DURRELL, GERALD - My Family and Other Animals

MY FAMILY AND OTHER ANIMALS

by Gerald Durrell

QUOTES FOR DISCUSSION

LOVE THE DESCRIPTION!

July had been blown out like a candle by a biting wind that ushered in a leaden August Sky. A sharp, stinging drizzle fell, billowing into opaque gray sheets when the wind caught it.

- Durrell, Gerald, My Family and Other Animals, pg 1

WHOSE FAULT?
"That's the trouble with this family, " said Larry bitterly, "no give and take, no consideration for others."

"It's all your fault, Mother, " said Larry austerely, "you should not have brought us up to be so selfish."
"I like that!" exclaimed Mother. "I never did anything of the sort.!"

"Well, we didn't get as selfish as this without some guidance, " said Larry.

- Durrell, Gerald, My Family and Other Animals, pg 21

THE THINGS YOU LEARN WHEN HOMESCHOOLING
For myself, the garden held sufficient interest; together Roger an I learned some surprising things. Roger, for example, found that it was unwise to smell hornets...

- Durrell, Gerald, My Family and Other Animals, pg. 22

WHAT DECIDES THE ABILITY TO CONCENTRATE?

Gradually, as I became more used to the bustle of insect life among the flowers, I found I could concentrate more. I would spend hours squatting on my heels or lying on my stomach watching the private lives of the creatures around me, while Roger sat nearby, a look of resignation on his face. In this way I learned a lot of fascinating things.

- Durrell, Gerald, My Family and Other Animals, pg. 23

LEARNING A FOREIGN LANGUAGE

As the days passed, I came gradually to understand them. What had at first been a confused babble became a series of recognizable separate sounds. Then, suddenly, these took on meaning and slowly and haltingly I started to use them myself; then I took my newly acquired words and strung them into ungrammatical and stumbling sentences. Our neighbors were delighted, as though I had conferred some delicate compliment by trying to learn their language.

- Durrell, Gerald, My Family and Other Animals, pg. 26

EAGERNESS OF EXPLORATION

"Eat it slowly, dear, " Mother would murmur, "there's no hurry."
No hurry? With Roger waiting at the garden gate, an alert black shape, watching for me with eager brown eyes? No hurry, with the first sleepy cicadas starting to fiddle experimentally among the olives? No hurry, with the island waiting, morning cool, bright as a star, to be explored? I could hardly expect the family to understand this point of view, however, so I would slow down until I felt their attention had been attracted elsewhere, and then stuff my mouth again.

- Durrell, Gerald, My Family and Other Animals, pg. 27

DOG

He was the perfect companion for an adventure, affectionate without exuberance, brave without being belligerent, intelligent and full of good humoured tolerance for my eccentricities. If I slipped when climbing a dew-shiny bank, Roger appeared suddenly, gave snort that sounded like suppressed laughter, a quick look over, a rapid lick of commiseration, shook himself, sneezed, and gave me a his lopsided grin. If I found something that interested me - an ant's nest, a caterpillar on a leaf, a spider wrapping up a fly in swaddling clothes of silk - Roger at least sat down and waited until I had finished examining it. If he thought I was taking too long, he shifted nearer, gave a gentle, whiny yawn, and then sighed deeply and started to wag his tail. IF the matter was of no great importance, we would move on, but if it was something absorbing that had to be pored over, I had only to frown at Roger and he would realize it was going to be along job. His ears would droop, his tail slow down and stop, and he would slouch off to the nearest bush and fling himself down in the shade, giving me a martyred look as he did so.

- Durrell, Gerald, My Family and Other Animals, pg. 28

UNSCHOOLING VS STRUCTURED SCHOOLING

Scarcely had we settled into the strawberry-pink villa before Mother decided that I was running wild, and that it was necessary for me to have some sort of education. But where to find this on a remote Greek island?

- Durrell, Gerald, My Family and Other Animals, pg. 40

INTEREST

"He appears to have only one interest," said Larry bitterly, "and that's this awful urge to fill things with animal life. I don't think he ought to be encouraged in that. Life is fraught with danger as it is. I went to light a cigarette only this morning and a damn' great bumble-bee flew out of the box."

"He doesn't mean any harm, poor little chap, " said Mother pacifically; "he's just interested in all these things."

- Durrell, Gerald, My Family and Other Animals, pg. 41

DANGER

I forgot about the imminent danger of being educated, and went off with Roger to hunt for glow-worms in the sprawling brambles.

- Durrell, Gerald, My Family and Other Animals, pg. 42

MATH TUTOR

While I struggled with the apparently insoluble problem of the caterpillar's appetites, George would be otherwise occupied. He was an expert fencer, and was at that time engaged in learning some of the local peasant dances , for which he had a passion. So while waiting for me to finish the sum, he would drift about in the gloom of the room, practicing fencing stances, or complicated dancing steps, a habit that I found disconcerting, to say the least, and to which I shall always attribute my inability to do mathematics. Place any simple sum before me, even now, and it immediately conjures up a vision of George's lanky body swaying and jerking round the dimly lit dining-room.

- Durrell, Gerald, My Family and Other Animals, pg. 44

WHAT DO DOGS THINK?
Occasionally I found a smooth pebble, or a piece of bottle which had been rubbed and licked by the sea until it was like an astonishing jewel, green and translucent. These finds I handed to Roger, who sat watching me. He, not certain what I expected him to do but not wishing to offend me, took them, delicately in his mouth. Then, when he thought I was not looking, he would drop them back into the water and sigh deeply.

- Durrell, Gerald, My Family and Other Animals, pg. 51

SLEEP

When I cam back the air was full of sleep, so here I am.

- Durrell, Gerald, My Family and Other Animals, pg. 55

BOOKSHELVES

It was in my opinion, just what a room should be. The walls were lined with tall bookshelves filled with volumes on freshwater biology, botany, astronomy, medicine, folklore and similar fascinating and sensible subjects. Interspersed with these were selections of ghost and crime stories. Thus Sherlock Holmes rubbed shoulders with Darwin, and Le Fanu with Fabre, in what I considered to be a thoroughly well-balanced library.

- Durrell, Gerald, My Family and Other Animals, pg. 64

BURIAL PLANS
... for they were not used to the heavy wines of Greece. When we returned we were somewhat startled to be greeted by Mother, standing at the door of the villa with a hurricane lantern. She informed us with lady-like precision and dignity that she wished to be buried under the rose bushes.

- Durrell, Gerald, My Family and Other Animals, pg. 67

ANGELS

Be not forgetful to entertain strangers; for thereby some heave entertained angels unawares - Hebrews 13

- Durrell, Gerald, My Family and Other Animals, pg. 81

AILMENTS
Shortly afterwards, to our relief, Lugaretzia's stomach got better, but almost immediately her feet gave out, and she would hobble pitifully round the house, groaning loudly and frequently. Larry said that Mother hadn't hired a maid, but a ghoul, and suggested buying her a ball and chain.

- Durrell, Gerald, My Family and Other Animals, pg. 85

CROWDS
We were jostled and pushed as we struggled to get back to the place where we had left the car. The crowd grew thicker and thicker, and the people were so tightly wedged together that we were carried forward against our will.

"I think there must be something going on," said Margo observantly. "Maybe it's a fiesta or something interesting."
"I don't care what it is, as long as we get back to the car," said Mother.
- Durrell, Gerald, My Family and Other Animals, pg. 86

I was caught firmly between five fat peasant women who pressed on me like cushions and exuded sweat and garlic, while Mother was hopelessly entangled between two of the enormous Albanian shepherds. Steadily, firmly, we were pushed up the steps and into the church.

- Durrell, Gerald, My Family and Other Animals, pg. 87

SHOOTING OUT THE WINDOW
He rushed across the room, muttering to himself, tore open a cupboard, and pulled out a powerful-looking air rifle, while I watched him with increasing mystification and interest, not unmixed with a certain alarm for my for my own safety. He loaded the weapon, dropping pellets all over the carpet in his frantic haste. Then he crouched and crept back to the window, where, half concealed by the curtain, he peered our eagerly. Then he raised the gun, took careful aim at something, and fired. When he turned round, slowly and sadly shaking his head and laid the gun aside, I was surprised to see tears in his eyes.

- Durrell, Gerald, My Family and Other Animals, pg. 116

For the rest of the morning I toyed with the exciting idea that the consul had committed a murder before my very eyes, or at least, that he was carrying out a blood feud with some neighbouring householder. - Durrell, Gerald, My Family and Other Animals, pg. 117

HOW MANY?
We had agreed that we would not invite a lot of people to the party; we said we didn't like crowds, and so ten guests, carefully selected, were the most we were prepared to put up with. It would be a small but distinguished gathering of people we liked best. Having unanimously decided on this, each member of the family then proceeded to invite ten people. Unfortunately they didn't all invited the same ten...

- Durrell, Gerald, My Family and Other Animals, pg. 140

THE BRAIN

The trouble with you hunting blokes is lack of imagination," said Larry critically. "I supply magnificent ideas - all you have to do is to try them out. But no, you condemn them out of hand." "Well, you come on the next trip and demonstrate how to do it," suggested Leslie.
"I don't profess to being a hairy-chested man of action, " said Larry austerely. "My place is in the realm of ideas - the brainwork, as it were. I put my brain at your disposal for the formation of schemes and stratagems, and then you, the muscular ones, carry them out."

- Durrell, Gerald, My Family and Other Animals, pg. 160

ACTION

"It's not a hangover, "said Larry with dignity, "it's just the strain of being woken up at the crack of dawn by an hysterical pack of people and having to take control of a crisis."
"Fat lot of controlling you did, lying in bed," snorted Leslie.
"It's not the action that counts, it's the brainwork behind it, the quickness of with, the ability to keep your head when all about you are losing theirs. If it hadn't been for me you would probably all be burnt in your beds."

- Durrell, Gerald, My Family and Other Animals, pg. 169

Mother and Spiro were in the larder checking the groceries when I burst in. I held the toads aloft and implored them to look at the wonderful amphibians I was standing fairly close to Spiro so that when he turned around her found himself staring in to a toad's face. Spiro's scowl faded, his eyes bulged and his skin took on a greenish hue; the resemblance between him and the toad was quite remarkable. Whipping out his handkerchief and holding it to his mouth, Spiro waddled uncertainly out onto the veranda and was violently sick.

"You shouldn't show Spiro things like that, dear," Mother remonstrated. "you know he's got a weak stomach."
I pointed out that although I was aware of Spiro's weak stomach I had not thought that the sight of such lovely creatures as the toads would affect him so violently. What was wrong with them? i asked greatly puzzled.
"There's nothing wrong with them, dear; they're lovely," said Mother, eyeing the toads suspiciously. "It's just that everyone doesn't like them."

- Durrell, Gerald, My Family and Other Animals, pg. 187

ANOTHER TUTOR
It was not long before I received the unwelcome news that yet another tutor had been found for me.

- Durrell, Gerald, My Family and Other Animals, pg. 191

ORNITHOLOGIST

The family informed me that hew as a very nice man and was, moreover, interested in birds, so we should get on together. I was not, however the least impressed by this last bit of information; I had met a number of people who professed to be interested in birds, and who had turned out (after careful questioning) to be charlatans ... I was sure that his reputation as an ornithologist would turn out to have grown from the fact that he once kept a canary when he was fourteen.

- Durrell, Gerald, My Family and Other Animals, pg. 191

FIRST IMPRESSIONS

I decided immediately that Kralefsky was not a human being at all, but a gnome who had disguised himself as one by donning an antiquated but very dapper suit. He had a large, egg-shaped head with flattened sides that were tilted back against a smoothly rounded hump-back. This gave him the curious appearance of being permanently in the middle of shrugging his shoulders and peering up into the sky.

- Durrell, Gerald, My Family and Other Animals, pg. 192

TO WHOM ARE YOU SPEAKING?

...but as he did not vary his tone at all I was sometimes at a loss to know whether the remark was addressed to me or to one of the occupants of the cages.

- Durrell, Gerald, My Family and Other Animals, pg. 193

RANDOM GUESSING

As far as I was concerned they did not produce anything in Warwick, but I would hazard a wild guess at coal. I had discovered that if one went on naming a product relentlessly (regardless of the country or town under discussion), sooner or later you would find the answer to be correct. Kralefky's anguish at my mistakes were very real; the day I informed him that Essex produced stainless steel there were tears in his eyes. But these long periods of depression were more than made up for by his extreme pleasure and delight when, by some strange chance, I answered a question correctly.

- Durrell, Gerald, My Family and Other Animals, pg. 197

FRENCH

Once a week we tortured ourselves by devoting a morning to French.

- Durrell, Gerald, My Family and Other Animals, pg. 197

ST FRANCIS

"If it has become necessary for us to perform our ablutions in a nest of hamadryads I shall be forced to move, "Larry warned.
"Am I going to et a bath or not?" Asked Leslie throatily.
"Why can't you take them out yourself?"

"Only Saint Francis of Assisi would feel really at home here..."

- Durrell, Gerald, My Family and Other Animals, pg. 260

TIME TO MOVE ON

With a gentlemanly honestly which I found hard to forgive, Mr. Kralefsky had informed Mother that he had taught me as much as he was able; the time had come, he thought, for me to go to somewhere like England or Switzerland to finish my education. In desperation I argued against any such idea; I said I liked being half-educated; you were so much more surprised at everything when you were ignorant. But Mother was adamant.

- Durrell, Gerald, My Family and Other Animals, pg. 271

CUSTOM FORMS

Mother glanced at the form the official had filled in, and as she read it, she stiffened. "Just look at what he's put," she exclaimed indignantly, "impertinent man."
Larry stared at the little form and snorted, "Well, that's the penalty you pay for leaving Corfu," he pointed out.
On the little card, in the column headed Description of Passengers had been written, in neat capitals: ONE TRAVELING CIRCUS AND STAFF.

- Durrell, Gerald, My Family and Other Animals, pg. 273

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