Bambi for Audrey

Thanks to the worldwide success of Walt Disney’s animated classic, the memory of Man entering the forest and disappearing Bambi’s mother seems to be seared into the collective trauma of humankind. Further, the Disneyfication of nature that the film epitomises has remained a bone of contention between critics and fans. What has more or less been lost from memory, however, is the adult novel behind the children’s movie, not to mention its allegorical depths. My literary guide to Bambi for the audiobook app Audrey helps listeners engage with the many layers of this story we all believe we already knew.

Published in German in 1923 as Bambi: Eine Lebensgeschichte aus dem Walde (Bambi: A Life in the Woods), this coming-of-age tale of a roebuck spares no details of animals’ suffering, both amongst themselves in the wild and at the receiving end of the hunter’s gun. On the surface, it is a paean to a red-in-tooth-and-claw version of forest ecology; author Felix Salten – an animal-lover and an avid hunter – later wrote, “I wanted to free my readers from the faulty perception that nature is a sunny paradise.” Yet Salten was also an Austro-Hungarian Jew living in Vienna, struggling to transcend his working-class childhood, and torn between his allegiance to Zionism and his longing to be accepted by the cultural elite. Bambi enabled him to express his views on social stratification and antisemitism alike. Unsurprisingly, the book was subsequently banned and burned by the Nazis.

Salten’s bestseller was eclipsed by Disney’s 1942 adaptation, which warped the book’s thematic intentions and watered down its literary power. However, a new translation by Jack Zipes brings Bambi back to life. By leaning into the author’s anthropomorphism, Zipes helps makes it clear: this “animal story” is equally an allegory for the violence and suffering of humankind, one that remains current on both levels over a century after its original publication. Equally thought-provoking is its take on the existential virtues of independence and stoicism. But fortunately, for readers who are sceptical of such qualities, they don’t have to go it alone – I’ll be with them chapter by chapter.

Bambi: A Life in the Woods is read by Peter Marinker and illustrated by Niamh Shaw. The Audrey app is available for download worldwide on iPhone and Android devices (mobile only).