The Corfu Trilogy

There can have been few people who had as idyllic a childhood as Gerald Durrell. And I can think of none who have written about it with such warmth, perception and eloquence. (Albeit if with a bit of, um, selective exaggeration.) And Gerry wasn't even the family writer. This was the first book in a long long time that made me cry with laughter, but I'm afraid the Great Sparrow Massacre really got to me. And there are some new characters introduced that I hadn't previously known, just as warmly portrayed (and just as loony) as Spiro and the Captain.

I picked up this trilogy while drowning in some fairly hefty reading and trying to finish my degree. My mum recommended it to me as a bit of light relief, and for that it was simply perfect. Light, charming and cheerful, Gerry's memoirs of his childhood chronicle the life of his eccentric family on the Greek island of Corfu. There's nothing deep here; the reasons for their eventual departure (war) are left unspoken, but then I don't think that's what you'd be after if you wanted to read this.

The three books that make up the trilogy are fairly episodic and are not told chronologically. It's more like reading multiple, self-contained vignettes. You could read the episodes or books fairly out of order and it would make little difference. I question how true to life these stories really are; a quick search on wiki suggests that Larry, Gerry's eldest brother, did not even live with the rest of his family, but rather with a wife who is not mentioned once in these memoirs. Indeed, Larry's presence in his younger brother's books is perhaps most obvious out of all the personalities on Corfu, so it's strange to think Gerry ignored any of Larry's absences. But no matter if this trilogy is fairly anecdotal, the reading experience is very enjoyable, all the same. Perhaps, reading the whole trilogy at once would be slightly repetitive, but it's comforting knowing what you going into, each time you pick up to continue reading.

Most of the focus is on young Gerry's intense animal obsession. While there's no obvious examples of animal cruelty, I did feel slightly sorry for some of the wild animals, who presumably were being captured against their will. In that respect, I think these books are very much of their time and, perhaps, Gerry's methods in exploration and discovery would not be so accepted nowadays, but, having said that, it's clear how his experiences on the island sparked such an intense passion in the young boy and his later career in animal conservation and zoology.

The trilogy is of its time in many other ways as well. In fact, it's somewhat dated in some of its descriptions of both the foreign visitors to the island and the “natives”, but it remains funny and charming if you can overlook that. I'd recommend it to those in need of a lighter read and I'm glad I read it when I did.