durrell

Hi again, mammals! The discussion about My Family and Other Animals by Gerald Durrell is going great so far. We’ve probably all read a little further into the book by now, but remember, even if you haven’t read any of it at all, you can still participate in the club meetings. Here are some things I thought about over the past week:

• In a comment on last week’s post, Grace said that she gets impatient with the description in the book, and Clare said that her mother feels the same way. (Grace is my mother, by the way!) Some of the Amazon reviewers said the same thing: they skip the descriptive passages to get to the stories about the family. I often skip long descriptions in books, too, but for some reason, in this book, I don’t do that. I think I’m getting into the pace of it. Plus, Durrell’s descriptions are just so good! If I were teaching creative writing, I think I would use this book as an example of how to write good description.

• The poor mother! I just love the transition from Part 1 to Part 2. Part 1 ends:

“We are not moving to another villa,” said Mother firmly; “I’ve made up my mind about that.”

She straightened her spectacles, gave Larry a defiant glare, and strutted off towards the kitchen, registering determination in every inch.

And then Part 2 begins:

The new villa was enormous…

I suppose it’s a fairly easy comic trick to pull, but it cracked me up nevertheless.

• Man, I want to live in the daffodil-yellow villa. The faded walls, the overgrown gardens, the olive groves and orange trees, the bees, the view of the sea…I just love it. It’s exactly my vision of how a villa in a Mediterranean country should be.

• I was thinking about how charmingly Durrell anthropomorphizes animals. When Madame Cyclops lays her eggs: “She turned round, lowered her hind end over the hole, and sat there with a rapt look on her face while she absentmindedly laid nine white eggs.” The scorpions in the wall: “The scorpion would lie there quite quietly as you examined him, only raising his tail in an almost apologetic gesture of warning if you breathed too hard on him.” One of the male birds: “The other male now became terribly harassed and apparently a prey to the dreadful thought that his babies might starve.” And Roger after the scorpions escaped at lunch: “Since no one had bothered to explain things to him, Roger was under the mistaken impression that the family were being attacked, and that it was his duty to defend them.”

Ordinarily, I’m not a big proponent of anthropomorphization. (Jeez, that’s a difficult word to type.) But I love the way Durrell does it. In a pretty straightforward way, it helps to create a clear picture of an animal, making it sympathetic and a subject of interest. I think that in order to care for and respect animals, we have to understand that they do have their own thoughts and lives. I don’t know if a turtle can be absentminded, a scorpion apologetic, or a bird harassed and a prey to dreadful thoughts, but being able to relate to them on an emotional level is, I think, ultimately good for both the animals and us. In this case, the accuracy of the thoughts and emotions we ascribe to the animals isn’t as important as the fact that we’re taking the time to imagine those thoughts and emotions. What do you think?

Tagged as: books, durrell

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Welcome to the first book club meeting, mammals!

Let’s start talking about My Family and Other Animals by Gerald Durrell! To keep it really simple, I thought I’d just throw out a few things and then open up for comments, and we’ll see how it works. Also, please don’t think that you can’t contribute to the discussion if you haven’t read the book: you definitely can!

I don’t know how far y’all are in your reading, so I’m going to talk about the beginning of the book, y’know, the first few chapters. Some of my thoughts:

• I love the merciless way he pigeonholes his family members into particular characterizations. Margo with her acne, Leslie with his guns, Larry with…oh, Larry. He’s the funniest of all. If you didn’t know, he’s Lawrence Durrell, who became a pretty well known author. I haven’t read any of his works, though, but it does make Gerry’s descriptions funnier, don’t you think, knowing that? And then there’s the poor put-upon mother.

• How about the very concise way Durrell passes the family through Europe on their way to Corfu? “France rain-washed and sorrowful, Switzerland like a Christmas cake, Italy exuberant, noisy, and smelly, were passed, leaving only confused memories.” Just those few words really do evoke a whole trip, somehow. (Page 6 in my Penguin paperback copy.)

• The very words “The Strawberry-Pink Villa” (the title of chapter 2) create a picture to me. I think Durrell’s combined gifts for humor and description are quite remarkable. I love the way he can almost just list things, like fuchsia hedges, creamy green shutters, white cobbled paths, luxurious bougainvillea, etc., and it creates this lush, exotic (to me), redolent world. (Do you know any other writers who do that? It kind of reminds me of Francesca Lia Block’s Los Angeles in her Weetzie Bat books: all orange trees and hot dog stands and pink stucco and convertibles.)

• What do you think about the narration being from a child’s point of view? It’s interesting how a child would necessarily see things differently from his family. I wonder if other members of the family (Larry, perhaps) have written memoirs of this time. It would be interesting to read their different perspectives.

• Speaking of children, what a paradise Gerry has there. It’s safe to explore endlessly, accompanied by your loyal dog, nature is lush and vibrant, school is minimal (do you like his school setup?), your family is amusing and indulgent, and strange characters are everywhere. What do you think of Durrell’s descriptions of the inhabitants of the island?

That’s enough from me for now. Pipe in and share your thoughts!

Tagged as: books, durrell

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