Last week, I read a copy of Bambi by Felix Salten. I found a hard cover edition from 1929 at my local Salvation Army. Inside it was stamped that it was the property of school 23 in Jersey City, dated Dec. 13 1948. Somehow sixty years later it is now in my hands. The spine is torn but that did not stop me from admiring the handsome stag printed on the cover.
I remember seeing the movie, Bambi, as a little girl in a local theater that played matinees of old children's classics. Realizing the gist of the plot, I blurted out, "Bambi's mother is dead!" and then the whole theater full of kids started to cry. The movie is, I will say, loosely based on this book. Yes, Bambi's mother does indeed die in the book and many others join her. This book is a beautiful description of life's natural cycles - and it's violent interruptions by He, or mankind. Filled with wonderful descriptions and funny characters, like a screech owl that delights in scaring the other animals and a squirrel that is a total busybody.
I'd like to share a passage with you. It doesn't deal with the plot at all. I just love the description of morning breaking. And the bit about the magpie, of course.
From Chapter VII
Another night passed and morning brought an event.
It was a cloudless morning, dewy and fresh. All the leaves on the trees andthe bushes seemed suddenly to smell sweeter. THe meadows sent up great clouds of perfume to the tree-tops.
"Peep!" said the tit-mice when they awoke. They said it very softly. But since it was still gray dawn they said nothing else for a while. For a time it was perfectly still. THen a crow's hoarse, rasping caw sounded far above in the sky. The crows has awakened and were visiting one another in the tree tops. THe magpie answered at once, "Shackarakshak! Did you think I was asleep?" Then a hundred small voices started in very softly here and there. "Peep! peep! tiu!" Sleep and the dark were still in these sounds. And they came from far apart.
Suddenly an blackbird flew to the top of a beech. She perched way up on the topmost twig that stuck up thin against the sky and sat there watching how, far away over the trees, the night-weary, pale-gray heavens were glowing in the distant east and coming to life. THen she commenced to sing.
Her little black body seemed only a tiny dark speck at that distance. She looked like a dead leaf. But she poured out her song in a great flood of rejoicing through the whole forest. And everything began to stir. The finches warbled, the little red-throat and the gold finch were heard. The doves rushed from palce to place with a loud clapping and rustling of wings. The pheasants cackled as though their throats would burst. The noise of their wings, as they flew from their roosts to the ground, was soft and powerful. They kept uttering their metallic, splintering call with a soft ensuing cackle. Far above the falcons cried sharply and joyously, "Yayaya!"
"Diu diyu!" the yellow-bird rejoiced. He flew to and from amonf the branches, and his round yellow blody flashed in the morning light like a winged ball of gold.
