Douglas Botting. Gerald Durrell: The
Authorised Biography. London: HarperCollins, 1999.
644 pages. 68 photographs. £24.99. U.S. Edition:
Gerald Durrell: The Authorized Biography. New York:
Carroll & Graf, 1999. $29.95
David Hughes. Himself & Other Animals: A Portrait
of Gerald Durrell. London: Hutchinson, 1997. £15.99
(hardback). Rpt. London: Pimlico, 1998. 195 pages.
£7.99 (paperback)
Paul H. Lorenz
Gerald Durrell is probably best known in the literary
world from his amusing and insightful portrayal of the foibles of his family
in My Family and Other Animals, but his significance extends far
beyond that one amusing and popular title, for writing was always one of
Gerry's secondary occupations. He wrote many other wonderful books,
of course, but mostly to raise money to support his expeditions into the
wild in search of rare animals, in an effort to save those animals for
extinction, and to assure the continued existence of the innovated Jersey
Wildlife Preservation Trust, which he founded. While one might argue
that Gerry's own books document his life and adventures, they do so very
selectively. Douglas Botting's well-researched and well-written full-scale
biography objectively tells the story of Gerald Durrell's life and reminds
us of Gerry's significance while, in a related work, David Hughes presents
us with a portrait of Gerry as seen through the eyes of one of his friends
during one particular period of his life.
Though Douglas Botting met Gerald Durrell only once,
in the summer of 1989, his full-scale biography presents us with an intimate
portrait of Gerry the man, the self-deprecating humorist and best-selling
author whose visionary approach to animal conservation made him not only
a great nature writer, but one of the world's leaders in the conservation
of rare species of animal life. Botting achieves his intimate portrait
through an extensive use of quotations from Gerry's own writing, including
a number of personal and love letters which were among the unpublished
source materials for the biography. While some of the material from
the letters caused me feel that I was being made privy to feelings men
normally don't share with each other, the Gerald Durrell who emerges is
very real and very human.
The biography begins with a typical bit of Durrellian
humor: Gerry's version of the story of his mother when she was pregnant
with him in Jamshedpur, a story which serves to explain his love of champagne
as well as his early affinity with animals. The early chapters, which
describe Gerry's early life in England where he learned to hate school
and the years of Corfu where Theodore Stephanides encouraged his interest
in the natural world, provide a new perspective on that period in the Durrell
family history as well as supplemental material for those who have read
either Gorden Bowker's or Ian MacNiven's biography of Lawrence Durrell.
Indeed, big brother Lawrence, as Douglas Botting portrays him seen through
Gerry's eyes, strikes me as more sympathetic, more supportive, more mature,
and generally more likeable than the personality portrayed in either of
his own major biographies.
Botting's focus, however, is on Gerald's adult life;
the story of his expeditions in search of animals, his first marriage to
Jacquie, the founding of the zoo, his writing, the breakup of his marriage,
his travels in search of funds for the zoo and to support future expeditions,
his love for Lee and their marriage in Memphis, his films, and his influence
on zoos and conservation efforts around the world fill most of Botting's
pages. Much time is spent documenting Gerry's efforts on behalf of
the world's wildlife, and that is the proper focus for this biography.
Botting makes it clear that the motivation for Gerry's writing, for his
film making, for his television appearances, and for his American tours
was to make possible the real work of his life: the work still being
carried on by what is now known as the Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust
in Jersey.
Botting's biography is well researched and well
written, and because it is objectively focused on Gerald with Lawrence
playing a supporting role, it also caused me to look at Lawrence Durrell
from a different perspective. Though it is possible to find a few
minor errors in this biography (on page 369, Lawrence is said to be "stuck
fast in Provence" when in fact he was living in Languedoc), these errors
are minor and common to all comprehensive biographies of any magnitude
(Ian MacNiven was kind enough to make several corrections in my copy of
his biography of Lawrence). Botting does an excellent job of presenting
Gerald as a man with many human failings, certainly no saint, not even
a drunken one, but as a man who made great contributions to the environment
through his founding of the Jersey Wildlife Preservation Trust and who
entertained and educated millions around the world about the necessity
and desirability of saving endangered species.
If this biography were a novel, one of the quotations
used form the works of Gerald Durrell, the first quotation to be presented,
could very well serve as the overall theme of the book. It is a quotation
from "The Man of Animals," a text written by Gerry when he was ten (the
spelling is the original): "Right in the Hart of the Africn Jungel
a small wite man lives. Now there is one rather xtrordenry fackt
about him that is that he is the frind of all animals." Without
a doubt, this is the image of Gerald--the friend of all animals--the emerges
like a monument on the horizon as we move through Botting's biography of
this "heroic" friend of wildlife and the environment. I found the
biography a joy to read.
David Hughes's Himself and Other Animals
takes a very different approach to presenting a portrait of Gerald Durrell.
Instead of attempting to write a comprehensive biography, Hughes decided
to present his reader with a composite week of visits based on an interview
which extended over several months and several visits, including one visit
which lasted a fortnight. This was the plan in 1974 when Gerry agreed
to Hughes's interviews, but when Hughes presented him with the 297-page
typed manuscript, it did not meet with Gerry's approval. The manuscript
was put away, unpublished and forgotten, until Douglas Botting asked, after
Gerald's death in 1995, if he could see the manuscript if it still existed
so that he could mine it for source material for his biography. Hughes
cooperated with Botting, but decided to rewrite his twenty-year-old manuscript
and publish it himself as a tribute to Gerry's life and work.
Hughes's rewrite retains the seven-day organizational
plan of the original. Each chapter or "day" contains a journal-like
description of the events of the compressed day on which the interview
took place in the 1970s, along with a presentation of the biographical
material discussed during the day's interview. Sunday, for example,
begins with Hughes's arrival at Lawrence's mazet in Languedoc which
Gerry was occupying for the summer. Over tea, Gerry tells Hughes
about his birth in India and the loneliness of his early years spent in
Bournemouth. Monday recounts a visit by Lawrence to the mazet
and continues the story of Gerald's life through the Corfu years.
Tuesday combines the description of a car trip across France with Gerry
and Jacquie with an account of Gerry's puberty and return to England in
1939. Wednesday takes Hughes and the Durrells to Bournemouth for
a short visit with Margo before flying on to Jersey and continues the story
of Gerry's life through his experiences at Whipsnade and his introduction
to Jacquie. Thursday shows him at work at the zoo while Friday combines
his efforts to keep the zoo financed with descriptions of some of his expeditions
to collect animals. The final day, Saturday, describes an annual
meeting of the Preservation Trust in which Gerald shows off his diplomatic
fund-raising skills. Thus, while Hughes does not present a complete
biography, his book presents an outline of Gerald's life through the mid-1970s,
as well as a detailed snapshot of him as he was in 1974-75.
Unfortunately, the seven-day format has a serious
drawback. Hughes presents himself as a visitor in Gerry's life, a
visitor who, when the interviews are taking place, is the center of attention,
but who, when Gerald goes about his day-to-day business, has access to
him only at mealtimes. Pages are spent describing the routine of
three meals a day, often with Gerald cooking or ordering lavish dishes,
and the social drinks which accompany meals--every glass of wine is accounted
for. The effect of this diurnal verisimilitude is that the reader
is left with the impression that Gerry's life was little more than an extended
orgy of eating and drinking and entertaining visitors. We are allowed
to see him working only in the last few chapters or "days" of the book,
but even then the eating and drinking intrudes.
David Hughes admits that there was a good reason
why the first manuscript of the book was unsatisfactory: he lacked
the commitment necessary to do his project justice. The published
version is better, though too much of the focus still remains not on Gerald
Durrell, but on the David Hughes of 1974. Still Hughes's very personal
approach provides insight into the character of the Durrell brothers (especially
Gerry, but Larry does make an appearance in the early chapter set at the
mazet) which will be of interest to many readers.
Deus Loci 7 (1999-2000): 175-79..
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