Bambi, a Life in the Woods

I am a fanatical fan when it comes to certain creations.

A long time ago, convinced that Kathryn Lasky had finished her Guardians of Ga’Hoole series with Book 8, I could not accept that it was all over. Not that The Outcast would have been a bad ending to the series. In hindsight, I almost wish it had been the terminus, but I won’t go there this time.

No, I just couldn’t accept that that was it. That this would be all I’d get of this world that had drawn me in so completely.

So, I took it upon myself to write Book 9 of the Guardians series. Being all of 12 years old and only knowing how to type with my two index fingers, the deck was stacked against me. The draft was then lost when my family switched computers, this being the age before instant cloud backups. Perhaps for the best.

After all, Lasky wrote an official Book 9 and went on to give us six more books.

I cite this example before I talk about a completely separate work because it illustrates a trend. Even back then, when writing hadn’t become a core component of my identity, I felt so deeply hooked by a series that I wanted to write my own book set in that literary universe.

And just like how I never crossed the finish line with my own version of Book 9 of someone else’s series, I have revered the Bambi literary and cinematic universe for years and have never quite achieved the goal of producing something I feel is comparable to the source material from which it is inspired.

Now, it’s not as if I’ve never encountered art that remains outside my grasp. I can’t write my own symphony. I can’t produce a TV show. I can’t even paint.

Thus, these other art forms are viewed with a comfortable sense of detachment. Which isn’t to say that I don’t pull inspiration from music or cinema or artwork; I absolutely do. But at least I am saved from the monster of direct comparison, for, by virtue of the two mediums, the song that inspired my story will always be different. Of course it’s not the same experience to read prose versus listen to a melody; that’s the point.

So, it drives me crazy that after years of attempting to add my own contribution to Felix Salten’s literary world, even after going through formal and professional writing courses, the dream remains just out of reach.

And this time I don’t have the excuse of not knowing how to compose a song. I write stories almost every day.

Despite at least a dozen attempts, I have only ever succeeded in producing one story that I feel is worthy of Salten’s work. We’ll get to that later.

First, I figured it was worth clarifying how I came upon this Sisyphean hill and the book that sits at the crest.

Bambi: The Movie

Yes, I’ll admit it: I found the book through the Disney movie based on it.

I don’t remember the exact details, but I imagine it went something like this: one evening, I found I could watch Bambi free on YouTube and likely said, “Sure, why not?” All I had known about the movie up to that point was that my grandmother owned a bunch of figurines of Bambi and his friends.

I really wish I had asked her about that when she was still with us. Now, I can only assume that she, like her grandson, was a big fan.

Because, wow, what a work of art. Beautiful hand-drawn landscapes, ranging from broad green forests to moonlit meadows to even the barren wastes of a forest in winter. Plus original compositions making full use of the orchestra to capture every unique feeling of the many creatures, plants, and sensations that make up the woodlands.

If I had to pick one favorite moment from the film, it’s the rain scene where the orchestra builds from singular notes with the first few raindrops to a full crescendo as wind, rain, and lightning join together to rake the land. Then, finally, the energy fades as the tempest abates and the score settles into a hum as the forest life reemerges with the sun’s return.

Marvelous.

As you might have guessed by now, I wanted more.

But, instead of turning to the source material clearly credited in the title, I continued to be, as the kids would say, basic and instead watched Disney’s own sequel.

To review Bambi 2 is outside of this article’s scope, but suffice it to say, if you watched both movies and felt the second is a lot gentler and toned down, you’d be interested to know the same can be said about Bambi, a Life in the Woods as compared to its sequel. Though apparently that has a lot to do with the English translator and the American publisher than with the author himself.

Sadly, the review of the literary sequel will have to wait for a different article.

I will point out, however, that the movie is actually a fairly faithful adaptation of the book when viewed through one key lens:

Bambi, the movie, is a children’s story.

Bambi, the book, is not.

It is unforgiving.

Bambi, a Life in the Woods

Did that whet your literary appetite? It sure whet mine.

Before we go any further, and in case it wasn’t already clear, this examination will contain spoilers. Lots of them.

Though I will try to avoid simply regurgitating the plot.

The piece that sticks out most to me having just reread the book for the sake of this examination (and, I mean, twist my arm) is how hard it can be to emotionally relate to the characters at times. Bambi’s father is distant and cold for the first two-thirds of the book, the woodland creatures are either callous or complete nitwits, and Bambi himself is remarkably unphased about his own mother “disappearing”—at least in his reminiscence since the book time jumps a good deal from that faithful day. Bambi’s mother, well, she gets a pass.

But then you remember that this cognitive dissonance should be expected; they’re deer.

Plus, of all the characters in the book, our protagonist is probably the most sympathetic. We see Bambi grow up, learn about this strange new world with him, and have experienced many of the same feelings he has: childhood wonder and innocence, the later realization that life is not so easy or the world as forgiving as we first thought, the conflict of adolescence and the feeling that we do not belong, the confidence of adulthood and the realization of new love.

As a teenager, I never understood much of the later parts of the book. Having found his mate, Bambi then drifts off and spends his time alone in contemplation. He can no longer bring himself to be around her, though he isn’t sure why, and the only person—uh, deer he spends any amount of time with is his father who has been a distant authority figure for much of the book.

I am not here to condone abandoning your partner. I am also less than sold on the central lesson that Bambi’s father—the old Prince—teaches him, which is that one must be alone to survive and gain wisdom. Though, considering the world of constant danger they live in, I can certainly see why that idea would take root.

But I can relate to what I call the “anomie chapters,” where Bambi drifts and spends much of his time watching the forest around him. I myself have been doing a lot of introspection of late, less than pleased with where I am in life and equally unsure what I can do to change that. We are both directionless.

There is something raw and pure in how unflinching Salten is in creating this world. We are shown both the wonders of the natural world surrounding our character:

Now he [Bambi] saw the whole heaven stretching far and wide and he rejoiced without knowing why. In the forest he had seen only 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 spending warmth that made him shut his eyes but which opened his heart.

We are shown in equal measure just how brutal this same world can be:

Then there was a crash like thunder.

Bambi shrank together and didn’t know what had happened. He saw the Prince leap into the air under his very nose and watched him rush past him into the forest with one great bound.

Bambi looked around in a daze. The thunder still vibrated. He saw how his mother and Aunt Ena, Gobo and Faline fled into the woods. He saw how Friend Hare scurried away like mad. He saw the pheasant running with his neck outstretched. He noticed that the forest grew suddenly still. He started and sprang into the thicket. He had made only a few bounds when he saw the Prince lying on the ground in front of him, motionless. Bambi stopped horrified [sic], not understanding what it meant. The Prince lay bleeding from a great wound in his shoulder. He was dead.

This is the reality these characters exist in, and it helps to explain how they think, behave, and live so far outside our own experience. You get the sense that, ignoring the fact that real-life animals likely don’t speak using German/English, this may be as close to the true way of the wild as one can get in a book.

Oh, by the way, this book and its sequel were originally written in German, so I’ve always wondered what liberties the translator may have taken when converting it to English. Apparently the translator for the sequel took a lot of license, and having read both, I can tell you the tone is a lot lighter in the sequel.

But considering how heavy the first book can be, I’m kind of okay with that. It’s almost like a pallet cleanser that only a couple named characters die to hunters.

Because let me tell you, it gets dark. And no, I’m not just talking about Bambi’s mom dying. We never actually see her die, like in the movie adaptation. She just never returns. Throughout the whole book, I don’t believe she’s ever referred to as dead. Simply gone.

I think it is best summed up in the saga of Gobo. He is the brother of Faline and is shown throughout the opening of the book to be weaker and more delicate than the other fawns. Then the great hunt that also claims Bambi’s mother comes, and he collapses in the snow, unable to go on. His mother and family presume he is dead after they return to the scene and cannot find him.

Much farther on in the book, he returns to the forest speaking of how He (this is how man is referred to throughout the book) saved him and how He is now his friend. He spreads a gospel of the great power of Him and His benevolence.

Then, one day, Gobo sees Him on the meadow, and, believing he need not fear any danger from one of His kind, walks right up to Him. The hunter then shoots Gobo, and while he is able to stumble back to where Bambi, Faline, and his mate Marena have witnessed the entire ordeal, he sinks to the ground and cannot stand.

The others are forced to leave him as He approaches or suffer the same fate, with the chapter closing as Gobo’s death wail follows them into the forest.

I have chills just from recounting that chapter.

However, it is not all bleak. There are many moments of levity and love throughout the book to balance these stark realities.

Probably most satisfying is how Bambi’s relationship develops with his previously distant father, culminating in the final lesson the old Prince wishes to impart to his son: the two hear thunder and, rather than flee, the old Prince insists they investigate. Bambi follows, and they find one of Him lying dead in the snow.

“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.”

His father pushes Bambi to tell him what this means, and Bambi hesitantly replies:

“There is Another who is over us all, over us and over Him.”

More chills. Suffice it to say, I wasn’t expecting to find such existential themes in a book about a deer’s coming of age.

If there’s anything else worth highlighting from Bambi, a Life in the Woods, it is the vignettes that add even more depth to the forest and the plot. In one, we have an entire chapter told from the perspective of two leaves at the top of a tree, desperately clinging on despite the autumn winds and wondering what will become of them when they finally let go.

In another, we see a wounded fox being run to ground by a hound. Unable to flee any farther with his savaged front leg, the fox instead turns and speaks to the hound, first pleading for mercy. When it becomes clear the dog will grant none and is calling to his master to finish the fox, the fox then accuses the hound of betraying his own kind. Other forest creatures join in, calling the dog a traitor until he can no longer take it and silences them by killing the fox.

My Own Pale Imitations

I owe a lot to this book, not the least of which being that it set off an entire series of attempts to emulate and/or downright rip off the plot. The amount of deer stories I’ve written where something happens to the mother alone…

Obviously, I’m not trying to publish any of these knockoffs, but it was an important part of how I came to be the writer I am today. Eventually, I went from infringing copyright to producing plots inspired by the book. My first-ever full manuscript, Outcast, is a perfect example. The protagonist Kardika has a very similar origin to Bambi. However, his struggles are not against man, but against his fellow deer and his own inner demons.

And before you ask, no, I will not share the manuscript. For much the same reason I’m not entering the Chapters memoir challenge: I do not need to revisit the mindset of young teenage me. Some truly awful writing came out of those years.

Still, even today, with an entire subfolder titled “Woodland Tales”—and then an additional two folders for “Deer” and “Wolves” (❤️ you, Jack London), I’ve never truly produced something worthy of the material that inspired it.

Part of the reason is because I will never be able to speak to the foliage and terrain the way Salten does. You get the sense he’s writing about real places in the forest—or at the very least has experienced each of these different flora and fauna up close. I can’t boast that same level of familiarity, and my description suffers as a result.

The other part is less tangible: they just don’t feel as good. Even though I don’t love everything about Bambi, a Life in the Woods, it feels authentic. It’s raw. Real. Unflinching.

And it’s not a tone issue. All my attempts are dark to varying degrees: it’s the kind of writing I gravitate to. In fact, I once challenged myself to write a light-hearted story set in the woods and the main character still ends up in the Bambi equivalent of a concentration camp by Page 6.

Don’t ask.

Yes, the only finished piece I’ve produced in all this time that I feel even comes close to the original vision is “The Precipice.” Ironically, I also consider it some of the better horror writing I’ve done. And lucky you, it’s right here on Vocal:

No, I didn’t write this entire examination just to plug a story. Trust me when I say that I’ll happily go on about this book for hours, no ulterior motive required.

In fact, this article may be seeing a sequel soon. Once I’ve finished rereading Bambi’s Children: The Story of a Forest Family, that is.

Until then, thanks so much for reading! Hopefully I’ve inspired you to give this oft-overlooked book a second glance. It is a fascinating read. Heck, I wish I could read it for the first time all over again.

A Final Note on the Author

Felix Salten spent most of his life in Vienna. However, after Hitler banned his books in 1936, Salten moved to Switzerland ahead of the annexation of Austria by Nazi Germany. In what I consider one of the greatest examples of a just universe, he lived just long enough to witness the complete defeat of Hitler and Nazism before passing away in October 1945.