I stumbled upon “ My Family and Other Animals” quite by
chance. Eager to find something good and easy to read, I picked it up from the
Raves and Faves section of my library. Good- it sure was; easy- not so much! The
book grasped my attention from the first page, and held it till the last.
My Family And Other Animals retells the experiences of world
famous zoologist Gerald Durell, when he was all of 10 years old living in the
greek island of Corfu. It takes you
through his magical childhood, a childhood that anyone would envy. As you read
the book, Gerald’s family and his love for various animals take almost a real
shape as they live out their enchanting lives in the pages of this unstoppable
book. Also worth mentioning is the author’s mastery of language and use of
powerful similes.
The narrative starts with the family – Gerald, his siblings
and his widow mother in England- sick of the typical English weather. The
eldest brother- Larry, suggests they move to greek island of Corfu- for the
sunshine and lower costs of living, and the adventure begins… The Author’s wit
and humour fills the pages as the reader moves with the family exploring their
new surrounding, and looking for a suitable house to live in. Through a
sequence of events, we meet and become intimate with Gerald’s family- the
unassuming mother, the stoic eldest brother Larry, the adventurous middle
brother Louise, and the pompous sister, Margo. The beauty of the book lies in
the fact that it strictly depicts the life as the author saw it as a 10 year
old- so anything not important to the child Gerrald finds no place in the book.
This spares the reader of irrelevant details, and showers him instead with the
charm that only the curious eyes of a child can see in the mundane.
As Gerrald, or Garry as everyone
calls him, moves around exploring this brave new world, he makes friends with
local peasents and people, and also the local flora and fauna. The author
describes his discoveries of various small animals- butterflies, bees, lizards,
spiders , tortoises and even water snakes, gulls, and magpies with such
observant detail that the reader can visualize it for himself or herself. Sample this-“ I discovered that under the
dry leaves of the fuchsia hedge lived another type of spider, a fierce little
huntsman with the cunning and ferocity of a tiger. He would stalk about his
continent of leaves, eyes glistening in the sun, pausing now and then to raise
his hairy legs to peer about”. In
countless such lines, paragraphs and chapters, Garry paints for us a vivid
picture of the island teaming with life. As I read this book, I realized how
little I know of other species that co-inhabit Earth with us, and how much
indeed goes on in their lives, just as in ours. Garry is able to turn his fascination
of animals into something contagious, and the reader feels compelled to look
outside the brick and cement urban jungle and wonder about the larger,
uncovered life in the rest of the planet.
The only downside of
this book might be its’ language. The flowery and descriptive language that
Gerrald chooses to employ has both pros and cons. On one hand, he reader is
given ample literary aids to help him visualize each and every species and
other stuff Garry comes in contact with. Even those readers with limited
knowledge of animals, such as me, can paint a picture of the life of the
island. On the other hand, Garry often goes overboard with his descriptions. It
takes a lot of time and patience for a reader to understand and imagine the
scene. Often I had to read a line twice or thrice to get the point beyond the similes and metaphors. For example, when Garry would describe a scorpion thus-
“ They were weird looking little things, with their flattened oval bodies,
their neat crooked legs, and enormous crab like claws, bulbous and neatly
joined as armour, and tail like a string of brown beads ending in a sting like
a rose-thorn.”
All in all, My Family and other Animals is a must-read book,
though the language might require the reader to be at least a teenager. I do appreciate why the librarians put it in the ‘Raves and Faves’ section.
