My Family and Other Animals

byBy Gerald Durrel

My Family and Other Animals is an autobiographical novel by the English

author Gerald Durell, he recountsed the story of his childhood and adventure on the
Greek island of Corfu, while there he made a special study of zoology and kept a large
number of local wild animals and pet. The novel tells also his relationship with his
family and some interesting local characters in a funny and humour way cuasing bring
laughter and amusment amusement on to the reader, emphasise the anecdotes about the
island and the inhabitant,“I inhabitant, “I would like that to make a point of stressing
that all the anecdotes about the island and the islanders are absolutely true”.(p.11).

My family and other animals provides the reader in details the enchanting aspect
of the island, and the nature life of the flora and fuanafauna, although often the author
extendesextended into details too much. Most emphasis is placed on the explorations of
the author and his findings of strange animals all over the island with his best friend
Roger, thus the author takes the reader on his explorations and adventure, furthermore
the author attempts to intersperse his narrative, recounting nature and introducing funny
collections of anecdotes about his findings, as well as Achilles the tortoise, Quasimodo
the pigeon “for a short time Quasimodo also joined us for lessons and behaved very
well as long as well allowed to sit on my lap.Helap. He would drowsdrowse
there,cooingthere, cooing to himself,thehimself, the entire morning.”(p.61)

As the main character is the author himself the novel is written in the first person
and in which Durrel attempt to acountaccount the events in a way that make the story
more reliable and interesting. As for characterization Durrell introduces his characters
by direct comments for example he describes his family as an eccentrics one: Mother
is described as being always subjected to Larry´s requirements, when she accepts first to
travel to Corfu (p.16) then she moved from the Strawberry –pink Villa (chapter two
p.31) to the Daffodil-Yellow Villa when Larry invites his friends (chapter seven
p.100),and finally the Snow – White Villa, also she is described as the typical housewife
who settle down in her own way, Larry the oldest is described as a highbrow and
spoildspoiled person, the middle brother Leslie was fascinated by guns and hunt;
Margo as a vain person who was always worried about her appearance. and lastly some
unconventional tutors as George Larry´s best friend and Peter whom margoMargo fall
in love but unfortunately he escapeds on her wedding day ( chapter twelve p 173).
However the author in some chapters inform us about characters by means of dialogue;
as well as the conversation between Larry and Mother, arguments among the family and
Durrel him self with the islanders as Spiro the taxi driver who becomes the family
confidant, Agathi the old woman who Durrel learnt some of the most beatifulbeautiful
songs, Yani the sheperdshepherd, the Rose-Beetleman, and the professor
Theodor.theTheodor. The most influence person on Durrel education

My only reservation about the novel from my point of view it´s just a little too
long and the author emphasise more on his exploration rahterrather than the
characters, in my opinion it´s considered to an educational book about nature life
exploration, fauna and flora , despite this I´m really interested on the novel in the way
he the writer intersperses the events by introducing in one hand anecdotes and funny
stories of the animals and in other hand humour situations of his family and the
islanders.