My Family and Other Animals

By Adithya

Gerald durrell was born in india in 1925. His elder siblings are lawrence durrell, leslie durrell and margaret durrell. His family settled on corfu when gerry was a boy and he spend his time studying its wildlife. He relates these experiences in the trilogy beginning with my family and other animals and continuing with birds, beasts and relatives and the garden of gods. In this book he writes with wry humour and great perception about both the humans and the animals he meets.

Gerald durrell was born in india in 1925. His elder siblings are lawrence durrell, leslie durrell and margaret durrell. His family settled on corfu when gerry was a boy and he spend his time studying its wildlife. He relates these experiences in the trilogy beginning with my family and other animals and continuing with birds, beasts and relatives and the garden of gods. In this book he writes with wry humour and great perception about both the humans and the animals he meets.

August has brought dreary, rainy weather with it. Each family member suffered a physical ailment due, in larry’s opinion, to the dank climate. Finally having enough of brooding at the window, larry demands the family move to corfu. Mrs. Durrell insists the option is impossible, as they have just bought their house. Despite mrs. Durrell’s protests, the family sets sail for corfu with only their essentials, which for each member is an assortment of equipment dedicated to their hobby. Gerald’s necessities includes a butterfly net, books on natural history and his dog, rogers. Gerald and his family watches with great expectations as the boat approached the island.

Gerald’s family spends a day house hunting with the hotel manager but does not succeed in getting  a villa with a bathroom. The family sets out the next day determined to find a villa with a bathroom. The unsuspecting group is surrounded by cab drivers all determined to their fare, individualy or torn in pieces. They were saved from the mob by spiro, an english-speaking driver who quickly became the family’s close friend and advocate.

After a long drive of twists, turns and relaying of spiro’s history, the cab driver comes to a halt in front of a strawberry-pink villa. The family instantly feels they are at home in the villa surrounded by cypresses. Gerald encounters many unique people in his rambles around the olive groves. The most interesting is the rose-beetle man, a mute peddler who sells gerald a young tortoise on their first meeting. The two became fast, if silent, friends. Soon, gerald’s morning excursions are grounded when his mother decides that larry’s friend george will be his tutor. George realizes that gerald cannot be detered from his interest in animals and insects and decides to integrate zoology to their lessons.

Larry inform his mother he has invited a few guests to stay for an indeterminate amount of time. When mrs. Durrell insists there is no room at the villa, larry counters that the best option is to move to a bigger villa. Mrs. Durrell is adamant they are not moving again. Mrs. Durrell capitulates and soon spiro finds the daffodil-yellow villa. The house offers gerald the opportunity to dedicate more time and space to his hobby. George has left the island and leaving gerald with complete freedom to explore his new surrounding. As gerald explores, larry’s guests begin to arrive in a seemingly endless stream. As conversations float over his head, mrs. Durrell flutters around nervously as her fears that the guests will be highbrow is infinitely realized.

A mishap with a matchbox of scorpions leads to gerald being sentenced to a french tutor, the belgian consul. With the summer comes another tutor, peter who is on break from oxford. Peter is strict at first but as he becomes interested in margo, he eases up on gerald. Before the summer’s end, mrs. Durrell believes that peter and margo have become too close. Peter is gotten rid of amidst high drama in the durrell household. Margo drifts around the villa and locks herself in the attic, while leslie threatens to kill peter if he steps foot on the island again.

It is spring again in corfu when great-aunt hermione writes that she is thinking of visiting, as she beleives the weather will aide in improving her health. Mrs. Durrell and her children balk at the idea of their relative staying with them, but mrs. Durrell sees no way around it, since she had extolled the virtues of corfu and informed her aunt they have moved to a large villa. Larry finally decides the best thing to do is to move to a smaller villa. Margo and leslie and soon the durrells are making their third and final move on the island.

Gerald and his family immediately like the old, elegant snow-white villa. The small villa is perched  atop a small hill which gerald finds is home to hundreds of mantises of different sizes. Gerald temporarily captures an extremely large pregnant mantis he names cicely. One evening gerald watches in excitement as a gecko he named geronimo and cicely engage in a battle. Gerald’s happiness at the loss of another tutor is short-lived when he is informed that he has been found a new tutor who shares a common interest in birds. During gerald’s first meeting with the man, he is introduced to mr. Kralafsky’s extremely large bird collection. The entire first day is spent by talking and feeding the birds. Soon, gerald inadvertently meets mr. Kralefsky’s mother. The ailing woman lies in bed in a room as filled with flowers as her son’s room and balcony is filled with birds. Although mrs. Kralefsky thinks gerald will believe her ideas as strange, gerald accepts her views that flowers have an language of their own.

Before long mr. Kralefsky informs mrs. Durrell it is time for gerald to enter formal schooling. Mrs. Durrell announces to her children they are returning to england. Gerald insists he is comfortable with this level of knowledge. His siblings are no happier to be leaving corfu. Their mother’s suggestion they look at it, as a holiday does nothing to lighten anyone’s moods.

Unlike the meagre luggage on arrival to corfu, the durrell are returning to england with a magnitude of trunks and animal cages. The family bids farewell to mr. Kralefsky and theodore, and attempt to comfort a sobbing spiro before their ship leaves the island. The family’s moods are not improved when mrs. Durrell learns that the swiss official had classified them as a travelling circus and staff. Larry coolly admonishes it is only their recompense for leaving corfu.           

My family and other animals is an attempt at the zoological dissertation on the island of corfu, greece. The novel succeeds in being a creative mixture of natural historical study and the autobiographical account of the durrell’s stay in corfu for 5 years. The first in the trilogy on the island, my family and other animals is a creative introduction to gerald durrell, child animal collector,  and his eccentric family. The novel is an humourous study on human and animal behavior by a best-selling author and zoologist.

Kids have to be exposed to different things in order to develop. A child’s not going to find out he likes to play a musical instrument if you never exposed him to it…