Résumé
Résumé de Bambi
À qui s’adresse-t-il ?
Readers who love quick, witty comedy, spirited heroines and a peek behind the stage door of early twentieth century New York will feel at home here. It suits anyone who enjoys a love story built on talk and mix-ups.
De quoi parle ce livre ?
Bambi is a comic novel by Marjorie Benton Cooke, an American writer who died in 1920. It follows Francesca Parkhurst, called Bambi, a nineteen-year-old who decides over breakfast that she will marry the penniless young playwright Jarvis Jocelyn. She will look after him until the world is ready for his genius.
The book is set in a small college town and in New York in the years before the First World War. It gives you a fast, talkative comedy about marriage, money and ambition. It also gives you a tour of the Broadway of that day, where managers keep playwrights waiting on dark stairs and a good idea has to be sold like soap.
You will meet an absent-minded mathematician father, a cook with firm views on men, and a dreamer who cannot notice the person who feeds him. You will also see how a clever young woman invents a career for herself in secret. Let us begin with the strangest wedding breakfast in fiction, and the bride who arranges it.
Dans ce résumé
- 1A bride picks a husband at breakfastFree
- 2A strange household and a flawed play
- 3A secret prize sends them to New York
- 4Managers, stairs and a fierce little salesman
- 5Home again, a secret career and a jealous husband
- 6Jarvis alone in the city
- 7A book, a manager and a conspiracy of love
- 8What the story is really about
- 9How the story is told
Point clé 1 sur 9
A bride picks a husband at breakfast
The novel opens with Bambi telling her father, Professor James Parkhurst, that he has failed as an educator. He taught her to be happy, but happiness pays badly, and she wants a profession. The Professor is a mathematician so absent-minded that he once set off for class in his pajamas. Bambi has run his life since she was five.
She has also chosen a husband. His name is Jarvis Jocelyn, a handsome, poetic young man with no money and no interest in earning any. Her reasoning is wonderfully practical. He will starve unless someone takes him in, and she is used to looking after helpless men. Her father objects, but nobody has ever won an argument with her.
Jarvis turns up that same morning after sleeping in the garden. His landlady threw him out for owing rent, and he is lost in the climax of a play about the Brotherhood of Man. He barely looks at Bambi until she asks him to. He says she is pretty and patient, and then he asks for paper. She offers him one of her father's blank notebooks in exchange for a yes.
He agrees without really hearing the question. Bambi fetches a minister, Dr. Short, and the wedding takes place in the Professor's study while Jarvis keeps his mind on his third act. When it ends, he sits down and goes back to work. Bambi laughs until she cries and announces that Bernard Shaw ought to hear about her.
Two days later Jarvis comes out of his writing trance and learns he is married. He is horrified, and he tries to release her, but Bambi will not hear of it. She tells him she plans to earn a living herself, and he makes her promise one thing. He must never fall in love with her, because love is fatal to genius. She promises to warn him if she sees the danger coming, and he says he would run away.
That’s 1 of 9 key points.
The rest of the summary, written and spoken, and the whole book: free to start.
- Nothing to pay today · Renews every year
- We email you before you pay
- Cancel online in two clicks
About this edition
Every format is free to start, and print and large print are at cost.
- LengthAbout 67,000 words
- Reading timeAbout 4 h 30 min
- Listening time7 h 30 min
- FormatseBook, large-print eBook, audiobook, 15-minute summary
- LanguagesEnglish and 13 other languages
Questions about Bambi
What is Bambi by Marjorie Benton Cooke about?
It follows a young woman named Bambi who marries a penniless playwright, Jarvis Jocelyn, to look after him. As he struggles to sell his plays in New York, she secretly builds a writing career of her own.
Who is Jarvis Jocelyn in Bambi?
Jarvis is a tall, handsome, idealistic playwright who writes about the brotherhood of man and ignores money. He is so lost in his work that he barely notices his own wedding, and he learns slowly how to live.
When was Bambi written and where is it set?
It is a work of fiction by an American author who died in 1920. The story is set in a small college town and in New York in the years just before the First World War.
Is Bambi easy to read?
It is told in short chapters, mostly through quick, funny conversations and letters. The plot moves briskly, and the characters, from the absent-minded Professor to the outspoken cook Ardelia, are lively and easy to follow.