I learned about the Durrell family like I have learned so many things over the last years: by watching tv. CBC GEM had the Masterpiece show called The Durrells, and it had just enough character, truth, insanity, and showcasing the natural beauty of Corfu. The family become even more interesting to me when I realized that two of the the children were authors, and the stories could be accessed in part by the stories written by zoologist youngest child Gerry.
It still makes me laugh that I ended up on vacation in Crete because my friend wanted to go to Corfu, but didn't realize her mistake until we got there. I was only mildly disappointed, as I would have been happy to have gone to Corfu based on the show alone, but I think my friend was more interested in the vacation home view than the culture or history or mythology!
I don't remember where I picked up the second hand copy of Encounters with Animals, but I thought it might be a good book to read with Princess Pirate on summer vacation. We did read a few chapters together, and I am forever grateful for the stories of life in the Brazilian pantanal after dark, and the highlighted animals like the West African Kusimanse. The ideas of naturalism of that era, however, were as colonialist as the European's views on land rule, and it was difficult to read the seemingly insensitive and imperialistic collection of rare animals as though they were collectibles and not sentient beings.
Gerald Durrell was a great writer and a patient naturalist of another time. I appreciated the stories in spite of the time, but it was a little too far for my Princess Pirate.
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