You may have heard the name before. It may register dimly as something a parent or uncle once mentioned. You may have seen the recent and wonderful BBC production My Family And Other Animals and wondered what else this Durrell fellow wrote. The idea that this man was once one of the most popular British writers may seem far-fetched, overshadowed as he is now by his more famous brother, Lawrence Durrell (of whom you may also not have heard).
Durrell’s works are not of great literary value in and of themselves. They push no boundaries of taste or propriety, but remain wryly funny and solidly British. What Durrell did, though, was push conservation into the public eye from the 1950s onwards.
Durrell, as founder of Jersey Zoo and the Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust, went around the world collecting endangered animals for preservation and later re-population. His books detailed the journeys spent locating, capturing, and looking after a vast array of animals from different areas.
My Family and Other Animals, then, as the earliest in setting of Durrell’s books, is worthy of far more respect than it currently gets. It radiates charm, enthusiasm, and interest in all living creatures, and draws comparisons between the variation of animals and the weirdness of Durrell’s family. Durrell’s true talent is in his ability to treat creatures with the same level of respect and observation as he does humans. His keen-eyed sketches of the wildlife he encounters imbue the world itself with character, and the result is that a generation of readers began to feel that conservation of wildlife habitats, prevention of poaching, and the development of zoos that aim to help endangered species survive were all important issues.
Gerald Durrell was not a sophisticated writer, but he was an important one. He unceremoniously hauled the unfashionable natural world into the public eye in a post-war world which largely just wanted to lick its wounds.
Durrell’s books, in helping maintain the earth’s diversity, are, without a shadow of a doubt, canonical. It is time for a new generation to discover him.
