BAMBI: A Life in the Woods

FELIX SALTEN

Ene 2024 · Everlast Storybooks

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BAMBI is a delicious book. For delicacy of perception and essential truth I hardly know any story of animals that can stand beside this life study of a forest deer. Felix Salten is a poet. He feels nature deeply, and he loves animals. 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.

I read it in galley proof on the way from Paris to Calais, before a channel crossing. As I finished each sheet I handed it to my wife, who read, and handed it to my nephew’s wife, who read, and handed it to my nephew. For three hours the four of us read thus in silent absorption. Those who know what it is to read books in galley proof, and have experienced channel crossings, will realize that few books will stand such a test. BAMBI is one of them. I particularly recommend it to sportsmen.

March 16th, 1928

John Galsworthy

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Felix Salten (1869-1945) was an Austro-Hungarian author and literary critic most known for the environmental children's novel Bambi. Born in Pest, Salten (at the time four weeks old) would relocate with his family to Vienna after the Jewish emancipation of the late eighteenth century. While there is little information about his early years, it is known that Salten was forced to quit school at the age of sixteen due to his father's bankruptcy. This entry into the workforce would happen almost simultaneously with his initiation into the world of literary arts. Salten would join the "Young Vienna" movement and begin submitting his poetry and book reviews to journals before eventually finding full-time work as an art and theatre critic. At the turn of the twentieth century, Salten would publish his first collection of short-stories and soon after increased his literary output dramatically releasing at least one book a year as well as various plays, short stories and essay collections. It was not until fifty-four years of age that he published his most-well known novel, Bambi (1923). The book was received positively worldwide among critics, authors (such as John Galsworthy) and most importantly-children; later being made into Walt Disney's fifth animated feature film of the same name. That same year he would also publish an adventure novel for children titled, The Hound of Florence, inspiring another Walt Disney feature film, The Shaggy Dog (1959). Unfortunately Salten's life would be greatly impacted as the Nazi party rose to power in the 1930s, with his work-specifically Bambi-being banned in 1936 for being a, "political allegory on the treatment of Jews in Europe." For the safety of his wife and children, Salten relocated to Switzerland in 1938 and where he would spend his final years. While Salten's work would remain inaccessible for several decades to an international audience due to the Nazi party's censorship, his contributions to children's literature cannot be understated.