This book is about an upper crust, eccentric British family that one day decides to pick up and move from rainy gloomy England to the small Greek island of Corfu. There’s nothing deep here, but at its best it’s a funny, charming (I grimace to use this word, but so be it) book. Written by the youngest son of the family, each of his family members stands out sharply. Each is defined by their own comical eccentricities(Margo the acne-splotched primadona, Leslie the rotund Teddy-Roosevelt type hunter, and Larry—-by far the funniest—-the pretentious artist—my favorite quote of his: "I ask you! Isn’t it laughable that future generations should be deprived of my work simply because some horny-handed idiot has tied that stinking beast of burden near my window?" [32]). Like in any family, everyone here is a bit crazy and since their little brother is the author of this book they become even more entertaining caricatures than they probably are in real life.What I enjoyed most about this book was the dialogue amongst the family member—-mostly a bunch of squabbling and insulting each other, all of which is very funny. Gerry Durrell’s asides to natural science and his experience growing up exploring Corfu’s countryside are also interesting, but really seem to be mostly a spark plug for the funny stories more than anything else. Still it’s pretty incredible to read about his natural science explorations and imagine an 11-year-old trooping around an island with three dogs, capturing snakes and giant gulls and bringing them home to terrorize his family.When I took a more serious look at this book though (which I probably shouldn’t have) there is some stuff that bugged me. So much of the concerns that Durrell discuses are useless, upper-crust British problems. That's part of what makes the scenes in this book funny. But at times, I couldn’t help thinking who gives a shit about your high-class dinner parties and your families’ minute problems? At times it felt like I was stuck with an aging British aristocrat memorializing his childhood rather than a clever little kid telling funny, animal-filled stories. Also, what’s the deal with calling all of your neighbors “peasants”? Maybe they were peasants, but a bit of stilted British, class-consciousness seeped into the story’s setting every time little Gerry talks about the simple peasants he lives with and befriends. What hung me up the most though was the way Gerry anthropomorphizes animals. Why do people do this? In bringing up this point I might be aligning myself too much with the pretentious Larry: "Its disgusting the way this family carries on over animals; all this anthropomorphic slush that’s drooled out as an excuse" (242). Still, anthropomorphizing animals is often just too cutesy to me. I know this book is about a young Gerry Durrell and is sort of told from this 11-year old point of view, so I should give him a break. But assigning emotions and human motives to animals is unctuous and annoying. Your turtle does not look at you with a look of satisfied bemusement because he stole a piece of cheese from you after you left it carelessly unguarded on a table; it’s just ate a piece of cheese plain and simple, that’s it. Magenpies don’t squak mocking jokes to each other about how they terrorized stuck-up family members. It’s nice to enter Gerry Durrell’s animal world and his family world and also to see where they comically intersect, but sometimes this anthropomorphizing is taken too far. Still when these two worlds interest, this is an entertaining an funny book. Nothing deep here, but a good beach read.
Do You like book My Family And Other Animals (2004)?
This was such a delightful book. I can only recommend it. It's not terribly long, but written in such an elegant but humorous way I cannot believe it took me this long to read it. I'm not a big nature person, and while this book is written by a future zoologist it doesn't seem to matter. The story is much more than a catalog of a boys adventures on Corfu, but rather a story of a very real family. I have been to Corfu and can attest to the fact that it is striking, so reading of this family who fell in love with the place is easily understood.
—Malia
Maria wrote: "It's worth the paperback. Though maybe you could find it in a used book store-- I picked it up in an Australian book exchange and carried it to Bali."I'll have a look around. Amazon often has good used prices too; just depends on when I'm ordering. Sometimes they have them and sometimes not!
—Maria
Rating 4* out of 5. This is a highly amusing autobiographical novel about the young author and his stay on Corfu. Gerry's fascination with animals and attempts at keeping them is heart-warming to the reader and a source of frustration for his family. I can certainly relate to his interest in critters, which far surpassed my own at the same age. Or rather, my interest was as great, I just didn't have his ingenuity. Although there was the dead and forgotten tarantula in my freezer and feeding my mother's decorative bushes to butterfly caterpillars that I kept in bucket. Their pupa were silver and gold and one morning I had to let out black-and-blue butterflies. I too grew up in more exotic parts of the world. But now I stray. I just want to show how relatable this book was.The one thing which I could not relate to, and which confused me no end, was the drinking habits of Gerry's siblings. I would have thought them in their teens and Gerry at around maybe 10 years of age, at the most. I'm not sure though. His brothers' fancy for brandy and guns seems like something for older youths. Anyway, Gerry and the family's circus is the main focus of this highly readable book.
—Tanja Berg
