Night after night we shared tales of Quasimodo, the walking pigeon, or Achilles, the tortoise (stumbling off “at top speed” to eat wild strawberries in private), Margo insisting that “a change is as good as a feast” and, funniest of all, the outrageous Larry – comparing his mother’s new bathing costume to “a badly skinned whale” and christening Gerald’s handmade boat the Bootle Bumtrinket.
One night I laughed so hard I slipped out of bed, whacking my head on the nightstand, after which I waited for the stars to subside and continued to read. The enduring joy of the book resides in reading about a bohemian family when you have never been part of one yourself (see also Noel Streatfeild’s Ballet Shoes and I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith). The start of a new prime-time TV dramatisation can only be a good thing if it introduces a new generation to this family of talented oddballs, but it will have to work hard to reach the heights of Durrell’s comic masterpiece. I rejoiced, as if in discovery of a long-lost relation. And thus was his connection with my family sealed. It was at that moment the penny dropped: Larry (whose voice I interpreted as a painful combination of David Niven and Frankie Howerd) was the future Lawrence, the impenetrable darling of the moderately intellectual Boston set. When she protests that she’s done nothing of the sort, Larry sniffs, “Well we didn’t get this selfish without some guidance.”
‘This is like a scene from Uncle Tom’s Cabin.’” A few pages later, the imperious eldest brother accuses their mother of bringing them all up to be selfish. “‘Why doesn’t somebody do something?’ asked Larry, raising his voice above the uproar. Pursued through the streets by 24 howling dogs “in a solid panting wedge”, they spectacularly failed to achieve the dignified, majestic entrance into town they so fervently desired. We were lost from the moment the Durrells arrived in Corfu and piled into a horse-drawn cab. The weeks passed in a haze of glorious hilarity. Photograph: Graham Turner/The Guardianįunny turned out to be an understatement. Meg Rosoff and her daughter Gloria, age 16.
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