Ms. Hen reviews My Family and Other Animals

 

My Family and Other Animals

Gerald Durrell

Pan MacMillan

1956

Ms. Hen decided to read this book because her rooster friend told her she should read more classics, and he recommended this. She had heard of the PBS show, THE DURRELLS OF CORFU, but she has not watched that as of yet. Ms. Hen didn't know what to expect from this book, but she found it charming.

This was a very small book. She picked it up at the library, and it was the tiniest book there. The print is miniature also, and even though the book didn't look large, it took her some time to read it.

This is a memoir about Gerald Durrell's time in Corfu, the Greek island, where he spent several years with his family when he was young. A friend mentioned to his brother Larry that the family should move to Corfu because it was beautiful. 

Young Gerry set out to collect and study the animals on the island. He had several tutors, including Theodore, who loved animals as much as he did. Gerry brought home many different species of insects, birds, turtles, and the family acquired dogs. He also talks about his family, and the pleasant times and misadventures they had together.

Many anecdotes from the family are shared, including the time Gerry brought some magpies home, which they named the Magenpies, and the birds ripped apart Larry's room, tearing his manuscript to shreds, and spilling ink, and walking around the room with ink on their feet. The Magenpies also broke into some beer right before the family was about to have a party, which Ms. Hen thought was hilarious. She didn't know birds could get drunk, which she is excited about.

The way this book presents the world is not the way we exist any longer. When Ms. Hen was young, she was not the type of child who would look at animals and collect insects and such. She imagines that some children did, but she thinks that propensity to be this way might be disappearing with the advent of technology. Why observe animals when the Internet exists? And YouTube and games, and other things to keep children distracted from the earth and the creatures who live here, too. She thinks it's sad, but she holds out hope that there might be children weird enough to do this somewhere.

Some chickens appear in this book, naturally, since it's about animals. A story about the Magenpies and how they mocked the chickens, "Another trick, out of which they got endless pleasure, was deluding the poor unfortunate flock of chickens, which spent the day scratching hopefully around the olive grove. Periodically the maid would come to the kitchen door, and utter a series of piping noises...which the hens knew as a signal for food. As soon as the Magenpies mastered the chicken-food call they worried the poor hens to decline." Ms. Hen is distressed that they poor chickens were fooled, but at the same time, she laughed at them. Magpies might be smarter that chickens, to Ms. Hen's dismay, but she's not surprised.

Ms. Hen thinks this is a pleasant summer book, thinking about animals and the earth, and the natural world which surrounds us. Ms. Hen is a backyard birdwatcher, just for pleasure, she is not an expert, but she takes pleasure in feathered friends, like herself, but more real.

Ms. Hen and a blue heron