The Original Bambi: The Story of a Life in the Forest

by Felix Salten, Jack Zipes Narrated by John Chancer, Peter Marinker

Overview

Peter Marinker narrates a new translation of Felix Salten's celebrated novel Bambi, capturing the emotional impact and rich meanings of the original story
With a preface read by John Chancer

Most of us think we know the story of Bambi-but do we? The Original Bambi is an all-new translation of a literary classic that presents the story as it was meant to be told. For decades, readers' images of Bambi have been shaped by the 1942 Walt Disney film-an idealized look at a fawn who represents nature's innocence-which was based on a 1928 English translation of a novel by the Austrian Jewish writer Felix Salten. This masterful new translation gives contemporary readers a fresh perspective on this moving allegorical tale and provides important details about its creator.

Originally published in 1923, Salten's story is more somber than the adaptations that followed it. Life in the forest is dangerous and precarious, and Bambi learns important lessons about survival as he grows to become a strong, heroic stag. Jack Zipes's introduction traces the history of the book's reception and explores the tensions that Salten experienced in his own life-as a hunter who also loved animals, and as an Austrian Jew who sought acceptance in Viennese society even as he faced persecution.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

"Bambi is quite remarkable: a meditation on powerlessness and survival told with great economy and sophistication."—-Bill McKibben, New York Times

"In The Original Bambi, the distinguished translator Jack Zipes, has sought to restore both the dignity and the relevance of Salten’s vision; to rescue it, in a manner of speaking, from Disneyfication. . . . [The book is] bracingly free of the encrustation of sugar that the tale has accumulated over the past 100 years."—-Meghan Cox Gurdon, Wall Street Journal

"Wonderful black-and-white illustrations. . . . Zipes is knowledgeable about his subject matter."—-Kathryn Schulz, The New Yorker

"A lovely new hardback edition."—-Ron Charles, Washington Post

"Elegant [and] uncompromising."—-Piers Torday, The Spectator

"A new translation . . . it's a dark story of brutality, loss and, ultimately, loneliness."—-Richard Chin, Star Tribune

"A new, more precise translation of [Felix] Salten’s original."—-Andrew Stuttaford, Spectator World

"Informative. . . . A powerful tale of the destructive side of human nature and our despotic relationship to the environment."—-GrrlScientist, Forbes

"[Zipes] makes a persuasive argument for rediscovering ‘The Original Bambi.’"—-Nan Cohen, Electric Literature

The Bookwatch

"With captivating drawings by award-winning artist Alenka Sottler, The Original Bambi captures the emotional impact and rich meanings of a celebrated story."

Library Journal

05/01/2022

A century after its first appearance, Salten's coming-of-age story of a young deer and his distant but loving older mentor has lost none of its charm or emotional force. Lucid, unsentimental prose flows along with the seasons, from sylvan springs that rival the saccharine idyll in Disney's animated Bambi, to harsh winter scenes where "something horrible happened every day," as woodland creatures prey upon each other, red in tooth and claw. Absolute terror is reserved for the dreaded humans, reverenced with a capitalized pronoun, as in "He hurled fire from His hands." The effects of that mysterious fire are devastating for all who come within range—most stirringly for Bambi's domesticated cousin Gobo who has lost his fear of Man, in a heartbreaking subplot that invites parallels to Salten's own status as an assimilated Jew eventually forced to flee Austria under the Nazis. More than a veiled critique of abusive power or cruelty to animals, this is a touching minor-key meditation on the lot of all mortal things, epitomized by a brief colloquy between two autumn leaves trembling on a branch, like a tiny Waiting for Godot. VERDICT While it isn't clear that Zipes's fine translation improves upon the prior one, this handsomely illustrated unabridged edition of an enchanting and moving fable for adults (and older children) belongs in every library.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940175493048
Publisher:	Princeton University Press
Publication date:	02/22/2022
Edition description:	Unabridged

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