected by a thicket. He grows up frolicking in the meadow, befriending butterflies and screech owls, and learning about the dark fear of all the woodland creatures: man. Over time, Bambi seeks out the wisdom of the prince of deer, a magnificent old stag who walks alone through the paths of the forest. Bambi is torn between his desire to be with his beloved mate, Faline, and his yearning for the knowledge and solitude the prince represents. He is also conflicted about his friend Gobo, who has returned to the forest after a winter living among humans. Gobo behaves unnaturally by strolling through the woods by day when other deer are sleeping, showing no fear of his natural mortal enemy.
This 1926 classic has been stretched and squeezed into many forms over the years, but the Felix Salten original should not be missed. With the richer, more highly wrought language of his time, Salten crafts a story layered in meaning, weighty with its message. The sometimes cruel, often joyful cycle of life continues, in spite of those who try to defy nature's law. (Ages 9 to 12) --Emilie Coulter
222 pages, Paperback
First published December 1, 1922
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About the author
Felix Salten
316 books114 followersThere is more than one author with this Name.
Felix Salten was an Austrian writer. He was born Siegmund Salzmann in Budapest, Hungary. When he was three weeks old, his family moved to Vienna, Austria. Many Jews were immigrating into the city in the late 19th century because Vienna had finally granted full citizenship to Jews in 1867.
When his father went bankrupt, Felix had to quit school and begin working in an insurance agency. He also began submitting poems and book reviews to journals. He became part of the Young Vienna movement (Jung Wien) and soon received work as a full-time art and theater critic in the Vienna press. In 1901 he founded Vienna's first, short-lived literary cabaret. In 1900 he published his first collection of short stories. He was soon publishing, on an average, one book a year, of plays, short stories, novels, travel books, and essay collections. He also wrote for nearly all the major newspapers of Vienna. He wrote film scripts and librettos for operettas. In 1927 he became president of the Austrian P.E.N. club. (acronym of the International Association of Poets and Playwrights, Essayists and Editors, and Novelists)
His most famous work is Bambi, which he wrote in 1923. It was translated into English in 1928 and became a Book-of-the-Month Club hit. In 1933, he sold the film rights to Sidney Franklin for $1,000, who later transferred the rights to the Walt Disney studios. Disney released its movie based on Bambi in 1942.
Life in Austria became perilous for a prominent Jew in the 1930s. Adolf Hitler had Salten's books banned in 1936. Two years later (1938), after Austria had become part of Germany, Salten moved to Zurich, Switzerland, where he lived until his death.
He was married to the actress Ottilie Metzl, and had two children: Paul and Anna-Katherina. He wrote another book based on the character Bambi, titled Bambi's Children: The Story of a Forest Family, 1939. His stories "Perri" and "The Hound of Florence" inspired the Disney films Perri and The Shaggy Dog.
Salten is considered to be the author of the erotic novel Josephine Mutzenbacher, the fictional autobiography of a Vienna prostitute, which was published in 1906.
Felix Salten was an Austrian writer. He was born Siegmund Salzmann in Budapest, Hungary. When he was three weeks old, his family moved to Vienna, Austria. Many Jews were immigrating into the city in the late 19th century because Vienna had finally granted full citizenship to Jews in 1867.
When his father went bankrupt, Felix had to quit school and begin working in an insurance agency. He also began submitting poems and book reviews to journals. He became part of the Young Vienna movement (Jung Wien) and soon received work as a full-time art and theater critic in the Vienna press. In 1901 he founded Vienna's first, short-lived literary cabaret. In 1900 he published his first collection of short stories. He was soon publishing, on an average, one book a year, of plays, short stories, novels, travel books, and essay collections. He also wrote for nearly all the major newspapers of Vienna. He wrote film scripts and librettos for operettas. In 1927 he became president of the Austrian P.E.N. club. (acronym of the International Association of Poets and Playwrights, Essayists and Editors, and Novelists)
His most famous work is Bambi, which he wrote in 1923. It was translated into English in 1928 and became a Book-of-the-Month Club hit. In 1933, he sold the film rights to Sidney Franklin for $1,000, who later transferred the rights to the Walt Disney studios. Disney released its movie based on Bambi in 1942.
Life in Austria became perilous for a prominent Jew in the 1930s. Adolf Hitler had Salten's books banned in 1936. Two years later (1938), after Austria had become part of Germany, Salten moved to Zurich, Switzerland, where he lived until his death.
He was married to the actress Ottilie Metzl, and had two children: Paul and Anna-Katherina. He wrote another book based on the character Bambi, titled Bambi's Children: The Story of a Forest Family, 1939. His stories "Perri" and "The Hound of Florence" inspired the Disney films Perri and The Shaggy Dog.
Salten is considered to be the author of the erotic novel Josephine Mutzenbacher, the fictional autobiography of a Vienna prostitute, which was published in 1906.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 1,418 reviews
May 18, 2019
Bambi is one of Disney's darkest films, but it's lighthearted whimsy compared to the original novel which would require trigger warnings nowadays. Thumper is brutally slaughtered as gunshots reverberate throughout the meadow and pools of blood stain the daisies. Death is everywhere--even in the trees. One of the saddest moments occurs when two lone oak leaves ponder the afterlife before tumbling to their demise from bare branches.
It's gritty and heartbreaking, yet also heartlifting. Exceedingly profound. One of the few novels that's lingered with me for nearly a decade. No one describes nature better than Felix Salten, and certainly no other animal-perspective novel can compare. I'm reading Watership Down currently and, though it has many strengths, it's making me nostalgic for this novel--a true masterpiece. Bambi is one of those books, tight and concise, which you can read over and over and always learn something new.
It's gritty and heartbreaking, yet also heartlifting. Exceedingly profound. One of the few novels that's lingered with me for nearly a decade. No one describes nature better than Felix Salten, and certainly no other animal-perspective novel can compare. I'm reading Watership Down currently and, though it has many strengths, it's making me nostalgic for this novel--a true masterpiece. Bambi is one of those books, tight and concise, which you can read over and over and always learn something new.
July 2, 2025
How come I have never read this little treasure before now?
Bambi: A life in the Woods is a true classic of children’s literature, with passages of great joy and also of deep regret and sorrow; exhilarating, but also occasionally savage, and heavy with exquisite prose descriptions of the woods and countryside. The writer was evidently a keen naturalist, with an eye for details of flora and fauna throughout the seasons, and also skilled at his craft. His name was Felix Salten.
Felix Salten was an Austrian writer, born in Hungary in 1869. He was a prolific writer of short stories and novels, often about animals, travel books, and essay collections. He was also an Art and literary critic, and wrote articles for nearly all the major newspapers of Vienna. But what he is most famous for is his outstanding and memorable novel for children, Bambi, a Life in the Woods, which was first published in German as “Bambi: Eine Lebensgeschichte aus dem Walde” in 1923, and translated into English in 1928.
In 1942, Walt Disney made the classic animated film “Bambi”. But if your only experience of Bambi so far has been courtesy of Walt Disney, you will find reading this a much broader and deeper experience. Bambi’s friend, the rabbit “Thumper”, was an invention, as was “Flower” the skunk. Cute though they are, Felix Salten’s countryside is solidly European, with not a skunk or woodchuck in sight.
“In early summer the trees stood still under the blue sky, held their limbs outstretched and received the direct rays of the sun. On the shrubs and bushes in the undergrowth, the flowers unfolded their red, white and yellow stars. On some the seed pods had begin to appear again. They perched innumerable on the fine tips of the branches, tender and firm and resolute, and seemed like small clenched fists. 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 blossom, of moist clods and green woods. When morning broke, or when the sun went down, the whole woods resounded with a thousand voices, and from morning till night the bees hummed, the wasps droned, and filled the fragrant stillness with their murmur.”
Opening the book at random it would be easy to find such a passage. This extract is from the first chapter, and conveys the experience of a very young fawn, only days old. It perfectly conveys the sensations and impressions of early summer. Where I am at the moment, I can see clumps of yellow primroses, daisies, and a few grape hyacinths; over my shoulder is an abundance of cowslip flowers, their frilly yellow bells dancing among the blades of grass, and along the path, another mass of bluebells. If I walk a while, there will be great banks of primroses and celandines. The freshly budding trees: oaks, birches and sycamores are beginning to lighten the world with their light green reflections, some clusters of wood anemones nestling in the grass between, bluebells dotted around, and masses of white wild garlic flowers in a field nearby. This is my experience right now. The sensations I feel as I look at all the wild bounty surrounding me (which I have feebly attempted to describe), is akin to the feelings triggered by reading this book. The enchantment of Bambi’s world can be conjured up regardless of where we read it. There is no need to be far from the city.
The story of Bambi is set in a forest, whose location is never specified. It was inspired by woods which Felix Salten discovered, when he was on holiday in the Alps. Bambi’s woodland home feels remote enough from humans to be a haven for wild creatures—but only for some of the time. There is a darkness in the book, which is at the heart of the story, and its important message. They animals are never completely free of the fear of “He”. a strange and incomprehensible being who invades the peace of the forest. “He” has the smell of death; an unearthly predator who possesses a “third arm”, which destroys and kills seemingly irregardless, and at a remote distance.
Many children’s books about animals portray the natural world as benign and kindly, but the forest here is no such place. Death, even violent death, is accepted as part of the natural scheme of things. There is great friendship in the forest, but there are many natural enemies too. Perhaps Felix Salten’s negative view of, in particular, human’s relationship with the natural world is not so surprising. Bambi was written in 1923, in the aftermath of the First World War, and many Europeans at that time, having witnessed the inhumanity of war, turned towards the idea of a natural world as a haven. What distinguishes this book is that although we see and yearn for Bambi’s world, we also see that nature is indeed red in tooth and claw, and never more so than when “He” enters the scene.
Felix Salten’s experiences after writing Bambi must only have confirmed his views of man’s inhumanity. He was Jewish, and life in Austria became increasingly perilous for a prominent Jew during the 1930s. In 1936, Adolf Hitler had Felix Salten’s books banned. Two years later, after Germany’s annexation of Austria, Felix Salten and his wife fled to Zurich, Switzerland, and lived there for the rest of their lives.
Essentially Bambi: A life in the Woods is a coming of age story, in which we also learn much about the different wild creatures’ habits. It is anthropomorphic, but completely unsentimental. The writer John Galsworthy, who wrote the introduction, says:
“Bambi is a delicious book … Felix Salten is a poet … I do not, as a rule, like the method which places human words in the mouths of dumb creatures, and it is the triumph of this book that, behind the conversation, one feels the real sensations of the creatures who speak. Clear and illuminating, and in places very moving, it is a little masterpiece.”
As well as this interesting short introduction, my copy has line drawings, plus a few lovely delicate water-colour plates, by Sylvia Green.
Bambi: A life in the Woods begins when Bambi is born, in a thicket in the woods. He is an awkward and innocent young fawn, and his mother has to teach him what it is to be a deer: both the joys and the fears. Anyone who has ever watched days-old lambs gambolling in the fields, will recognise this:
“Now he saw the whole heaven stretching far and wide and he rejoiced without knowing why. In the forest he had only seen a stray sunbeam now and then, or the tender, dappled light that played through the branches. Suddenly he was standing in the blinding hot sunlight whose boundless power was beaming upon him. He stood in the splendid warmth that made him shut his eyes but opened his heart.
Bambi was as though bewitched. He was completely beside himself with pleasure. He was simply wild. He leaped into the air, three, four, five times. He had to do it. He felt a terrible desire to leap and jump. He stretched his young limbs joyfully. His breath came deeply and easily. He drank in the air. The sweet smell of the meadow made him so wildly happy that he had to leap into the air.“
Felix Salten seems to gets right inside how it feels to be a particular animal. He describes how Bambi learns that deer do not kill other animals or fight over food. Bambi learns too, that for deer it is only safe to go to the meadow early in the morning and late in the evening, and that signals such as the rustle of last year’s dead leaves will warn them of approaching danger. Bambi learns to fear storms, and to enjoy more gentle rain. He begins to encounter other animals in the meadow, such as a grasshopper, a butterfly, and a hare. But he is most excited when he meets his cousins with their mother, Ena. They are the lovely doe Faline, and the foolish, delicate young buck, Gobo. And he is a little in awe, when two impressive stags with spreading antlers on their heads come crashing out of the forest. Bambi’s mother tells him quietly that one of these proud and grand stags is his father.
As he grows older, Bambi learns more about the sounds and smells of the forest. He is confused that sometimes his mother goes off by herself, and he goes calling, in search of her. But as he stands at the edge of a clearing:
“[Bambi] suddenly felt as if he were rooted to the ground and could not move.
Bambi is terrified, and runs for cover, his mother appearing suddenly to run by his side. When they are both safe in their glade once more, his mother tells him, “That was “He”.”
Bambi shudders. He is learning to understand what it is to be a deer. Yet he still does not like to be alone, and frequently calls for his mother. On one occasion a magnificent stag stands before him, and asks him what he is crying about, “Can’t you stay by yourself? Shame on you!” he scolds.
Then he is gone, leaving the little fawn crestfallen. Bambi almost understands his true nature, and how he is expected to behave as a roe deer, but he has not attained full maturity. He is learning all the time, through his experience, his strong inner sensations and instincts, and the teaching he gets.
Bambi meets others in the woods, including “Old Prince”, the most magnificent, and wisest stag in the forest, whom he will meet again, when he has cause to be proud of himself. And he witnesses a great tragedy in the great meadow, which shocks him to the core.
Summer gradually merges into Autumn and then becomes winter. Snow falls, and fresh grass is no longer easy to find. All the deer become more friendly during the cold months, and we see Bambi meeting with others; new faces such as “Marena”, and “Netla”, as well as his cousins. Bambi develops a great admiration for the fully grown stags, and longs to be like them, especially admiring “Ronno”, a fully grown stag who escaped after a hunter wounded him in the foot. Yet they all talk and worry about “He”, whom they know to be such a threat, and do not understand, and they tell each other terrifying stories about the third hand from which flame comes.
There is another tragedy, involving “He” and many others like him. This a very upsetting and graphic part of the book.
During the harsh winter months Bambi learns that not all the animals are so friendly any more, and those who used to merely tolerate each other no longer do so. Food is in short supply, and different species, starving and cold, start to prey on their natural enemies. But eventually the season passes, and by now Bambi has grown, and developed little budding antlers. Spring also brings new delicious feelings which unsettle him. The doe Faline seems to him to be getting more and more beautiful, but she is attended by two adult stags, the important stag who had been wounded, Ronno, and another fully grown stag, “Karus” . They no longer want Bambi to come near Faline.
Another crucial time for Bambi’s coming of age happens is when
One of the bucks who had disappeared earlier, returns to the story, and we learn his tale.
This is one of many parts of the story which conjures up the later masterpiece, “Watership Down” to me. In that there is a character who is what we would call psychic, and has premonitions, and in Bambi we see aspects of the animals’ sensory perceptions which we humans cannot perceive. We also see individuals who are taken in, trapped and deceived by humans for their own ends. We see how humans routinely use the talents of animals for their own purposes, taking no account of the pain and devastation this may cause. There is much in common between some of the characters and the subtler elements of the story lines, and the ultimate message of these two books is the same.
There is much anguish towards the end of the story, but we see great courage, a determination to survive, and loyal friendship. We see how Bambi learns that “He” is simply a part of the world, as Bambi is himself, and that that they are both a part of something much bigger. There is a mystical, other-worldly suggestion, as Bambi learns the cycle of life, and an older stag, says that it is time for him to go to the place where everyone goes alone.
It is not yet Bambi’s time. He has matured into a fine strong stag, and when he spots a couple of confused young fawns, oddly familiar in appearance, he find himself reiterating the words the stag once said to him, when he was a young buck, “Can’t you stay by yourself?”
Bambi’s world has come full circle.
This is a magical story, and one which teaches many lessons, to do with friendship, kindness and courage. No matter how difficult life may become, the author insists, we must never give up. We must never take what appears to be an easy way out. We may be able to rely on our friends, to help us overcome those difficulties, and must stay true to what we know is good. If we keep trying, in the end everything will resolve. Just like Bambi, the fawn who became a strong and proud stag, we will also stay true to our nature, and emerge stronger.
But of course the main message of the story is a warning to humanity. A dominant species such as humanity carries great responsibility. In Bambi, “He” is the creatures’ worst enemy: cold, distant and deadly to animals. Felix Salten believed that all animals—and Nature—deserve our respect. We have a duty to care for animals, and not kill them for our own desires, such as for sport, (or possibly, a sub-text here, is for food). When the Third Reich banned his books, it was not just because of Felix Salten’s ethnicity, but also because they found its anti-hunting message offensive to their ideology.
Felix Salten’s views ring loud and clear in this book, and they are timeless. Even the most minor characters are shown to reveal truths. Nettla is an old doe, who is self-sufficient and wise, with her own ideas about everything. She regards “He” with disgust, and can be seen every day in elderly people who are sceptical about “progress” for the wrong reasons, feeling that they have seen this all before. Marena reveals the other side of the coin. She is a young, half-grown doe who predicts that “He” will some day be as gentle as the deer themselves. Young and innocent, she is eternally optimistic.
Yet I cannot help dreaming a little, and hoping that Marena’s imagined future will come true.
Bambi: A life in the Woods is a true classic of children’s literature, with passages of great joy and also of deep regret and sorrow; exhilarating, but also occasionally savage, and heavy with exquisite prose descriptions of the woods and countryside. The writer was evidently a keen naturalist, with an eye for details of flora and fauna throughout the seasons, and also skilled at his craft. His name was Felix Salten.
Felix Salten was an Austrian writer, born in Hungary in 1869. He was a prolific writer of short stories and novels, often about animals, travel books, and essay collections. He was also an Art and literary critic, and wrote articles for nearly all the major newspapers of Vienna. But what he is most famous for is his outstanding and memorable novel for children, Bambi, a Life in the Woods, which was first published in German as “Bambi: Eine Lebensgeschichte aus dem Walde” in 1923, and translated into English in 1928.
In 1942, Walt Disney made the classic animated film “Bambi”. But if your only experience of Bambi so far has been courtesy of Walt Disney, you will find reading this a much broader and deeper experience. Bambi’s friend, the rabbit “Thumper”, was an invention, as was “Flower” the skunk. Cute though they are, Felix Salten’s countryside is solidly European, with not a skunk or woodchuck in sight.
“In early summer the trees stood still under the blue sky, held their limbs outstretched and received the direct rays of the sun. On the shrubs and bushes in the undergrowth, the flowers unfolded their red, white and yellow stars. On some the seed pods had begin to appear again. They perched innumerable on the fine tips of the branches, tender and firm and resolute, and seemed like small clenched fists. 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 blossom, of moist clods and green woods. When morning broke, or when the sun went down, the whole woods resounded with a thousand voices, and from morning till night the bees hummed, the wasps droned, and filled the fragrant stillness with their murmur.”
Opening the book at random it would be easy to find such a passage. This extract is from the first chapter, and conveys the experience of a very young fawn, only days old. It perfectly conveys the sensations and impressions of early summer. Where I am at the moment, I can see clumps of yellow primroses, daisies, and a few grape hyacinths; over my shoulder is an abundance of cowslip flowers, their frilly yellow bells dancing among the blades of grass, and along the path, another mass of bluebells. If I walk a while, there will be great banks of primroses and celandines. The freshly budding trees: oaks, birches and sycamores are beginning to lighten the world with their light green reflections, some clusters of wood anemones nestling in the grass between, bluebells dotted around, and masses of white wild garlic flowers in a field nearby. This is my experience right now. The sensations I feel as I look at all the wild bounty surrounding me (which I have feebly attempted to describe), is akin to the feelings triggered by reading this book. The enchantment of Bambi’s world can be conjured up regardless of where we read it. There is no need to be far from the city.
The story of Bambi is set in a forest, whose location is never specified. It was inspired by woods which Felix Salten discovered, when he was on holiday in the Alps. Bambi’s woodland home feels remote enough from humans to be a haven for wild creatures—but only for some of the time. There is a darkness in the book, which is at the heart of the story, and its important message. They animals are never completely free of the fear of “He”. a strange and incomprehensible being who invades the peace of the forest. “He” has the smell of death; an unearthly predator who possesses a “third arm”, which destroys and kills seemingly irregardless, and at a remote distance.
Many children’s books about animals portray the natural world as benign and kindly, but the forest here is no such place. Death, even violent death, is accepted as part of the natural scheme of things. There is great friendship in the forest, but there are many natural enemies too. Perhaps Felix Salten’s negative view of, in particular, human’s relationship with the natural world is not so surprising. Bambi was written in 1923, in the aftermath of the First World War, and many Europeans at that time, having witnessed the inhumanity of war, turned towards the idea of a natural world as a haven. What distinguishes this book is that although we see and yearn for Bambi’s world, we also see that nature is indeed red in tooth and claw, and never more so than when “He” enters the scene.
Felix Salten’s experiences after writing Bambi must only have confirmed his views of man’s inhumanity. He was Jewish, and life in Austria became increasingly perilous for a prominent Jew during the 1930s. In 1936, Adolf Hitler had Felix Salten’s books banned. Two years later, after Germany’s annexation of Austria, Felix Salten and his wife fled to Zurich, Switzerland, and lived there for the rest of their lives.
Essentially Bambi: A life in the Woods is a coming of age story, in which we also learn much about the different wild creatures’ habits. It is anthropomorphic, but completely unsentimental. The writer John Galsworthy, who wrote the introduction, says:
“Bambi is a delicious book … Felix Salten is a poet … I do not, as a rule, like the method which places human words in the mouths of dumb creatures, and it is the triumph of this book that, behind the conversation, one feels the real sensations of the creatures who speak. Clear and illuminating, and in places very moving, it is a little masterpiece.”
As well as this interesting short introduction, my copy has line drawings, plus a few lovely delicate water-colour plates, by Sylvia Green.
Bambi: A life in the Woods begins when Bambi is born, in a thicket in the woods. He is an awkward and innocent young fawn, and his mother has to teach him what it is to be a deer: both the joys and the fears. Anyone who has ever watched days-old lambs gambolling in the fields, will recognise this:
“Now he saw the whole heaven stretching far and wide and he rejoiced without knowing why. In the forest he had only seen a stray sunbeam now and then, or the tender, dappled light that played through the branches. Suddenly he was standing in the blinding hot sunlight whose boundless power was beaming upon him. He stood in the splendid warmth that made him shut his eyes but opened his heart.
Bambi was as though bewitched. He was completely beside himself with pleasure. He was simply wild. He leaped into the air, three, four, five times. He had to do it. He felt a terrible desire to leap and jump. He stretched his young limbs joyfully. His breath came deeply and easily. He drank in the air. The sweet smell of the meadow made him so wildly happy that he had to leap into the air.“
Felix Salten seems to gets right inside how it feels to be a particular animal. He describes how Bambi learns that deer do not kill other animals or fight over food. Bambi learns too, that for deer it is only safe to go to the meadow early in the morning and late in the evening, and that signals such as the rustle of last year’s dead leaves will warn them of approaching danger. Bambi learns to fear storms, and to enjoy more gentle rain. He begins to encounter other animals in the meadow, such as a grasshopper, a butterfly, and a hare. But he is most excited when he meets his cousins with their mother, Ena. They are the lovely doe Faline, and the foolish, delicate young buck, Gobo. And he is a little in awe, when two impressive stags with spreading antlers on their heads come crashing out of the forest. Bambi’s mother tells him quietly that one of these proud and grand stags is his father.
As he grows older, Bambi learns more about the sounds and smells of the forest. He is confused that sometimes his mother goes off by herself, and he goes calling, in search of her. But as he stands at the edge of a clearing:
“[Bambi] suddenly felt as if he were rooted to the ground and could not move.
Bambi is terrified, and runs for cover, his mother appearing suddenly to run by his side. When they are both safe in their glade once more, his mother tells him, “That was “He”.”
Bambi shudders. He is learning to understand what it is to be a deer. Yet he still does not like to be alone, and frequently calls for his mother. On one occasion a magnificent stag stands before him, and asks him what he is crying about, “Can’t you stay by yourself? Shame on you!” he scolds.
Then he is gone, leaving the little fawn crestfallen. Bambi almost understands his true nature, and how he is expected to behave as a roe deer, but he has not attained full maturity. He is learning all the time, through his experience, his strong inner sensations and instincts, and the teaching he gets.
Bambi meets others in the woods, including “Old Prince”, the most magnificent, and wisest stag in the forest, whom he will meet again, when he has cause to be proud of himself. And he witnesses a great tragedy in the great meadow, which shocks him to the core.
Summer gradually merges into Autumn and then becomes winter. Snow falls, and fresh grass is no longer easy to find. All the deer become more friendly during the cold months, and we see Bambi meeting with others; new faces such as “Marena”, and “Netla”, as well as his cousins. Bambi develops a great admiration for the fully grown stags, and longs to be like them, especially admiring “Ronno”, a fully grown stag who escaped after a hunter wounded him in the foot. Yet they all talk and worry about “He”, whom they know to be such a threat, and do not understand, and they tell each other terrifying stories about the third hand from which flame comes.
There is another tragedy, involving “He” and many others like him. This a very upsetting and graphic part of the book.
During the harsh winter months Bambi learns that not all the animals are so friendly any more, and those who used to merely tolerate each other no longer do so. Food is in short supply, and different species, starving and cold, start to prey on their natural enemies. But eventually the season passes, and by now Bambi has grown, and developed little budding antlers. Spring also brings new delicious feelings which unsettle him. The doe Faline seems to him to be getting more and more beautiful, but she is attended by two adult stags, the important stag who had been wounded, Ronno, and another fully grown stag, “Karus” . They no longer want Bambi to come near Faline.
Another crucial time for Bambi’s coming of age happens is when
One of the bucks who had disappeared earlier, returns to the story, and we learn his tale.
This is one of many parts of the story which conjures up the later masterpiece, “Watership Down” to me. In that there is a character who is what we would call psychic, and has premonitions, and in Bambi we see aspects of the animals’ sensory perceptions which we humans cannot perceive. We also see individuals who are taken in, trapped and deceived by humans for their own ends. We see how humans routinely use the talents of animals for their own purposes, taking no account of the pain and devastation this may cause. There is much in common between some of the characters and the subtler elements of the story lines, and the ultimate message of these two books is the same.
There is much anguish towards the end of the story, but we see great courage, a determination to survive, and loyal friendship. We see how Bambi learns that “He” is simply a part of the world, as Bambi is himself, and that that they are both a part of something much bigger. There is a mystical, other-worldly suggestion, as Bambi learns the cycle of life, and an older stag, says that it is time for him to go to the place where everyone goes alone.
It is not yet Bambi’s time. He has matured into a fine strong stag, and when he spots a couple of confused young fawns, oddly familiar in appearance, he find himself reiterating the words the stag once said to him, when he was a young buck, “Can’t you stay by yourself?”
Bambi’s world has come full circle.
This is a magical story, and one which teaches many lessons, to do with friendship, kindness and courage. No matter how difficult life may become, the author insists, we must never give up. We must never take what appears to be an easy way out. We may be able to rely on our friends, to help us overcome those difficulties, and must stay true to what we know is good. If we keep trying, in the end everything will resolve. Just like Bambi, the fawn who became a strong and proud stag, we will also stay true to our nature, and emerge stronger.
But of course the main message of the story is a warning to humanity. A dominant species such as humanity carries great responsibility. In Bambi, “He” is the creatures’ worst enemy: cold, distant and deadly to animals. Felix Salten believed that all animals—and Nature—deserve our respect. We have a duty to care for animals, and not kill them for our own desires, such as for sport, (or possibly, a sub-text here, is for food). When the Third Reich banned his books, it was not just because of Felix Salten’s ethnicity, but also because they found its anti-hunting message offensive to their ideology.
Felix Salten’s views ring loud and clear in this book, and they are timeless. Even the most minor characters are shown to reveal truths. Nettla is an old doe, who is self-sufficient and wise, with her own ideas about everything. She regards “He” with disgust, and can be seen every day in elderly people who are sceptical about “progress” for the wrong reasons, feeling that they have seen this all before. Marena reveals the other side of the coin. She is a young, half-grown doe who predicts that “He” will some day be as gentle as the deer themselves. Young and innocent, she is eternally optimistic.
Yet I cannot help dreaming a little, and hoping that Marena’s imagined future will come true.
July 31, 2025
I've finally read this, years after intending to do so. What finally made me go for it was the new translation from the German by Jack D. Zipes, one of the folklorists I respect most (and disagree with often as well). I could've read it in the original German, as was my initial intention back in the day, but Salten's German is old-fashioned and has Austrian-specific usage that would be lost even on modern native speakers of German, which Zipes does remark on as he explains why the existing translation of this into English isn't very good and contains numerous mistakes.
I won't go into language nerdery, my own German is modern, but I do have thoughts on Zipes' apparent dislike of Disney's adaptation of Bambi, which he gives a thorough rubbishing here. To my surprise, because I don't expect much of Disney and my opinion of them regarding tales is famously unfavourable, but on this I'll have to disagree with good old Professor Zipes.
a. It's true that Disney's version is sappy and cheerier, but it's not as shallow as Zipes claims.
b. Disney's version adheres to Salten's major story beats and does keep all its important themes, it doesn't change the story so radically it's unrecognisable from the original. They made changes for visual storytelling purposes more than anything, which Zipes (surprisingly) doesn't take into account as he seems to expect written and visual formats to work as if it's the same storytelling-wise.
c. Zipes overstates and oversells Salten's "profound" message here. This is no Animal Farm, and there's no clear-cut message. It's broad and generic enough that you can project on it everything from animal rights PETA-style to the Holocaust and persecution of minorities (this one is mostly based on Salten being a Jew, because the story itself doesn't support it as much as people would believe). Therefore, Disney's version's message is as valid as any other given the broad canvas Salten left us with to paint on.
d. The changes Zipes complains about are minor in the grand scheme of things. Disney inserted a few cute-factor things, like Thumper and Flower, and made the ending happy, which Zipes takes issue with given how Salten's story ends. But is that an alteration that changes everything? No, because there's a sequel written by Salten in which the ending Disney came up with actually happens (Bambi ends up with Faline and fathers twin fawns). Disney compressed the novel and brought in the happy ending sooner, they were thinking of a family friendly product.
e. To me, the major differences where in tone and in the presence of He (mankind). But the "darkness" of Salten's story is oversold, maybe it's too dark for small children and "never intended for children" as Zipes says, but that's how tales were back in the day. Children were hearing tales "not intended for children" for centuries, until modernity invented Disneyfication and sanitised tales. As for the portrayal of He as the villainous force . . . Hmm, coming from Salten, a hobbyist hunter, this is like the cat writing a tale about the rights of mice.
To think I'd have lived long enough to defend Disney...
As a whole, I liked this little novel. But it's one of those cases where people see in it what they want to see in it. For me, the story is not impactful in any significant way and its author is a hypocrite, and if not for Disney the novel would probably not have had much publicity and would've stayed as a book with middling success.
I won't go into language nerdery, my own German is modern, but I do have thoughts on Zipes' apparent dislike of Disney's adaptation of Bambi, which he gives a thorough rubbishing here. To my surprise, because I don't expect much of Disney and my opinion of them regarding tales is famously unfavourable, but on this I'll have to disagree with good old Professor Zipes.
a. It's true that Disney's version is sappy and cheerier, but it's not as shallow as Zipes claims.
b. Disney's version adheres to Salten's major story beats and does keep all its important themes, it doesn't change the story so radically it's unrecognisable from the original. They made changes for visual storytelling purposes more than anything, which Zipes (surprisingly) doesn't take into account as he seems to expect written and visual formats to work as if it's the same storytelling-wise.
c. Zipes overstates and oversells Salten's "profound" message here. This is no Animal Farm, and there's no clear-cut message. It's broad and generic enough that you can project on it everything from animal rights PETA-style to the Holocaust and persecution of minorities (this one is mostly based on Salten being a Jew, because the story itself doesn't support it as much as people would believe). Therefore, Disney's version's message is as valid as any other given the broad canvas Salten left us with to paint on.
d. The changes Zipes complains about are minor in the grand scheme of things. Disney inserted a few cute-factor things, like Thumper and Flower, and made the ending happy, which Zipes takes issue with given how Salten's story ends. But is that an alteration that changes everything? No, because there's a sequel written by Salten in which the ending Disney came up with actually happens (Bambi ends up with Faline and fathers twin fawns). Disney compressed the novel and brought in the happy ending sooner, they were thinking of a family friendly product.
e. To me, the major differences where in tone and in the presence of He (mankind). But the "darkness" of Salten's story is oversold, maybe it's too dark for small children and "never intended for children" as Zipes says, but that's how tales were back in the day. Children were hearing tales "not intended for children" for centuries, until modernity invented Disneyfication and sanitised tales. As for the portrayal of He as the villainous force . . . Hmm, coming from Salten, a hobbyist hunter, this is like the cat writing a tale about the rights of mice.
To think I'd have lived long enough to defend Disney...
As a whole, I liked this little novel. But it's one of those cases where people see in it what they want to see in it. For me, the story is not impactful in any significant way and its author is a hypocrite, and if not for Disney the novel would probably not have had much publicity and would've stayed as a book with middling success.
August 5, 2020
Book Review
Bambi, a children's / young adult book published in 1923 by Felix Salten, is very different than the one we've seen from Walt Disney. Many have seen the cartoon versions, felt sad for the death and know it as a classic "growing-up" book for kids. But it's really a whole lot more, if you choose to read the original version. And for that, it gets 4 of 5 stars for this reader. The book is not written as a children's story, i.e. for a 4 or 5 year old to look at pictures, read the funny captions and laugh at the adventure of the animals. It's a true coming-of-age story for a deer, told with all the ramifications of life's expectations that eventually occur. Bambi has a beautiful relationship with his parents and family. He watches his friends play games and grow older. He sees courtship and love. He learns what it means to be afraid. He sees death. He learns to be a protector. It's a full picture story, meant to show the realities of animals living in the forest. It's a stronger story than I'd watched in the Disney films, but then again, I waited to read it until I was almost 13 years old.
It's a definite must-read for kids, but probably not alone until they are at least 10. I don't even think it's a good one to read to your kids much earlier than that... you may want them to see the cartoon version first, as I think that has a lot of emotion packed into it... but I see the other side of the coin, where it's important to teach reality to them, even at a young age.
About Me
For those new to me or my reviews... here's the scoop: I read A LOT. I write A LOT. And now I blog A LOT. First the book review goes on Goodreads, and then I send it on over to my WordPress blog at https://thisismytruthnow.com, where you'll also find TV & Film reviews, the revealing and introspective 365 Daily Challenge and lots of blogging about places I've visited all over the world. And you can find all my social media profiles to get the details on the who/what/when/where and my pictures. Leave a comment and let me know what you think. Vote in the poll and ratings. Thanks for stopping by. Note: All written content is my original creation and copyrighted to me, but the graphics and images were linked from other sites and belong to them. Many thanks to their original creators.
[polldaddy poll=9729544]
Bambi, a children's / young adult book published in 1923 by Felix Salten, is very different than the one we've seen from Walt Disney. Many have seen the cartoon versions, felt sad for the death and know it as a classic "growing-up" book for kids. But it's really a whole lot more, if you choose to read the original version. And for that, it gets 4 of 5 stars for this reader. The book is not written as a children's story, i.e. for a 4 or 5 year old to look at pictures, read the funny captions and laugh at the adventure of the animals. It's a true coming-of-age story for a deer, told with all the ramifications of life's expectations that eventually occur. Bambi has a beautiful relationship with his parents and family. He watches his friends play games and grow older. He sees courtship and love. He learns what it means to be afraid. He sees death. He learns to be a protector. It's a full picture story, meant to show the realities of animals living in the forest. It's a stronger story than I'd watched in the Disney films, but then again, I waited to read it until I was almost 13 years old.
It's a definite must-read for kids, but probably not alone until they are at least 10. I don't even think it's a good one to read to your kids much earlier than that... you may want them to see the cartoon version first, as I think that has a lot of emotion packed into it... but I see the other side of the coin, where it's important to teach reality to them, even at a young age.
About Me
For those new to me or my reviews... here's the scoop: I read A LOT. I write A LOT. And now I blog A LOT. First the book review goes on Goodreads, and then I send it on over to my WordPress blog at https://thisismytruthnow.com, where you'll also find TV & Film reviews, the revealing and introspective 365 Daily Challenge and lots of blogging about places I've visited all over the world. And you can find all my social media profiles to get the details on the who/what/when/where and my pictures. Leave a comment and let me know what you think. Vote in the poll and ratings. Thanks for stopping by. Note: All written content is my original creation and copyrighted to me, but the graphics and images were linked from other sites and belong to them. Many thanks to their original creators.
[polldaddy poll=9729544]
October 1, 2021
Este libro me ha gustado más de lo que esperaba y sorprendido muchísimo.
Es muy melancólico y triste, habla de la muerte, la soledad y la relación del ser humano con los animales. Está contado de una manera muy especial, realmente sientes que los animales se comportan como animales y sienten como ellos, no son simplemente animales con voz humana como en otros relatos de este tipo.
No me parece un libro para niños, por cierto xD
Hay un capítulo bellísimo sobre dos hojas a punto de caer, metafórico y maravilloso. Ya solo por ese capítulo el libro merece ser leído.
Hay alguna cosilla que quizás se ha quedado un poco desfasada pero en general me parece una gran lectura, tierna, nostálgica y triste pero que puede incluso resultar inquietante en más de un punto.
Es muy melancólico y triste, habla de la muerte, la soledad y la relación del ser humano con los animales. Está contado de una manera muy especial, realmente sientes que los animales se comportan como animales y sienten como ellos, no son simplemente animales con voz humana como en otros relatos de este tipo.
No me parece un libro para niños, por cierto xD
Hay un capítulo bellísimo sobre dos hojas a punto de caer, metafórico y maravilloso. Ya solo por ese capítulo el libro merece ser leído.
Hay alguna cosilla que quizás se ha quedado un poco desfasada pero en general me parece una gran lectura, tierna, nostálgica y triste pero que puede incluso resultar inquietante en más de un punto.
September 20, 2024
This is the original story of Bambi which is very different from the Disney version. In the Disney adaptation, his mother is killed as in this one. But almost everyone else he's ever known is killed too. This is the law of the forest. If you are wise you will heed its lessons and survive, but sometimes nothing you can do will help. It's dog eat dog and dogs, coincidentally are not thought of well by the forest animals. Their slavish devotion to the master, the evil hunter, makes them the bane of every forest creature.
The background of the author is fascinating. He was a German Jew who was also a hunter. Here, he sympathizes with the desperate animals who flee their oppressor, but always one or more are lost. He wrote this as an oppressed minority before World War 2. We can see in this story why he feels such empathy for the poor animals who don't understand the hunter and are filled with terror at his hands, especially the deer who don't kill to eat.
The background of the author is fascinating. He was a German Jew who was also a hunter. Here, he sympathizes with the desperate animals who flee their oppressor, but always one or more are lost. He wrote this as an oppressed minority before World War 2. We can see in this story why he feels such empathy for the poor animals who don't understand the hunter and are filled with terror at his hands, especially the deer who don't kill to eat.
August 11, 2018
Read this book some time ago and all the family really enjoyed the story. A timeless classic that I needed tissues for when I read to the children. Pure nostalgia.
December 13, 2010
This is not Disney. This book was incredible. The description was so real, the language not dumbed down for kids. Yes, the animals talked, but it wasn't cutesy, silly talking. It was Watership Down kind of talking. I read this to my five-and-a-half-year-old daughter (I'm trying to give her the original versions of all of the stories before she sees the Disney versions). When the first scary thing happened, I worried that I'd made a horrible mistake. But, although she was upset, she put it all into perspective very quickly. I loved watching her build a connection with the characters. At one point she said something like, "The words seem so real!" How wonderful to watch my daughter's love of reading and storytelling develop!
Update: I've thought about this book overnight and now I've got a few more things I wanted to add. Like another reviewer mentioned, the conversation between two leaves at the end of fall was masterful. There are so many issues of life and death and of God and of domestication. I was thinking about this book in the context of Salten's life as a Jew in Austria before the second World War. Apparently, he was born in Budapest in 1869 and moved to Vienna when he was just a baby because in 1867, Jews got full citizenship in Vienna. This book was published in 1926, and I'm just starting to think about the messages in the book in the context of what was going on in Europe at the time. There are just so many layers of understanding. No wonder I found this book so satisfying.
Update: I've thought about this book overnight and now I've got a few more things I wanted to add. Like another reviewer mentioned, the conversation between two leaves at the end of fall was masterful. There are so many issues of life and death and of God and of domestication. I was thinking about this book in the context of Salten's life as a Jew in Austria before the second World War. Apparently, he was born in Budapest in 1869 and moved to Vienna when he was just a baby because in 1867, Jews got full citizenship in Vienna. This book was published in 1926, and I'm just starting to think about the messages in the book in the context of what was going on in Europe at the time. There are just so many layers of understanding. No wonder I found this book so satisfying.
March 21, 2018
What a jewel this little book is! I did read it very many years ago but had forgotten just how wonderful and sensitive Felix Saltern's writing is. I have watched the delightful and popular movie many times... with my children and then with my grandchildren but I had forgotten how different the book is, There is no Thumper or Flower for example. Felix Saltern clearly feels deeply for nature and animals. Although in the book the animals "talk" which is not to everyone's taste, the story manages somehow to capture the inner feelings of the creatures.
It is in many ways such a gentle book, full of wisdom, yet there is violence too. Even this is handled in a sensible way. Bambi of course is the main character and through him the ifs and buts of growing up is explored. He is nurtured by his Mother. She protects him and teaches him about the great dangers that the deer must face. His Father, the great Prince of the forest takes over his care later in the book. He experiences love, joy and fun as a youngster but also has to face tragedy too. He learns about the seasons and how to survive and grows through problems he initially doesn't understand and finds hard to overcome. The greatest danger to the creatures is "He" in other words "Man"
This book can be read by all ages but older children will be able to read it for themselves. It is also a good book to read to younger children too but there are other editions for the much younger children with lots of pictures which would be perhaps a better choice than this particular edition. It is a book about wisdom, love, courage, discernment whilst learning the lessons of life. I found it to be a delightful experience to read this book again after so many years,
It is in many ways such a gentle book, full of wisdom, yet there is violence too. Even this is handled in a sensible way. Bambi of course is the main character and through him the ifs and buts of growing up is explored. He is nurtured by his Mother. She protects him and teaches him about the great dangers that the deer must face. His Father, the great Prince of the forest takes over his care later in the book. He experiences love, joy and fun as a youngster but also has to face tragedy too. He learns about the seasons and how to survive and grows through problems he initially doesn't understand and finds hard to overcome. The greatest danger to the creatures is "He" in other words "Man"
This book can be read by all ages but older children will be able to read it for themselves. It is also a good book to read to younger children too but there are other editions for the much younger children with lots of pictures which would be perhaps a better choice than this particular edition. It is a book about wisdom, love, courage, discernment whilst learning the lessons of life. I found it to be a delightful experience to read this book again after so many years,
April 18, 2022
Are you ready to be surprised? I was.
From the content of this book, I thought that it had been written in the 1930's. Salten was an Austrian Jew (born Siegmund Salzmann), and the story seemed to me wholly allegorical of the persecution of Jews during those years and after, into the Second World War. But it was written in 1922. It must be in some degree prescient, as anti-Semitism had yet to reach its worst expression, but the fact that it was not written during that later, abominable, period makes it universal, which I think it was intended to be. Unlike the sugared Disney version, the original tale, carefully translated by Jack Zipes, uses animals to represent various peoples at the mercy of the powerful and dominant social groups. As anti-Semitism increased, Salten became more Jewish, proud to be Jewish and hating the oppressors of his people and other ethnic minority groups. Man, in the story, is the merciless killer, and the animals his victims, but these representations give rise to contradictions and paradoxes, reflecting Salten's own life, and reaching beyond it. Yes, Man (called "He", in the translation) is the incomprehensible killer, but he can also show compassion (or what appears to be such) and animals at the receiving end of this become his willing slaves, see him as a god, only to be ultimately betrayed by Him. The animals are His victims, but they also tear each other apart. Life in the forest is not idyllic. The anthropomorphism chosen by Salten is powerful, a difficult tool to handle in the shifting balance of life and death, of human qualities, and animal natures, that are irreconcilable.
I did read the introduction (after reading the book), because I had inadvertently picked up from the back cover that Salten was himself a hunter, and I was most curious about this apparent contradiction. For Zipes,
"Clearly, Salten longed to be close to animals, whom he regarded as pure, honest and decent creatures, unlike the people of the Viennese society in which he lived and worked. His forays in the forest resembled paradoxical religious rituals in which he could cleanse himself of sin and then enjoy communion by hunting and killing the very creatures he loved. In writing Bambi, despite his own contradictions, he hoped to reveal that nature was not a paradise, and that only when people truly understood how the animals suffered persecution from hunting in the forest could they create peace among themselves."
Puzzled? According to Salten's daughter Anna, he wandered about his own hunting preserve night and day, and had an almost religious veneration of nature's marvels. He fired a shot "only very rarely, and then only when the principles of game keeping demanded it."
What is indisputable is that he had a wonderful, detailed, deep understanding of animals in the forest. So this book can be read on at least three levels; his own love of animals and his desire to have other people understand the horrors of their treatment of them; his fable, or allegory, of the treatment of human beings by others; and an exploration of the dichotomy in his own killing of the innocent creatures he loved.
The descriptions of the forest and the creatures who live in it are utterly beautiful and enchanting, which Walt Disney adhered to. But there is nothing sugar-sweet about this translation of the original. From the many moving passages in the story, one that stands out for me is the conversation between two leaves at the top of the tree, as they wither and fall from their branch.
“It’s no longer like the old days,” one leaf said to the other.
“You’re right,” responded the other leaf. “So many have fallen this evening that we’re almost the only ones left on our branch.”
“No one knows who is going to fall next,” the first leaf said. “When it was still warm, and the sun still provided heat, when a storm came or a cloudburst, many of the leaves were already torn off then, even if they were still young. You never know whose turn will come next.”
“The sun rarely shines now,” the second leaf sighed, “and even when it shines, it doesn’t strengthen us. We need to renew our strength.”
“Do you think it’s true,” the first leaf asked, “do you really think it’s true that other leaves come and replace us when we’re gone, and then others come and even others after them?”
“It’s certainly true,” the second leaf whispered. “Our minds are too small to think about this. It’s beyond us.”
“Plus, it’s all too sad if you think about it too much,” the first leaf added.
They were silent for a while. Then the first leaf said quietly to himself, “Why must we disappear?”
“What happens to us when we fall from the tree?” the second asked.
“We flutter to the earth.”
“What’s lying down there?”
“I don’t know,” the first leaf answered: “Some say one thing, some say something else. Nobody knows.”
“Do we still feel anything? Do we know anything more about ourselves when we are down there?”
The first leaf responded: “Who knows? None of those who have fallen down there have ever returned to tell us about it.”
His own death? Whose? Those countless deaths to come, when so many leaves fell from the tree?
“Why must we disappear?”
From the content of this book, I thought that it had been written in the 1930's. Salten was an Austrian Jew (born Siegmund Salzmann), and the story seemed to me wholly allegorical of the persecution of Jews during those years and after, into the Second World War. But it was written in 1922. It must be in some degree prescient, as anti-Semitism had yet to reach its worst expression, but the fact that it was not written during that later, abominable, period makes it universal, which I think it was intended to be. Unlike the sugared Disney version, the original tale, carefully translated by Jack Zipes, uses animals to represent various peoples at the mercy of the powerful and dominant social groups. As anti-Semitism increased, Salten became more Jewish, proud to be Jewish and hating the oppressors of his people and other ethnic minority groups. Man, in the story, is the merciless killer, and the animals his victims, but these representations give rise to contradictions and paradoxes, reflecting Salten's own life, and reaching beyond it. Yes, Man (called "He", in the translation) is the incomprehensible killer, but he can also show compassion (or what appears to be such) and animals at the receiving end of this become his willing slaves, see him as a god, only to be ultimately betrayed by Him. The animals are His victims, but they also tear each other apart. Life in the forest is not idyllic. The anthropomorphism chosen by Salten is powerful, a difficult tool to handle in the shifting balance of life and death, of human qualities, and animal natures, that are irreconcilable.
I did read the introduction (after reading the book), because I had inadvertently picked up from the back cover that Salten was himself a hunter, and I was most curious about this apparent contradiction. For Zipes,
"Clearly, Salten longed to be close to animals, whom he regarded as pure, honest and decent creatures, unlike the people of the Viennese society in which he lived and worked. His forays in the forest resembled paradoxical religious rituals in which he could cleanse himself of sin and then enjoy communion by hunting and killing the very creatures he loved. In writing Bambi, despite his own contradictions, he hoped to reveal that nature was not a paradise, and that only when people truly understood how the animals suffered persecution from hunting in the forest could they create peace among themselves."
Puzzled? According to Salten's daughter Anna, he wandered about his own hunting preserve night and day, and had an almost religious veneration of nature's marvels. He fired a shot "only very rarely, and then only when the principles of game keeping demanded it."
What is indisputable is that he had a wonderful, detailed, deep understanding of animals in the forest. So this book can be read on at least three levels; his own love of animals and his desire to have other people understand the horrors of their treatment of them; his fable, or allegory, of the treatment of human beings by others; and an exploration of the dichotomy in his own killing of the innocent creatures he loved.
The descriptions of the forest and the creatures who live in it are utterly beautiful and enchanting, which Walt Disney adhered to. But there is nothing sugar-sweet about this translation of the original. From the many moving passages in the story, one that stands out for me is the conversation between two leaves at the top of the tree, as they wither and fall from their branch.
“It’s no longer like the old days,” one leaf said to the other.
“You’re right,” responded the other leaf. “So many have fallen this evening that we’re almost the only ones left on our branch.”
“No one knows who is going to fall next,” the first leaf said. “When it was still warm, and the sun still provided heat, when a storm came or a cloudburst, many of the leaves were already torn off then, even if they were still young. You never know whose turn will come next.”
“The sun rarely shines now,” the second leaf sighed, “and even when it shines, it doesn’t strengthen us. We need to renew our strength.”
“Do you think it’s true,” the first leaf asked, “do you really think it’s true that other leaves come and replace us when we’re gone, and then others come and even others after them?”
“It’s certainly true,” the second leaf whispered. “Our minds are too small to think about this. It’s beyond us.”
“Plus, it’s all too sad if you think about it too much,” the first leaf added.
They were silent for a while. Then the first leaf said quietly to himself, “Why must we disappear?”
“What happens to us when we fall from the tree?” the second asked.
“We flutter to the earth.”
“What’s lying down there?”
“I don’t know,” the first leaf answered: “Some say one thing, some say something else. Nobody knows.”
“Do we still feel anything? Do we know anything more about ourselves when we are down there?”
The first leaf responded: “Who knows? None of those who have fallen down there have ever returned to tell us about it.”
His own death? Whose? Those countless deaths to come, when so many leaves fell from the tree?
“Why must we disappear?”
July 6, 2014
The book, Bambi, is slightly different than its Disney counterpart. I know, big surprise. There are still many similarities and in general the two versions track. The book begins with the birth of Bambi and his all-important first relationship with his gentle, loving mother, his childhood friendship with Faline and his early learning about ‘Him’ (who is never named) but we know to be man or men, specifically hunters with their third arm. In time Bambi becomes aware of the old stag who continues to appear during critical moments in the young buck’s life. One day the true identity of this pivotal mentor is revealed to Bambi.
My description below gives away part of the ending, so if you want to be surprised, don't read on. But do read the book! I need to re-watch the movie to see if this scene is included and how it was handled.
Spoiler Alert! One day upon hearing three shots fired in the woods, the old stag, Bambi’s father, leads his son to the scene of the shooting, the very last place Bambi wants to go. There at his feet Bambi sees ‘Him’, or as he now knows, just an ordinary man, the victim of a shooting. The dialogue between the two deer is illustrative of a revelation and is as follows:
‘“Do you see Bambi,” the old stag went on, “do you see how He’s lying there dead like one of us? Listen Bambi. He isn’t all-powerful as they say. Everything that lives and grows doesn’t come from Him. He isn’t above us. He’s just the same as we are. He has the same fears, the same needs, and suffers in the same way. He can be killed like us, and then he lies helpless on the ground like all the rest of us, as you see Him now.”
There was a silence.
“Do you understand me Bambi?” asked the old stag.
“I think so.” Bambi said in a whisper.
“Then speak,” the old stag commanded.
Bambi was inspired, and said trembling, “There is Another who is over us all, over us and over Him.”
“Now I can go,” said the old stag.’
Bambi is a classic which I pray will never go out of style or print, not because I’m necessarily advocating one way or another on the issues of guns or hunting, but because it’s a story with the important reminder that there is One greater than all of us—men and beasts—and He cares very much for all His creatures, great and small.
My description below gives away part of the ending, so if you want to be surprised, don't read on. But do read the book! I need to re-watch the movie to see if this scene is included and how it was handled.
Spoiler Alert! One day upon hearing three shots fired in the woods, the old stag, Bambi’s father, leads his son to the scene of the shooting, the very last place Bambi wants to go. There at his feet Bambi sees ‘Him’, or as he now knows, just an ordinary man, the victim of a shooting. The dialogue between the two deer is illustrative of a revelation and is as follows:
‘“Do you see Bambi,” the old stag went on, “do you see how He’s lying there dead like one of us? Listen Bambi. He isn’t all-powerful as they say. Everything that lives and grows doesn’t come from Him. He isn’t above us. He’s just the same as we are. He has the same fears, the same needs, and suffers in the same way. He can be killed like us, and then he lies helpless on the ground like all the rest of us, as you see Him now.”
There was a silence.
“Do you understand me Bambi?” asked the old stag.
“I think so.” Bambi said in a whisper.
“Then speak,” the old stag commanded.
Bambi was inspired, and said trembling, “There is Another who is over us all, over us and over Him.”
“Now I can go,” said the old stag.’
Bambi is a classic which I pray will never go out of style or print, not because I’m necessarily advocating one way or another on the issues of guns or hunting, but because it’s a story with the important reminder that there is One greater than all of us—men and beasts—and He cares very much for all His creatures, great and small.
October 29, 2022
What a beautifully written masterpiece! I was completely surprised and overwhelmed by the gorgeous scenes of forest and woodland animals that so nimbly sprung to life from within these pages. Autumn, Winter, Spring, each passing of the seasons with their unique enchantment and starkness, were so vividly expressed. The animal's joys and heartaches told with such feeling it was hard to stay removed from the story. It is a noteworthy classic and one I heartily recommend!
The author, a nature-lover and a sportsman, kept the story well balanced. While the animals are personified, they do not deviate from their natural tendencies; much to my chagrin at times. I had wanted Bambi and Faline to stay together always, but as male deer do, he wandered off now and again after the mating season. This, when you're not carried away in the climax of a story point, is the better way to go, as the book offers it's readers a more educational look at nature and not merely a story.
If you're a hunter, hiker, animal lover, appreciator of exemplary writing or just looking for your next family read aloud, this book is for you. The animated cartoon deviates enough to provide some nice surprises too.
Ages: 8+
Cleanliness: Like the Disney cartoon, there are some tense moments when the hunters are out and animals are being shot. A few scenes are described using a sentence or two about blood flowing from the neck etc.
**Like my reviews? Then you should follow me! Because I have hundreds more just like this one. With each review, I provide a Cleanliness Report, mentioning any objectionable content I come across so that parents and/or conscientious readers (like me) can determine beforehand whether they want to read a book or not. Content surprises are super annoying, especially when you’re 100+ pages in, so here’s my attempt to help you avoid that!
So Follow or Friend me here on GoodReads! And be sure to check out my bio page to learn a little about me and the Picture Book/Chapter Book Calendars I sell on Etsy!
The author, a nature-lover and a sportsman, kept the story well balanced. While the animals are personified, they do not deviate from their natural tendencies; much to my chagrin at times. I had wanted Bambi and Faline to stay together always, but as male deer do, he wandered off now and again after the mating season. This, when you're not carried away in the climax of a story point, is the better way to go, as the book offers it's readers a more educational look at nature and not merely a story.
If you're a hunter, hiker, animal lover, appreciator of exemplary writing or just looking for your next family read aloud, this book is for you. The animated cartoon deviates enough to provide some nice surprises too.
Ages: 8+
Cleanliness: Like the Disney cartoon, there are some tense moments when the hunters are out and animals are being shot. A few scenes are described using a sentence or two about blood flowing from the neck etc.
**Like my reviews? Then you should follow me! Because I have hundreds more just like this one. With each review, I provide a Cleanliness Report, mentioning any objectionable content I come across so that parents and/or conscientious readers (like me) can determine beforehand whether they want to read a book or not. Content surprises are super annoying, especially when you’re 100+ pages in, so here’s my attempt to help you avoid that!
So Follow or Friend me here on GoodReads! And be sure to check out my bio page to learn a little about me and the Picture Book/Chapter Book Calendars I sell on Etsy!
May 17, 2021
Written in 1923 this is what Walt Disney film with the same name was based on, and I was happy I've seen the movie before reading this and was prepared for a rather sad story. But the book is much more darker then I thought but still beautiful and visual at the same time. It had a weird affect on my brain, where I pictured this as something very beautiful with all the animals and was at times very heartwarming. But there is also a very dark and sad parts to this. Death is not uncommon for the story. Would love to read more by Felix Salten and might do it rather sooner than later.
December 26, 2021
I have never seen the movie.
Despite the appropriation of his name by a whole generation of female porn stars*, Bambi is very much a male deer, and in addition to his magnificent antlers he carries the weight of metaphor upon his back. For this book was written in 1923, in an Austria shattered by the First World War, in which the idea of hunting parties chasing through the woods and shooting everything that moved was not in any way confined to the animal world.
This book, with its sprays of blood reddening the snow, deep midwinter hunger and stark differences in male and female lives, is no cartoon. Self-reliance is the key here and the only way to gain respect. Choosing to join forces with the oppressors leaves one not only as thoroughly dead as everyone else, but friendless and disrespected into the bargain.
These forest-dwelling animals did not go to church, of course, but if they did, it would be the most ruthless sort of Calvinism. Our fate is to disappoint one another and die alone, entrails dragging on the forest floor and wishing life were kinder. I can understand why well-thumbed copies of this aren't flying off of modern libraries' shelves. But it's written with clear, concise prose that allows me to recommend it.
*I stole this line wholesale from the late David Rakoff in his review of this same book, which inspired me to read it.
Despite the appropriation of his name by a whole generation of female porn stars*, Bambi is very much a male deer, and in addition to his magnificent antlers he carries the weight of metaphor upon his back. For this book was written in 1923, in an Austria shattered by the First World War, in which the idea of hunting parties chasing through the woods and shooting everything that moved was not in any way confined to the animal world.
This book, with its sprays of blood reddening the snow, deep midwinter hunger and stark differences in male and female lives, is no cartoon. Self-reliance is the key here and the only way to gain respect. Choosing to join forces with the oppressors leaves one not only as thoroughly dead as everyone else, but friendless and disrespected into the bargain.
These forest-dwelling animals did not go to church, of course, but if they did, it would be the most ruthless sort of Calvinism. Our fate is to disappoint one another and die alone, entrails dragging on the forest floor and wishing life were kinder. I can understand why well-thumbed copies of this aren't flying off of modern libraries' shelves. But it's written with clear, concise prose that allows me to recommend it.
*I stole this line wholesale from the late David Rakoff in his review of this same book, which inspired me to read it.
November 24, 2024
First thing, know this: Felix Salten's Bambi is NOT Disney's Bambi. Not even close, and that's an entire story all of it's own. Google it.
What caught my attention here was the idea of translation being a betrayal of of the original. That's a theme that has been going around in a number of books in the last few years, and the more that I read, the more I not only agree, the more clearly I see can see the truth of that statement.
The first movie I ever saw was in a drive-in movie theater in Southern California. It was Bambi. I loved it. Until that fateful scene where it all goes to dead deers, dead moms and dads, and I had a melt-down and had to be driven screaming and shouting out of the park by my teen parents so others could properly ?enjoy? the rest of that odd little offering, I was totally enjoying Bambi, Thumper, Flower and Faline's enchanting lives.
When Jack Zipes added his translation skills to this new edition of Felix Salten's story, I couldn't look away. Zipes has been one of my trusted guides in all things fairy-tale, folk-lore and the power of stories in shaping human societies and behaviors. The Original Bambi: The Story of a Life in the Forest landed on my TBR.
Here's the amazing part: I was only able to get it in ebook form, but I like to do both at the same time - read and listen. But I couldn't find an audio copy of the ebook edition at the time I wanted to read. . . so for the first time in this long life, I had one translation in audio form - in my ears, and Zipes' translation before my eyes. In real time as I read I could see the choices each translator made with yet a 3rd version which was the original - the one I couldn't see, but could only surmise by the two different results. . .it was amazing to see the variations in choice. It certainly made for a slower read, but was well worth the time.
It changed my thoughts about Bambi, and what Felix Salten, a Jewish man who was suffering all that a Jewish persons were suffering in that era and writing an allegorical tale. That was not the tale on Disney's screen. Salten's was much darker, and there was a reason Hitler banned it and burned every copy.
I'll be re-reading it, and will continue to try and read more from Felix Salten, and, of course, Mr. Zipes.
What caught my attention here was the idea of translation being a betrayal of of the original. That's a theme that has been going around in a number of books in the last few years, and the more that I read, the more I not only agree, the more clearly I see can see the truth of that statement.
The first movie I ever saw was in a drive-in movie theater in Southern California. It was Bambi. I loved it. Until that fateful scene where it all goes to dead deers, dead moms and dads, and I had a melt-down and had to be driven screaming and shouting out of the park by my teen parents so others could properly ?enjoy? the rest of that odd little offering, I was totally enjoying Bambi, Thumper, Flower and Faline's enchanting lives.
When Jack Zipes added his translation skills to this new edition of Felix Salten's story, I couldn't look away. Zipes has been one of my trusted guides in all things fairy-tale, folk-lore and the power of stories in shaping human societies and behaviors. The Original Bambi: The Story of a Life in the Forest landed on my TBR.
Here's the amazing part: I was only able to get it in ebook form, but I like to do both at the same time - read and listen. But I couldn't find an audio copy of the ebook edition at the time I wanted to read. . . so for the first time in this long life, I had one translation in audio form - in my ears, and Zipes' translation before my eyes. In real time as I read I could see the choices each translator made with yet a 3rd version which was the original - the one I couldn't see, but could only surmise by the two different results. . .it was amazing to see the variations in choice. It certainly made for a slower read, but was well worth the time.
It changed my thoughts about Bambi, and what Felix Salten, a Jewish man who was suffering all that a Jewish persons were suffering in that era and writing an allegorical tale. That was not the tale on Disney's screen. Salten's was much darker, and there was a reason Hitler banned it and burned every copy.
I'll be re-reading it, and will continue to try and read more from Felix Salten, and, of course, Mr. Zipes.
February 4, 2023
A few days ago, I learned Bambi was banned and burned in the Nazi Germany as a parable of antisemitic behaviours and the impact of antisemitism on Jews. I ordered the book immediately, and seen through this lens, it's stunning and prophetic; the hunt is so much like a liquidation of a ghetto; the delusional attitudes of Gobo and Marena reminded me of some stories of people briefly favoured by the occupants in power; the exchange between the fox and the dog is painfully reminiscent of collaborators who betrayed Jewish civilians, those who helped them, and members of the Resistance. The message that no oppressor is all-powerful gives hope; the descriptions of forest life are beautiful, if a little dated.
May 27, 2021
https://youtu.be/mlUkwnYoI3k
QUE BUENO ES
Muy recomendable si os gusta la naturaliza
Nos cuenta la vida de Bambi que es un corzo, desde su infancia hasta su madurez, y no se parece al Bambi de Disney, tiene cosas en común claro esta pero solo alguna, el libro es mucho mas profundo y como representa la naturaleza y el comportamiento animal es maravilloso, además esta muy bien escrita muy ambiental, sientas que estas en el bosque y sientes el peligro constante de la naturaliza y sobre todo del hombre.
Simplemente maravilloso
QUE BUENO ES
Muy recomendable si os gusta la naturaliza
Nos cuenta la vida de Bambi que es un corzo, desde su infancia hasta su madurez, y no se parece al Bambi de Disney, tiene cosas en común claro esta pero solo alguna, el libro es mucho mas profundo y como representa la naturaleza y el comportamiento animal es maravilloso, además esta muy bien escrita muy ambiental, sientas que estas en el bosque y sientes el peligro constante de la naturaliza y sobre todo del hombre.
Simplemente maravilloso
July 8, 2022
Certamente um dos meus livros favoritos. O filme já era particularmente importante para mim na infância, tanto pela beleza estética quanto a força psicológica simples do enredo, mas não lembrava o quão sombrio e melancólico é o texto original.
Escrito no rescaldo da I Guerra Mundial, de modo resumido, a história de Salten é sobre a sensação de impotência diante de uma violência incompreensível, gratuita e contínua. E também sobre a fragilidade e transitoriedade da vida (há um capítulo curto e belíssimo detalhando a conversa entre as duas últimas folhas a caírem da árvore antes do inverno chegar, como metáfora da finitude). A vida na floresta é tomada por uma sensação de perigo constante. Num capítulo ao fim do livro, um Bambi adulto e melancólico reflete sobre a importância da solidão. Vê uma pata ser devorada pela raposa, e os patinhos órfãos perguntam-lhe aos prantos onde está sua mãe. Bambi se afasta em silêncio: tudo é finitude, transitoriedade e melancolia. Que livro triste. Lindo e triste.
A presença de Ele (o homem, grafado assim, sempre com inicial maiúscula) é quase sobrenatural: uma criatura que anda sobre duas patas, que possui um "terceiro braço" que cospe fogo, que é precedida por um cheiro forte e incômodo, e que toda aparição resulta numa violência literalmente visceral:
Não é a toa que foi um dos livros banidos e queimados pelos nazistas. Se levar em conta que Salten, judeu austro-húngaro, escreveu em meio ao antissemitismo do dos anos 1920, os ataques aleatórios de Ele (o caçador), ganham novo sentido: é a história de um grupo que é constante alvo de uma agressão violentíssima e aleatória. O clímax da história, com a raposa implorando pela vida diante do cão-de-caça cujo discurso sintetizando o pensamento fanático de subserviência a um líder, tem um tom presciente do que viria dali a dez anos.
Ao mesmo tempo, há uma beleza específica em imagens ricamente descritas que pontua cada capítulo livro, nos pequenos tiques dos animais antropomorfizados, nas descrições do canto de cada tipo de pássaro. A beleza melancólica de uma solidão contemplativa.
Ainda assim, "Bambi nunca mais viu sua mãe" é uma das frases mais triste que já li.
Escrito no rescaldo da I Guerra Mundial, de modo resumido, a história de Salten é sobre a sensação de impotência diante de uma violência incompreensível, gratuita e contínua. E também sobre a fragilidade e transitoriedade da vida (há um capítulo curto e belíssimo detalhando a conversa entre as duas últimas folhas a caírem da árvore antes do inverno chegar, como metáfora da finitude). A vida na floresta é tomada por uma sensação de perigo constante. Num capítulo ao fim do livro, um Bambi adulto e melancólico reflete sobre a importância da solidão. Vê uma pata ser devorada pela raposa, e os patinhos órfãos perguntam-lhe aos prantos onde está sua mãe. Bambi se afasta em silêncio: tudo é finitude, transitoriedade e melancolia. Que livro triste. Lindo e triste.
A presença de Ele (o homem, grafado assim, sempre com inicial maiúscula) é quase sobrenatural: uma criatura que anda sobre duas patas, que possui um "terceiro braço" que cospe fogo, que é precedida por um cheiro forte e incômodo, e que toda aparição resulta numa violência literalmente visceral:
"A sua frente alguém se erguia com dificuldade. - Poderia me ajudar? - Era a mulher do coelho. Bambi olhou para ela e ficou abalado. As patas traseiras se arrastavam sem vida na neve, que derretia com o calor do sangue que gotejava tingindo-a de vermelho".
Não é a toa que foi um dos livros banidos e queimados pelos nazistas. Se levar em conta que Salten, judeu austro-húngaro, escreveu em meio ao antissemitismo do dos anos 1920, os ataques aleatórios de Ele (o caçador), ganham novo sentido: é a história de um grupo que é constante alvo de uma agressão violentíssima e aleatória. O clímax da história, com a raposa implorando pela vida diante do cão-de-caça cujo discurso sintetizando o pensamento fanático de subserviência a um líder, tem um tom presciente do que viria dali a dez anos.
Ao mesmo tempo, há uma beleza específica em imagens ricamente descritas que pontua cada capítulo livro, nos pequenos tiques dos animais antropomorfizados, nas descrições do canto de cada tipo de pássaro. A beleza melancólica de uma solidão contemplativa.
Ainda assim, "Bambi nunca mais viu sua mãe" é uma das frases mais triste que já li.
February 27, 2022
***** myśliwych
January 13, 2023
Bambi was the first book I recall having read to me. I cried my eyes out every single time the mother died. It was traumatic as a child, and yet at the same time a beautiful ending - as Bambi found his happy ever after, repeating the life cycle by going on to have a family of his own.
November 21, 2020
Nasuprot antropocentrične arogancije tinjajuće u pojedinim delima sa animalnom tematikom namenjenih prvenstveno (ne i beziznimno) deci, Salten ispisuje herbivorsko-životinjsku Bildungs romančinu (zdenutu u prirodnu opnu romančeta) koja u svoj svojoj lakohodnosti nije alegorijska oplata za čoveka ispod srndaćevog krzna. (Jeste, doduše, i to, kako drugačije ne bi ni mogla biti napisana, niti pojmljena, ali tako udaljeno, tako rafinirano i tako odstupno.) O, ne, stoga što se, za sve vreme organski zavodljive naracije, ne preinačuje paralelizam spram humanoidnog - humanoidnog zato jer se humanim niti može, niti zaslužuje nazvati - pa se otud unutar dijegetičkog ljudskim zalud ni ne naziva. Za životinjsko carstvo on nužno ostaje ON, dijabolički neimenljiv trojeručni demon - đavolika groteska udara po asimetriji! - gospodar vatre, zubobacač, svemogućnik, odvratni gospodar s golim likom čiju blizinu i miris u prirodi ne podnosi niko. A u suštastveno-namagnetisanoj prostoći teksta (licemerni) čitalac, moj bližnji, moj brat - JA, pre i pored svih! - o sebi saznaje iskosa i zaobilazno kroz radnju, eskivirajući sve zamke propovedanja, o tome da neprijateljsko i smrtoliko nose ljudsko obličje, a da on sám niti je srna, niti je srndać!
A "Bambi" kao prvorazredni mizantropsko-individualistički Klasik književnosti (za decu) kroz to ne hlapi, jer nam Salten, nijednog trenutka ne podilazeći s vašarskim trikovima, progovara o junaku do koga nam je stalo u majstorski ispričanoj priči vrednoj pričanja. O lepoti i ružnoći naštimovanih prema prirodi i godišnjim dobima, o toplini životinjske majke i spartanskoj hladnoći životinjskog oca, o neimenljivim brigama i tajanstvenim prožimanjima, o setnim nemirima i očekivanjima punim strepnje i vedrine. O raskoracima i naglinama odrastanja. U knjizi koju ne mogu dočekati da ponovo prođem za koju godinu, samo ovoga puta u dvoglasju!
P.S. Satima u sebi sprovodim tihu anketu zašto "Bambi", a ne "Knjiga o džungli": 1)Možda zato što je "Bambi" ujednačeniji, podjednako kvalitetan i u delovima i u celini, bez praznog hoda, dok u "Knjizi o džungli" ima čitavih priča-promašaja, banalno-simplifikovanih alegorija, naročito među onima koje se ne tiču pripovesti o Mogliju; 2)Kipling u "Džungli" čitaocu uvek do znanja stavlja da je stranac i da će takvim ostati, dok smo ovde domaći, premda suštinski stranci; 3) Saltenov Bambi u srži nosi beskompromisnu apologiju samoće i individualnosti koja čini poslednji stepen saznanja, a prirodno se utapa u fikcionalni svet; Kiplingov Mogli, iako izopštenik u obadva sveta i kao takav rašiveno biće, povratkom u ljudski čopor svoj identitet skrpljava. U tom smislu, se i oni čovekom zgražavajući pasaži u Kiliplinga mogu učiniti kompromizerskim, mada ožiljak-vez na detetu džungle ostaje trajno opažljiv; 4) Jasno ustrojen, neproblematizovan lanac ishrane, prema kome je karnivorima dato da vladaju - trivija je da se Mogli uglavnom hrani sirovim mesom - što u simboličkom proširenju dobacuje i do vladavine ljudi; 5)prethodno Kiplingu dozvoljava da tekstualno svesno uvuče i kolonijalističko-imperijalistički diskurs, ideološki prozračan u dosadnjikavim "Slugama njenog veličanstva", svakako primetan i u pojedinim Mogli-storijama, kroz binarnu opoziciju Britanskog i domorodačkog. (Neki stranci su poželjniji od drugih!) Zna se koje je superiorno. Kod Saltena, očito, ne javlja se nijedan od ovih problema.
A "Bambi" kao prvorazredni mizantropsko-individualistički Klasik književnosti (za decu) kroz to ne hlapi, jer nam Salten, nijednog trenutka ne podilazeći s vašarskim trikovima, progovara o junaku do koga nam je stalo u majstorski ispričanoj priči vrednoj pričanja. O lepoti i ružnoći naštimovanih prema prirodi i godišnjim dobima, o toplini životinjske majke i spartanskoj hladnoći životinjskog oca, o neimenljivim brigama i tajanstvenim prožimanjima, o setnim nemirima i očekivanjima punim strepnje i vedrine. O raskoracima i naglinama odrastanja. U knjizi koju ne mogu dočekati da ponovo prođem za koju godinu, samo ovoga puta u dvoglasju!
P.S. Satima u sebi sprovodim tihu anketu zašto "Bambi", a ne "Knjiga o džungli": 1)Možda zato što je "Bambi" ujednačeniji, podjednako kvalitetan i u delovima i u celini, bez praznog hoda, dok u "Knjizi o džungli" ima čitavih priča-promašaja, banalno-simplifikovanih alegorija, naročito među onima koje se ne tiču pripovesti o Mogliju; 2)Kipling u "Džungli" čitaocu uvek do znanja stavlja da je stranac i da će takvim ostati, dok smo ovde domaći, premda suštinski stranci; 3) Saltenov Bambi u srži nosi beskompromisnu apologiju samoće i individualnosti koja čini poslednji stepen saznanja, a prirodno se utapa u fikcionalni svet; Kiplingov Mogli, iako izopštenik u obadva sveta i kao takav rašiveno biće, povratkom u ljudski čopor svoj identitet skrpljava. U tom smislu, se i oni čovekom zgražavajući pasaži u Kiliplinga mogu učiniti kompromizerskim, mada ožiljak-vez na detetu džungle ostaje trajno opažljiv; 4) Jasno ustrojen, neproblematizovan lanac ishrane, prema kome je karnivorima dato da vladaju - trivija je da se Mogli uglavnom hrani sirovim mesom - što u simboličkom proširenju dobacuje i do vladavine ljudi; 5)prethodno Kiplingu dozvoljava da tekstualno svesno uvuče i kolonijalističko-imperijalistički diskurs, ideološki prozračan u dosadnjikavim "Slugama njenog veličanstva", svakako primetan i u pojedinim Mogli-storijama, kroz binarnu opoziciju Britanskog i domorodačkog. (Neki stranci su poželjniji od drugih!) Zna se koje je superiorno. Kod Saltena, očito, ne javlja se nijedan od ovih problema.
June 5, 2017
This is a dark and beautiful fable, not at all what I was expecting. Much more brutal and bloody than modern children's books of course, but also with tons of depth. Its themes are timeless enough that any number of allegorical interpretations might apply. Apparently the nazis banned the book for being anti-fascist.
The writing itself is subtle and evocative. Feel your heart break over a single falling leaf.
Like a cross between a woodland fairy tale and Animal Farm, this definitely holds up as a book for grownups.
The writing itself is subtle and evocative. Feel your heart break over a single falling leaf.
Like a cross between a woodland fairy tale and Animal Farm, this definitely holds up as a book for grownups.
August 15, 2021
I read the original story that inspired the Disney movie 'Bambi' for a brand new 'From Book to Disney Adaptation' video series on my YouTube channel, which you can watch me talk more about this book here: https://youtu.be/OIcHWggaVOw
July 3, 2018
I'm really not completely sure how I feel about this book now that I've finished it. On one hand, it is well written and there are scenes that illustrate the beauty and innocence of nature so vividly that one is able to picture them even without the wonderful illustrations of this particular version. Yet, there is also much of this book that deals with the violent and grisly destruction that humans bring to the wildlife of the forest.
How this became regarded as a children's story, I'm not really sure. The scenes of death throughout the book are graphic and horrifying and there is a true feeling of absolute terror at times that is truly palpable. To me, this book is being aimed directly at those who choose to kill and destroy for the pure thrill and feeling of power that they derive from it and is an attempt to illustrate the destruction that these kind of actions provoke. It's done through very powerful imagery and makes one very uncomfortable at times.
Why Disney decided to make this into a mostly feel-good story, I'm not sure, but those unsuspecting children who decided to read the book that one of their favorite films was based upon were surely exposed to quite a shocking experience.
I didn't hate it, but I can't really say that I enjoyed it all that much either.
How this became regarded as a children's story, I'm not really sure. The scenes of death throughout the book are graphic and horrifying and there is a true feeling of absolute terror at times that is truly palpable. To me, this book is being aimed directly at those who choose to kill and destroy for the pure thrill and feeling of power that they derive from it and is an attempt to illustrate the destruction that these kind of actions provoke. It's done through very powerful imagery and makes one very uncomfortable at times.
Why Disney decided to make this into a mostly feel-good story, I'm not sure, but those unsuspecting children who decided to read the book that one of their favorite films was based upon were surely exposed to quite a shocking experience.
I didn't hate it, but I can't really say that I enjoyed it all that much either.
April 30, 2020
When the name 'Bambi' is mentioned, everyone instantly thinks of the 1942 Disney movie.
The loosely adapted animation is actually based on this 1923 novel by the Austrian author Felix Salten.
Whilst the film hits the same story beats, the two couldn't feel more different.
This is a dark harsher experience for the young dear.
The differences are plain to see from the outset as Bambi is born with only a single magpie as a witness, the movie includes a plethora of animals.
There's no Thumper or Flower either.
While the original novel doesn't have to cuteness of the Disney movie, it doesn't shy away from the horrors that animals face from hunters.
The way that humans are described as 'Him' is very effective.
Don't expect this to appeal to younger children, the themes will appeal more to a pre-teen reader.
The loosely adapted animation is actually based on this 1923 novel by the Austrian author Felix Salten.
Whilst the film hits the same story beats, the two couldn't feel more different.
This is a dark harsher experience for the young dear.
The differences are plain to see from the outset as Bambi is born with only a single magpie as a witness, the movie includes a plethora of animals.
There's no Thumper or Flower either.
While the original novel doesn't have to cuteness of the Disney movie, it doesn't shy away from the horrors that animals face from hunters.
The way that humans are described as 'Him' is very effective.
Don't expect this to appeal to younger children, the themes will appeal more to a pre-teen reader.
June 23, 2022
Me compré esta edición del libro de Bambi por varias razones; 1) porque la edición es preciosa, 2) porque las ilustraciones de Benjamin Lacombe me encantan y 3) porque tengo un buen recuerdo de la película de Disney y era de una película entretenida.
Pues el libro no tiene nada que ver con la película de Disney, la primera mitad del libro que es cuando Bambi es un joven corzo, y se me ha hecho bastante lenta y aburrida, en la segunda mitad del libro, ya tenemos a un Bambi adulto y mejora con respecto a la primera.
Para mí, lo mejor del libro es la edición que es preciosa y muy cuidada y por supuesto, las ilustraciones de Lacombe, que como siempre son bellísimas.
Pues el libro no tiene nada que ver con la película de Disney, la primera mitad del libro que es cuando Bambi es un joven corzo, y se me ha hecho bastante lenta y aburrida, en la segunda mitad del libro, ya tenemos a un Bambi adulto y mejora con respecto a la primera.
Para mí, lo mejor del libro es la edición que es preciosa y muy cuidada y por supuesto, las ilustraciones de Lacombe, que como siempre son bellísimas.
April 6, 2014
"'He was very nice to me. And I like him so much. He's so wonderful and green..."
"'Can it be true,' said the first leaf, 'can it really be true, that others come to take our 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 beyond our powers.'
'It makes me very sad,' added the first lead.
They were silent for a while. Then the first leaf said quietly to herself, 'Why must we fall?'...
The second lead asked, 'What happens to us when we have fallen?'
'We sink down...'
'What is under us?'
The first leaf answers, 'I don't know, some say one thing, some another, but nobody knows.'
The second lead asked, 'Do we feel anything, do we know anything about ourselves when we're 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.'
(........)
She was silent, but went on after a little while, 'Which of us will go first?'
'There's still plenty of time to worry about that,' the other lead assured her. 'Let's remember how beautiful it was, how wonderful, when the sun came out and shone so warmly that we thought we'd burst with life. Do you remember? And the morning dew, and the mild and splendid nights....'
(........)
'No, really,' the first lead exclaimed eagerly, 'believe me, you're as lovely as the day you were born. Here and there may be a little yellow spot but it's hardly noticeable and only makes you handsomer, believe me.'
'Thanks,' whispered the second leaf, quite touched. 'I don't believe you, not altogether, but I thank you because you're so kind, you've always been so kind to me. I'm just beginning to understand how kind you are.'"
"'Can it be true,' said the first leaf, 'can it really be true, that others come to take our 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 beyond our powers.'
'It makes me very sad,' added the first lead.
They were silent for a while. Then the first leaf said quietly to herself, 'Why must we fall?'...
The second lead asked, 'What happens to us when we have fallen?'
'We sink down...'
'What is under us?'
The first leaf answers, 'I don't know, some say one thing, some another, but nobody knows.'
The second lead asked, 'Do we feel anything, do we know anything about ourselves when we're 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.'
(........)
She was silent, but went on after a little while, 'Which of us will go first?'
'There's still plenty of time to worry about that,' the other lead assured her. 'Let's remember how beautiful it was, how wonderful, when the sun came out and shone so warmly that we thought we'd burst with life. Do you remember? And the morning dew, and the mild and splendid nights....'
(........)
'No, really,' the first lead exclaimed eagerly, 'believe me, you're as lovely as the day you were born. Here and there may be a little yellow spot but it's hardly noticeable and only makes you handsomer, believe me.'
'Thanks,' whispered the second leaf, quite touched. 'I don't believe you, not altogether, but I thank you because you're so kind, you've always been so kind to me. I'm just beginning to understand how kind you are.'"
May 4, 2020
So after at first really and truly needing to get a bit used to Felix Salten's general writing style (and also having to lose my annoyance that in the beginning of Bambi: Eine Lebensgeschichte aus dem Walde, when Felix Salten is describing Bambi as a newly-born fawn, he makes use of the words blöd and duselig, he writes two descriptive adjectives that basically in German usually tend to signify major stupidity and are also often specifically used as insults in order to describe young Bambi as still being rather unresponsive and unsteady on his feet during his first hours of life), I did in fact and indeed end up for the most part rather enjoying Bambi: Eine Lebensgeschichte aus dem Walde and in particular appreciating how Bambi in classic bildungsroman fashion develops and matures from a helpless fawn utterly dependent on others (actually mostly on his mother) into a strong and courageous stag not only able to adequately take care of himself but to also provide protection and succour to the other deer of the forest (experiencing both joy and tragedy, both heartbreak and triumph, living both the positives and equally all of the negatives of existence).
However, that having been said and while I have certainly found Bambi: Eine Lebensgeschichte aus dem Walde an engaging and also often enlightening reading experience, I also cannot say that this novel, that Bambi: Eine Lebensgeschichte aus dem Walde has been an unmitigated and total reading pleasure for me. For personally and emotionally, I do tend to think that the rather constant threat to Bambi and to the forest as a whole posed by man (as mostly a hunter) while perhaps realistic to a point also feels within the storyline of Bambi: Eine Lebensgeschichte aus dem Walde and Felix Salten's narrative as sometimes being more than a trifle exaggerated and overly extreme (and as such also often as though Felix Salten is literally wallowing joyfully in describing one hunter-based horror and terror after another, that he is really overdoing things and almost wanting to frighten his readers and to make man just into one huge threat to and for nature, and just man as a HE at that, as an anonymous male entity, almost as though those of us who are of the female gender somehow never would choose to hunt and therefore cannot be an equal danger to nature, to the forest and to its denizens).
Combined with the fact that although I do generally have no textual issues with the animals in Bambi: Eine Lebensgeschichte aus dem Walde freely talking and conversing amongst themselves (and that thankfully, they only talk amongst themselves and do not talk to humans), I certainly and actually would much prefer it if Felix Salten ONLY had Bambi and the rest of the forest deer chatting amongst themselves instead of having Bambi et al also converse with birds, insects etc. (and yes, I really do not like that scene in Bambi: Eine Lebensgeschichte aus dem Walde where two leaves are having a conversation). And therefore, while I am most definitely very glad to have finally read Bambi: Eine Lebensgeschichte aus dem Walde (in its original German text and unabridged), I also cannot and will not consider it a personal favourite (as to and for me, albeit that Bambi: Eine Lebensgeschichte aus dem Walde is a good enough story and an engaging enough story in an of itself, it is also a tale that I for one do wish were a bit less focused on hunting and with a narration that just had one animal species and not multiple ones chatting with one another).
However, that having been said and while I have certainly found Bambi: Eine Lebensgeschichte aus dem Walde an engaging and also often enlightening reading experience, I also cannot say that this novel, that Bambi: Eine Lebensgeschichte aus dem Walde has been an unmitigated and total reading pleasure for me. For personally and emotionally, I do tend to think that the rather constant threat to Bambi and to the forest as a whole posed by man (as mostly a hunter) while perhaps realistic to a point also feels within the storyline of Bambi: Eine Lebensgeschichte aus dem Walde and Felix Salten's narrative as sometimes being more than a trifle exaggerated and overly extreme (and as such also often as though Felix Salten is literally wallowing joyfully in describing one hunter-based horror and terror after another, that he is really overdoing things and almost wanting to frighten his readers and to make man just into one huge threat to and for nature, and just man as a HE at that, as an anonymous male entity, almost as though those of us who are of the female gender somehow never would choose to hunt and therefore cannot be an equal danger to nature, to the forest and to its denizens).
Combined with the fact that although I do generally have no textual issues with the animals in Bambi: Eine Lebensgeschichte aus dem Walde freely talking and conversing amongst themselves (and that thankfully, they only talk amongst themselves and do not talk to humans), I certainly and actually would much prefer it if Felix Salten ONLY had Bambi and the rest of the forest deer chatting amongst themselves instead of having Bambi et al also converse with birds, insects etc. (and yes, I really do not like that scene in Bambi: Eine Lebensgeschichte aus dem Walde where two leaves are having a conversation). And therefore, while I am most definitely very glad to have finally read Bambi: Eine Lebensgeschichte aus dem Walde (in its original German text and unabridged), I also cannot and will not consider it a personal favourite (as to and for me, albeit that Bambi: Eine Lebensgeschichte aus dem Walde is a good enough story and an engaging enough story in an of itself, it is also a tale that I for one do wish were a bit less focused on hunting and with a narration that just had one animal species and not multiple ones chatting with one another).
January 7, 2025
A couple times a year I like to pick up a children’s classic that I missed along the way. Over winter break, I stumbled across The Original Bambi at a Chicago bookstore and my near-future reading fate was sealed: It became the first book I read entirely during 2025.
The subtitle--A Life in the Forest--gives a pretty good summary of the main story arc, though it doesn’t prepare readers for the darkness and violence they are about to encounter, especially if they come with preconceived notions of the story from the Disney film. The translator of this volume notes that both this movie and the original English translation “have done Salten a disservice” (xix).
Yes, it’s a talking animal story, and there is some sweetness, especially when Bambi is a fawn who is tenderly loved by his mother and who learns about the beauty of the world as he roams the woods and meadows, meeting and chatting with the other creatures who live there.
But there is also plenty of bloody violence as animals are killed by one another as well as by the dreaded and mysterious humans who can kill from a distance with the terrifying “thunder”, who use dogs to hunt their prey, and who can destroy many wild animals at once.
This translator reads the book in part as an allegory for how human “minority groups throughout the world have been brutally treated even when they try to live peacefully in their own environment” and sees Bambi as an alter ego of Salten himself. And certainly I could see that after reading his introduction though it didn’t occur to me while I was reading it.
But besides being a somewhat realistic (animals talking aside) and mostly unsentimental look at the natural world, it also is clearly a depiction of human condition as the forest dwellers experience the same existential hopes, fears, and wonders that we do.
This is shown mostly blatantly in the chapter where two leaves in autumn, filled with both awe and trembling, discuss their post-tree lives: “"What happens down there after we fall off?’ one leaf asks. ‘No one knows,’ the other leaf says. ‘No leaf has ever come back to let us know’" (56).
But the animal/human parallels can also be seen in the life of Bambi himself as he goes from newborn and dependent to wise, capable, and mature just a few years later. The parallel between Bambi’s relatively short existence and our own longer lives is unmistakable.
The subtitle--A Life in the Forest--gives a pretty good summary of the main story arc, though it doesn’t prepare readers for the darkness and violence they are about to encounter, especially if they come with preconceived notions of the story from the Disney film. The translator of this volume notes that both this movie and the original English translation “have done Salten a disservice” (xix).
Yes, it’s a talking animal story, and there is some sweetness, especially when Bambi is a fawn who is tenderly loved by his mother and who learns about the beauty of the world as he roams the woods and meadows, meeting and chatting with the other creatures who live there.
But there is also plenty of bloody violence as animals are killed by one another as well as by the dreaded and mysterious humans who can kill from a distance with the terrifying “thunder”, who use dogs to hunt their prey, and who can destroy many wild animals at once.
This translator reads the book in part as an allegory for how human “minority groups throughout the world have been brutally treated even when they try to live peacefully in their own environment” and sees Bambi as an alter ego of Salten himself. And certainly I could see that after reading his introduction though it didn’t occur to me while I was reading it.
But besides being a somewhat realistic (animals talking aside) and mostly unsentimental look at the natural world, it also is clearly a depiction of human condition as the forest dwellers experience the same existential hopes, fears, and wonders that we do.
This is shown mostly blatantly in the chapter where two leaves in autumn, filled with both awe and trembling, discuss their post-tree lives: “"What happens down there after we fall off?’ one leaf asks. ‘No one knows,’ the other leaf says. ‘No leaf has ever come back to let us know’" (56).
But the animal/human parallels can also be seen in the life of Bambi himself as he goes from newborn and dependent to wise, capable, and mature just a few years later. The parallel between Bambi’s relatively short existence and our own longer lives is unmistakable.
May 20, 2015
Hmmm. I bought this book to read to my children because I thought it would be a richer, better story than the Disney movie I grew up with. (my kids have never seen it)
The writing is lovely, if heavy on adverbs, and there are some gorgeous descriptions of life in the forest and some profound observations on the harsh realities of the natural world.
But this is not a children's book. My three-year-old asked repeatedly that I NOT read it. My six-year-old was left with a blank, dissatisfied stare after the close of the final chapter. I believe I know why.
Salten had a perfect opportunity to weave some kind of hope or redemption into the tale. At the very end, Bambi, after having suffered and undergone many changes and gained the wisdom of the forest, meets his offspring. He's placed into the exact situation in which he found himself as a young fawn, in the moment when the wise old stag treated him harshly. Salten could have stopped here, had Bambi remember his own terror as a young fawn; he could have allowed Bambi to show some tenderness, even some fondness for what was lost. He chose not to. Instead, Bambi behaves in the same cold, dismissive manner in which he had been treated, and the reader is left with a feeling of hopelessness.
This is the fallen world. This is violence and winter and the bite of the hunter's bullet. The creatures murder one another and die in their turn. And all of it comes to nothing.
The writing is lovely, if heavy on adverbs, and there are some gorgeous descriptions of life in the forest and some profound observations on the harsh realities of the natural world.
But this is not a children's book. My three-year-old asked repeatedly that I NOT read it. My six-year-old was left with a blank, dissatisfied stare after the close of the final chapter. I believe I know why.
Salten had a perfect opportunity to weave some kind of hope or redemption into the tale. At the very end, Bambi, after having suffered and undergone many changes and gained the wisdom of the forest, meets his offspring. He's placed into the exact situation in which he found himself as a young fawn, in the moment when the wise old stag treated him harshly. Salten could have stopped here, had Bambi remember his own terror as a young fawn; he could have allowed Bambi to show some tenderness, even some fondness for what was lost. He chose not to. Instead, Bambi behaves in the same cold, dismissive manner in which he had been treated, and the reader is left with a feeling of hopelessness.
This is the fallen world. This is violence and winter and the bite of the hunter's bullet. The creatures murder one another and die in their turn. And all of it comes to nothing.
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