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Bambi: A Life in the Woods (Bambi, #1)

Felix Salten,

Barbara Cooney (Illustrator)

Start date: April 1, 2020

Finish date: April 30, 2020

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Apr 24, 2020 Manybooks rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: book-reviews, animal-tale, childrens-literature, classics, bildungsroman, translations

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 st 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). ...more

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Dec 29, 2022 Katherine Sas rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: fantasy, animals-and-nature

'There is someone else above us all ... above us and above Him."

Part naturalism, part meditation on living in a harsh world that wants to kill you. ...more

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