my family and other animals by gerald durrell book review

I find this interesting, as many writers consider writing to be a laborious task. When writing about her married life to Durrell in her autobiography ‘Beasts in My Bed’, Jacquie Durrell remarked that she had never known Durrell to work with the vivacity he had while writing My Family and Other Animals, commenting that “it seemed to pour out of him”. The result is a really charming child’s snapshot of a period of Gerald Durrell’s life which to all extents sounds absolutely blissful and idyllic. In fact, Durrell originally planned for the book to be purely a journal of all the animals he discovered, but in the process of constructing the journal he managed to wonderfully meld his own adventures with that of his family. Through My Family and Other Animals Durrell traces the amusing happenings of the family in their new lives, and goes to great length to describe and account for all the creatures that he comes into contact with throughout his adventures.

In fact it was described by Gerald Durrell’s elder brother Lawrence as “a very wicked, very funny, and I’m afraid rather truthful book”. While of course this could just be the situation viewed through the eyes of a child, I have heard it said that the book paints a fairly accurate picture of the family.

Early on in the book you are made aware that the family is somewhat unconventional as moving abroad seems to be a very snap decision.

The Durrell family made the choice to migrate to Corfu in an attempt to escape the dreary English weather. I have yet to read the other two, but they are currently working their way to the top of my ever increasing ‘to read’ pile. It is perhaps the best known of Durrell’s Corfu trilogy, the others of which are ‘Birds, Beasts and Relatives’, and ‘The Garden of the Gods’. My Family and Other Animals is the childhood autobiography of the renowned naturalist Gerald Durrell, and takes place over a few short years that the Durrell family spent together on the Greek Island of Corfu. OL10509141W Page_number_confidence 91.86 Pages 314 Partner Innodata Ppi 300 Rcs_key 24143 Republisher_date 20200905094452 Republisher_operator Republisher_time 1034 Scandate 20200823081420 Scanner Scanningcenter cebu Scribe3_search_catalog isbn Scribe3_search_id 9780246132451 Sent_to_scribe Tts_version 4.My Family and Other Animals ― Gerald Durrel Access-restricted-item true Addeddate 05:05:18 Boxid IA1915111 Camera USB PTP Class Camera Collection_set printdisabled External-identifier

My family and other animals by gerald durrell book review