The Original Bambi by Felix Salten

The Original Bambi: The Story of a Life in the Forest by Felix Salten is here translated and introduced by Jack Zipes. This edition, published by Princeton University Press in 2022, is illustrated by Alenka Sottler and follows the text of the original 1923 German novel, not the 1928 English translation by Whittaker Chambers, which Zipes notes as doing a disservice to the original. A further disservice came in the form of Walt Disney's 1942 animated film Bambi, which sentimentalizes and twists the original into a sugar-coated confectionary for very small children. (Zipes notes wryly that Disney had "a well-known technique for carrying cuteness to an extreme"--surely an understatement.) Basically, Salten's novel tells the story of a young deer's life and growth in the forest, though it anthropomorphizes all the animals too much (not only the deer, but rabbits, squirrels, etc.--there is even a short chapter comprised of a conversation between two leaves), giving a sentimental basis upon which Disney expanded. But Salten's novel doesn't shy away from evil and death, as man (always denoted as He) terrorizes the forest with his strange and deadly Third Arm. Salten's novel is perhaps an antidote to the Disney movie, but it isn't itself a very engaging book.