My Family and Other Animals
SynopsisPlot
When the unconventional Durrell family can no longer endure the damp, gray English climate, they do what any sensible family would do: sell their house and relocate to the sunny Greek isle of Corfu. My Family and Other Animals was intended to embrace the natural history of the island but ended up as a delightful account of Durrell’s family’s experiences, from the many eccentric hangers-on to the ceaseless procession of puppies, toads, scorpions, geckoes, ladybugs, glowworms, octopuses, bats, and butterflies into their home.
Story
About this book
In the 1930s, the Durrell family left England for the Greek island of Corfu, trading damp weather for Mediterranean sun. Gerald, the youngest of four children, was already fascinated by animals, and the island became his outdoor classroom. My Family and Other Animals is the first book of the Corfu Trilogy, and it recounts those years through the eyes of a young naturalist in an unconventional household.
Durrell set out to record the natural history of Corfu, but the book became broader. It moves between the creatures he collected and observed, among them scorpions, geckoes, octopuses and bats, and the people who filled the family's days. His mother, siblings, tutors and a stream of local visitors appear alongside the animals, and much of the book's texture comes from the collision of those two worlds.
Corfu itself is a steady presence. Durrell writes about olive groves, rocky shores and warm shallow water in close detail, placing each animal in the ground where he found it. The household's rented houses, tolerant of puppies, toads and glowworms indoors, form the other setting: domestic, crowded and rarely quiet.
