Menagerie of men and matters. Review on My Family And Other Animals - Gerald Durrell

I am not an animal lover in the truest sense though I call my two dogs my brother and sis, respectively (with utmost respect!!). I disregard Maneka Gandhi and her pompous efforts, in writings and deed, in saving animal life (humble NGOs and neighborly Mrs. Chajjed do better). But two people whose work on animals can’t help but cage you are David Attenborough and Gerald Durrell, a former BBC big wig who made great documentaries on animals.

The latter is a noted natural scientist and author who has written more than 20 light hearted books about animals and animal collecting expeditions he has led to many parts of the world. He is the founder and director of the Jersey Zoological Park and the Jersey Wildlife Preservation Trust. And incidentally he happens to be my favorite authority on such kinds of books.

The book I talk about right now is aptly and rib tickling-ly titled ‘My Family And Other Animals’. HaHaHa… It’s a hilarious account of the author’s escapades in an exotic place called Corfu where he lived with his harried mother, hyper, teenaged sister Maggie, two brothers, one the famed writer Lawrence (Larry) Durrell and the other, Leslie who had a gun fetish, which added to the family’s many funny memories (and woes, too!!). Others include a Testudo graeca i.e. a turtle named Madame Cyclops because she has just one eye, two thieves in the form of magpies, an owlet named Ulysses, a black bucked gull Alecko, a queer pigeon Quasimodo, two water snakes, some scorpions, as many dogs which just about make up the menagerie.

The ten-year-old author has a dog Roger (coochie coo!!) that is his constant companion. The family runs in and out of villas, sometimes to make space for Larry’s incongruous friends and sometimes to avoid a visit by their great aunt Hermione who, as Larry puts it, “is an evil old camel, smelling of moth balls and singing hymns in the lavatory”. Mother thinks it is eccentric changing villas like changing clothes, but the author who is home tutored by some of Larry’s friends and one boy who became sis Maggie’s flame and hence provided another hilarious incident, thinks it heavenly because he gets a license to explore.

The way the author writes, the book drips with humour. He doesn’t hesitate to add that when his family was returning back to the concrete jungles of civilization, in lieu of the author’s higher studies, the traveling agent identified them as a traveling circus!!

Age no bar for this book nor are interests. An animal lover or not, you will surely be one when you turn over the last page. Buy it if you see it. It is a collector’s item. After all, humour is laughing at what you haven’t got when you ought to have it. Happy Reading.