My mum read Bambi to me before I could read, and later I read it to myself again and again. In the Suffolk countryside where I grew up, I would often spot deer in the fields. This book made me stop and study the animal tracks (痕迹) on the ground and made me think about the world around me in a different way.
The novel is nothing like the sickly animated movie that came later. It doesn’t turn the deer into cartoon, rather, it gives nature a voice, letting us in on the mysteries of its beautiful, secretive world, where even the leaves have something to say.
I read this relatively recently when I was doing research for my novel The Unravelling. Reading it feels a little like sitting by the fire in a pub on a cold night, a pint of beer in your hand, listening to one of the locals telling attractive stories.
At face value, the book is a written and photographic record of a journey across East Anglia. But within each corner? You discover other stories, a hidden history of the world you thought you knew. Reading it made the landscape I have known all my life transform before my eyes.
I’ve read this book every couple of years since I studied it for English A Level. Each chapter is a story in itself, a special fairytale love letter to the Fens and marshland so real that you can smell it and taste it on your tongue. At 16 years old, it was the first novel I read that made me see the landscape as a character in its own right, and it was finally the novel that made me want to become a writer.
【小题1】When did the author first learn about Bambis?| A．Before she went to school. | B．When she was in kindergarten. |
| C．After she was in primary school. | D．When she saw deer at the first time. |
| A．A picture book. | B．A cartoon book. |
| C．An imaginative book. | D．A textbook. |
| A．She prepared for science research. | B．She prepared for her works. |
| C．She prepared for studying deer. | D．She prepared for telling stories. |
| A．Studying for English A Level. | B．The special marshland. |
| C．The beautiful landscape. | D．The book Bambi. |
