My Family and Other Animals (1956)
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My Family and Other Animals Review
My Family and Other Animals is a 1956 autobiographical novel written by Gerald Durrell. It’s such a wonderful, highly charming book.
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“I said I liked being half-educated;
you were so much more surprised at everything when you were ignorant“
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The book describes the life of the Durrell family in a very lightweight, humorous and charming manner while focusing on their lives, interactions and particularly the animal world of Corfu as it follows their stay there. The plot of the novel left a lot to be desired in terms of depth and progression as nobody of the characters changes here in any way nor do we get any sophisticated statements.
However, that isn’t important all too much when you have an autobiographical work. What matters is the portrayal of its characters and a specific point in time and those the author did manage to accomplish so well.
Let’s first talk about the human characters. I much prefer the fauna elements here and some members of the family are forgettable. However, they all eventually grew on me and I started to care for them. Individually, they aren’t all that great, but as a family, they are fantastic as the interactions they share are so heartwarming and fun and I just felt like I’ve met this family and I would love to stay at their house for dinner without any doubt in my mind.
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Gerry is the protagonist and interestingly Gerald Durrell chose to not have his character speak any line, at least I think he didn’t, but rather to focus on the rest of the family and that was a great choice as his inner monologues and point of view are more than enough to get to know this highly smart, different and animal-obsessed young boy who reminded me so much of myself.
Larry and Leslie are fun, but more forgettable than others. Margo is a teen girl stereotype, but is mostly very likable and of course mother is the highlight of the family as she’s old-fashioned, yet most definitely weird at times. The entire family’s pleasantly weird and incredibly endearing. But I loved their friends as Spiro is so incredibly endearing, Theodore is also highly memorable and Kralefsky is quite amusing himself.
But My Family and Other Animals shines the most when dealing with animals. Roger the dog is such a wonderful dog and a great pet/family member. The rest of the dogs are also quite a lot of fun with Dodo being hilarious. As for Gerry’s endless lists of animal pets, the highlights include the tortoises, snakes and mostly magpies who are such mischievous, unforgettable creatures. The various family reactions to these animals he continued to bring home were reliably funny each time and their house truly must have been an exceedingly fun place to inhabit.
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The novel is incredibly well written by Durrell who has such a distinct, lovely writing style which reminded me of old 19th century children’s books such as ‘Heidi’. He described Corfu so vividly that I instantly wanted to go on a summer holiday there and that feeling permeated me throughout the entire reading of the book. I went to Corfu once and I adored it and can’t wait to go again.
The animals are all beautifully described and in such a detailed manner that it’s obvious that the author is a zoologist. Because I am very much interested in zoology, reading this book was a blast for me personally. Add to that memorable imagery and descriptive passages and such a great knack for writing comedy and you’ve got one fun and frequently incredibly funny book that made me laugh quite a lot.
My Family and Other Animals is a wonderful autobiographical novel beautifully written by author Gerald Durrell who imbued the book with an excellent, old-fashioned style and such a terrific sense of humor. The family members and their interactions are a lot of fun, but the highlights are the animals as they are described in such vivid detail and the island of Corfu particularly that I instantly wanted to go there. It’s a lovely, timeless work.
