"Bambi" by Felix Salten

 "Bambi" is an absolutely beautiful novel. Published by Felix Salten in 1923, the characters of the young deer and his mother have spawned lives of their own, beyond- likely- even Salten's own imagination, through the adaptation of the 1942 Walt Disney animated film. "Bamibi," for whatever legacy it may have, is a novel far more than a children's tale; far deeper, and filled with too much beauty to not be enjoyed at many stages in life. There is a lyrical, golden poetry to this novel of the forest and the lives within-- that speaks of life, death, family, God, the inherent brutal nature of the world and that which rises above. There is a whole chapter in the novel of dialogue between two leaves on a tree in the fall that is so simple, and beautiful, you read the words rapidly and then stop with wonder when it has ended.


"They were silent a while. Then the first leaf said quietly to herself, 'Why must we fall?...'
 The second leaf asked, 'What happens to us when we have fallen?'
 'We sink down....'
 'What is under us?' " (106)

© Bryan Ball, 2012, All rights reserved. 

  While Salten allows the reader these occasional interludes into another character's perspective, from the moment "He came into the world in the middle of the thicket," (1) we see the world of the forest through Bambi's eyes. And what a journey that is. We come to discover the forest as Bambi is taken, carefully, around the forest by his mother-- we meet the other animals who live there such as the Hare, the magpies, the squirrels and the pheasants. We meet Bambi's mother's sister, Ena, and her children: the beautiful Faline and the weaker Gobo. We see the beauty of the bright, shining life-filled forest, and experience the glorious meadow, where we learn the concept of danger, and why the deer have to be careful, each moment of their lives. The deer always have to be vigilant because of "He." Early on, while running, young Bambi comes face to face with "He" as "He" extends his third arm to point toward Bambi-- who, instinctively sensing danger, runs away.

© Bryan Ball, 2012, All rights reserved. 

 Reading up on what has been written about "Bambi," there are a whole hosts of thoughts on what Salten intended, with the tale of the animals in the forest being terrorized by their oppressor, the humans. A number of people maintain the novel as an allegory for Nazi Germany's treatment of Jewish citizens-- and Salten was Jewish, living in Austria during the 1930's. And some maintain that it is simply an environmental tale of the horrors life inflicts on itself. For while man is the most destructive force in the forest, nature is intrinsically brutal, as evinced multiple times throughout the novel, when Bambi witnesses animal on animal violence-- such as when he is frozen while watching a fox kill a duck, and, later, when that fox is murdered by a hunter's dog, as the forest literally calls the dog out a traitor, for serving the ultimate oppressor, the humans. "'Yes, traitor!' hissed the fox. 'Nobody is a traitor but you, only you.'" (276)

© Bryan Ball, 2012, All rights reserved. 

 And, perhaps, that is the ultimate message of the novel-- to show the reader that life is so beautiful, while so brutal, and in that the reader sees every such brutality which may occur-- from the obvious assaults of humans hunting animals to the horrors of Nazi Germany. Likewise, I find it compelling that this novel is classified as primarily a children's novel and-- at least that I have heard-- not often taught in schools. If George Orwell's "Animal Farm" is worthy of reading by high school students, "Bambi" certainly is, if not more so. There is just so much in here Salten intended for an adult audience. While describing the characteristics of deer-- as they grow, mate, socialize and live alone-- Salten paints such clear pictures of human emotion, and interaction. From early on, we see Bambi's mother and the dominating presence she has over his whole life, in what she tries to teach him, to survive in this harsh world-- "'Run anyway as fast as your legs will carry you. Run even if something should happen... even if you should see me fall to the ground...'" (29)

 And, after Bambi loses his mother, after he experiences intense loneliness, and later intense love with Faline-- he yearns for something else, some greater meaning. This meaning he searches for in all things, most predominantly in his relationship with his father. Only-- at the very end-- does at least his aging and declining father seem to find some closure for the similar quest he, too, must have been on all along. For it is in the novel's final pages, when Bambi's father leaves him before Bambi meets the young twin deer (who very well may be his and Faline's), does Bambi's father feel as if he has passed on everything he can to his son, the crucial knowledge of survival. A great many things may be taken from this passage. Bambi's father clearly feels his life complete now that he knows Bambi has realized the presence of a higher power, of the fact that this violent force of life that is "He" is not what truly governs the life in the forest, and all life. That there is something more, something greater, something good, which stands over all the violence, all the beauty, all the life.

"'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.'..
 Bambi was inspired, and said trembling, "There is Another who is over us all, over us and over Him.'
 'Now I can go,' said the old stag." (286)


* © Bryan Ball, 2012, All rights reserved.  These three photographs are of one deer, who has taken up residence in Forest Lawn Cemetery in Buffalo, New York. A deer I call "Felix" after the author of the novel.

"The Heart is a Lonely Hunter" by Carson McCullers

 "In the town there were two mutes, and they were always together." (1)

 There are novels you finish reading, and you know. You feel slightly, forever, less for experiencing the loss of the novel, the loss of a loved character-- and forever slightly more for having known them. Carson McCullers' modern masterpiece "The Heart is A Lonely Hunter" is without question one of these novels. At once, the novel is a meditation on life, love and the loneliness that so often lives between in human relationships-- and an almost unbelievably wise exploration of the forces of government, religion and other politics in which we live our lives.

 It is often mentioned that McCullers somehow managed to write this novel when she was 23. Twenty-three.  In 1940, for whatever age she may have been, McCullers wrote a perfectly executed, spectacularly profound novel which comments on racial, sexual and gender roles in a way so beyond her years, it's almost hard to believe.

 Each character we meet in her novel is painfully real, and though we meet them in the deep American south of the 1930's, we have met them before in the world where we live. At the center of the story is Mr. John Singer, a deaf mute, who lived with the friend he loved until his friend's family had him put away in an asylum. Mr. Singer befriends a number of people in the small town-- Mick, a girl of about 14, confused and searching and raging and hurting; Biff Brannon, the owner of a local cafe; Jake Blount, a rebellious spirit yearning for political, social and religious revolution; and Dr. Copeland, an African-American doctor who has held his head high on his life-long quest to better his race and his people's place in the world.

 And there is so much within these characters' lives and happenings, that it does a disservice to the novel to not talk about each of the many issues so poignantly dealt with in an in-depth way which would span many pages of my own. Mr. Singer loves his friend Antonopoulos, with an all-consuming love which does not, and cannot, speak its name. Young Mick longs for all the answers she cannot even ask the questions for-- and finds her only solace in the art of classical music, and Mr. Singer's friendship. Mr. Brannon considers a great deal of poignancy on the subject of religion-- and Jake Blount rages against the political and social machines which oppress every man, woman and child in the poor south, during the time now known as the American Great Depression. And Dr. Copeland works all his life for a better future for his children and his people-- going so far as to advocate a march on Washington, DC for racial equality.

 I am simply in awe of how effortlessly McCullers switches from the perspective of each character. In the passages told from Mick's point of view, the reader feels the pain, the bursting confusion of adolescence-- and the reader feels, and knows, how real the solace Mick finds in her music is; a safe place from the confusing world around her she has found herself coming of age in. And in Dr. Copeland's passages, the reader feels the oppression of the social structure upon the successful African-American physician, which is thrust upon the great thinker the doctor is-- as he tackles incredible ideas such as the writings of Karl Marx, and faces the struggles of maintaining a relationship with his grown children. And in the passages of Mr. Singer's thoughts, the reader knows how much Antonopoulous is loved. How desperate Mr. Singer is to have his friend with him, and how no other friendship, no other person, will be for him who Antonopoulous is.

 All these characters are searching, longing for something, someone. There are fewer more haunting titles in literature, and more lingering prose than the lives of Mick, Mr. Singer and Dr. Copeland-- and how they look for what they feel needs to be found. As Dr. Copeland's daughter Portia, who works for Mick's family, says of Mick: "'... This afternoon you going to roam all over the place without never being satisfied. You going to traipse all around like you haves to find something lost. You going to work yourself up with excitement. Your heart going to beat hard enough to kill you because you don;t love and don't have peace. And then some day you going to bust loose and be ruined. Won't nothing help you then.'" (44)

 "The Heart is a Lonely Hunter" is one of those novels which will make you feel. With one line, McCullers broke my heart, and took her place in literature. It has been quite a long time since I have been this affected by a novel-- and I'm sure it will be some time before I experience something similar, again. "Mick cried so hard that she choked herself and her father had to beat her on the back." (305)

"Other Voices, Other Rooms" by Truman Capote

 Every time I read Truman I wonder why I haven't read more of him. And I wonder why it is that the world has chosen to remember him the way they do. So much more than the television personality he became later in life, so much more than the author behind the book the film "Breakfast at Tiffany's" is based on and-- I say this, without having read the work-- so much more than the writer of "In Cold Blood."

 "Other Voices, Other Rooms" is, on it's own as a narrative, a milestone of a novel. Breaking ground for gay subject matter alone, when considered as a novel written by a young Truman Capote-- when he was twenty-three, no less-- the feat is even greater. There are so many ways to read this novel-- as an auto-biography of its author, a revolutionary milestone in documenting through literature the gay experience, the definition of a modern Southern Gothic-- or nothing so simple.

 And the prose through which Capote accomplishes this is gorgeous. Lush, golden, sparkling hot summer breeze-- Truman's writing from start to finish here is the definition of what a brilliant talent can do. Put you in the shoes, the day of a seemingly orphaned boy, who has lost his mother and is traveling to meet his biological father. A style all his own, each word, and each sentence they compose, is a beautifully constructed piece of art that appears effortless, and effortlessly takes you to the middle of the twentieth century, to the deep south, to the expanse of Skully's Landing, to the world of young Joel Knox.

 In a setting so awash with vibrancy, the characters truly manage to make the novel, while being of life rather than brighter than the world they inhabit. I won't forget Joel, his cousin Randolph or the young girl he befriends, Idabel (based, famously, on Capote's childhood friend and fellow talent Harper Lee.) It feels a rarity, that each character and her or his own, individual, story stand out so in the memory-- and also (but not because of) the relationships all of these characters have, they stand out, in their same, own way.

 Here, Truman has written a classic coming of age story that only he could. Whether the child Joel's coming of age is related to some personal acceptance of his homosexuality or not, there is a proudly, openly explored view of the gay experience, through Joel's journey, and, especially, through Randolph. After finishing the novel-- and I warn any reader that I am about to discuss the novel's ending-- but before reading any criticism, I wondered-- what if. What if Joel's decision at the end, his choice to stay, is to directly mean he chose Randolph? And, if so, the acceptance of his own homosexuality? Or- what if, by staying, Joel does so and becomes romantically involved with (the much older) Randolph? Or nothing so simple? Perhaps Joel is accepting that his fate will be there, with Randolph at the Landing-- but alone? To become whatever man it is he is, or is meant to become? I don't believe I've decided, other than no such definite decision is possible.

 In a novel with so many passages of beautiful writing, it was hard to decide on one to include. However, I have decided on the words to follow, which come late in the novel, from Randolph.

"Afterwards, and though at first I was careful not to show the quality of my feelings, Dolores understood intuitively what had happened: 'Strange how long it takes us to discover ourselves; I've know since first I saw you,' she said... The brain may take advice, but not the heart, and love, having no geography, knows no boundaries: weight and sink it deep, no matter, it will rise and find the surface: and why not? any love is natural and beautiful that lies within a person's nature; only hypocrites would hold a man responsible for what he loves, emotional illiterates and those of righteous envy, who, in their agitated concern, mistake so frequently the arrow pointing to heaven for the one that leads to hell." 

"I'll tell you," said she, in the same hurried passionate whisper, "what real love is. It is blind devotion, unquestioning self-humiliation, utter submission, trust and belief against yourself and against the whole world, giving up your whole heart and soul to the smiter--as I did!"

"Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close" Jonathan Safran Foer

 What to do with Jonathan Safran Foer's "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close"? I had been wanting to read Foer since his novel "Everything is Illuminated" was so popular. I bought a copy of his earlier novel several years ago, and had more or less forgotten about him until I read his wife's, Nicole Krauss, novel "The History of Love" last year; a novel which I consider the best of the first decade of the new century.

 So. "Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close" is my first experience with Foer-- and, having finished the novel over a week ago, I'm still unsure what I think. There is a deal of great work here, in this novel of loss, grief and living in the face of tragedies from marriages to the events of September 11, 2001 to the bombing of Dresden during World War II. Parts of this novel work-- and come close to soaring-- and others, frankly, do not. The sections narrated by Oskar Schell, a young boy who has lost his father in the World Trade Center on 9-11, are interesting and involving, though not without their problems. The sections narrated by the boy's grandparents are somewhat more problematic, although some of the most poignant writing in the novel appears in their sections.

 I could write of how the grandparents' relationship, or the uniformity of the people Oskar meets in his quest take away from the realism of the novel and-- ultimately-- it's emotional effect; but I would rather talk about what works here. Sections such as the tape Oskar plays of Hiroshima survivors' interviews, the "Hamlet" performance and the actual bombing of Dresden (save the over the top ridiculousness of the zoo) are very well written, and worth the reading of the novel alone. And for all the narrative's faults, how Oskar's quest is resolved was very well written, in some ways unexpected and appreciated. And the novel's final images truly are haunting. While some of my problems with the text lie within the disconnect between the actual text and the images used throughout, the imagery of the dream where all is reversed, as the only, simple reaction to major tragedy, combined with Oskar's final flip book, is haunting: leaving the questions and sadnesses not fully explored within the novel with the reader after the last page has been turned.

"The Borrower" by Rebecca Makkai

]

This is a surprising little book, and an excellent first novel. Stop me if you've heard this one before: a young, mid-twenty something children's librarian meets a young boy, in small town America. Librarian meets boy's evangelical family, discovers that said family will only allow boy to read so-called "holy books"-- and later finds that the boy's family's idea of salvation for their child is something far more sinister. 

There is so much to love about this book. 

At points, the narrative simply soars-- Makkai's librarian, Lucy's, interaction with the boy, Ian, and his family are written with a starkly appealing, simple realism, and laced with a wicked sense of black humor. Toward the middle of the novel, however, when the big event happens, I wasn't initially sold. But as I continued reading, I found Makkai's writing to be rather genius, and something that resembles a modern (adult? young adult?) fairy tale. The world of "The Borrower" is very much our own-- filled with the oppression of children, the bigots who use extremist religion to justify their hatred and the salvation found in the world of fiction, the history of books. And yet the adventure that salvation takes our characters on is such it seems right out of the world of the children's novel, the fairy tale. And it suits the tale beautifully. 

The final hundred or so pages of this novel are so wonderfully written they deliver an amazingly affecting ending-- one I did not expect. The culmination of our story comes at you seemingly out of nowhere-- or, at least, on a level you do not expect. It has been quite some time since I was so moved by the ending of a novel. There are books you finish, and you know the characters will stay with you, their names never forgotten. Ian Drake is one of them. 

Image:  The Centered Librarian

“Ian once suggested that in addition to the mystery stickers and the sci-fi and animal ones, there should be special stickers for books with happy endings, books with sad endings, books that will trick you into reading the next in the series. 'There should be ones with big teardrops,' he said, 'like for the side of Where the Red Fern Grows. Because otherwise it isn't fair. Like maybe you're accidentally reading it in public, and then everyone will make fun of you for crying.' But what could I affix to the marvelous and perplexing tale of Ian Drake? A little blue sticker with a question mark, maybe. Crossed fingers. A penny in a fountain.”  

I expect great things to continue coming from Rebecca Makkai.