Probably not a keeper
Apr. 9th, 2016 09:18 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
I have watched just over 15 minutes of The Durrells, the latest adaptation of what is apparently called Gerald Durrell's Corfu Trilogy (I am not enthralled with this description, as it sets up much more of a separation between three of the books and his others than I think is warranted, but this is probably also because in my head Fillets of Plaice is the sequel to My Family and Other Animals, because it was the other one we had a copy of when I was small and I read them both excessively).
I am also not enthralled with the adaptation so far, but it's hard to know how fair this is because My Family and Other Animals was such a formative book for me. This adaptation has made Louisa Durrell, Gerald's mother, the main figure, and started off with her rescuing him from school where he has been caned for feeding rats instead of studying, and then has a lot of heavy father figure imagery as well as a neighbour proposing to Louisa while she hits the gin bottle before they all head for Corfu. The book, if memory serves me correctly (there is a gap on my bookshelf where my copy should be and I know I've seen it somewhere else), starts with a very short scene in which everyone is sick, miserable and bitchy, and is much funnier and far less heavy-handed. They have also skipped the hotel and Greek sanitation and the bit with all the other villa shopping (but they've kept Lucrezia, who I do like) and possibly I shouldn't have even tried (I couldn't watch the 1990s adaptation either) but I keep thinking I should try visual narratives again. Hmm.
On the bright side, I am now 27 pages into Birds, Beasts and Relatives, which was in its correct place, and now giggling helplessly as Gerry, various eccentric relatives and eight Bedlington puppies navigate the London Tube on their way to a spiritualist meeting.
I am also not enthralled with the adaptation so far, but it's hard to know how fair this is because My Family and Other Animals was such a formative book for me. This adaptation has made Louisa Durrell, Gerald's mother, the main figure, and started off with her rescuing him from school where he has been caned for feeding rats instead of studying, and then has a lot of heavy father figure imagery as well as a neighbour proposing to Louisa while she hits the gin bottle before they all head for Corfu. The book, if memory serves me correctly (there is a gap on my bookshelf where my copy should be and I know I've seen it somewhere else), starts with a very short scene in which everyone is sick, miserable and bitchy, and is much funnier and far less heavy-handed. They have also skipped the hotel and Greek sanitation and the bit with all the other villa shopping (but they've kept Lucrezia, who I do like) and possibly I shouldn't have even tried (I couldn't watch the 1990s adaptation either) but I keep thinking I should try visual narratives again. Hmm.
On the bright side, I am now 27 pages into Birds, Beasts and Relatives, which was in its correct place, and now giggling helplessly as Gerry, various eccentric relatives and eight Bedlington puppies navigate the London Tube on their way to a spiritualist meeting.
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Date: 2016-04-09 09:38 pm (UTC)Also, I then tried to read Two in the Bush and found the narration off-putting. Maybe I should revisit one of his earlier ones.
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Date: 2016-04-10 02:40 am (UTC)Yes, definitely try one of his others - I've read Two in the Bush but couldn't tell you anything about it other than the title, and the collecting ones really aren't all that exciting as narratives. I would start with either My Family and Other Animals or his children's book, The Talking Parcel, although the boy might like The Picnic and Suchlike Pandemonium, which is a collection of short stories that has one gothic horror in it that I am still disturbed by. I also really liked Rosie is My Relative, a novel about a young man who is left an elephant by an eccentric relative, but I haven't re-read it since my late teens and I think the sexism fairy may have visited since then.
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Date: 2016-04-10 08:54 am (UTC)Two in the Bush is the one where he comes to NZ/Australia, and he's (reasonably) grumpy about NZ and then completely obnoxious on the boat over to Oz. At which point I gave up.
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Date: 2016-04-10 09:30 am (UTC)