Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Introduction
- 1 Graham Greene, the West, and Human Factors
- 2 Imperialism and Sentiment: Paul Scott's Raj Quartet and the Mountbattens
- 3 Forster's Views on Race and Class and Moral Imperatives
- 4 Kipling on Goodness and the Great Game
- 5 Political Perspectives and Moral Fervour in Joseph Conrad
- 6 Henry James on Personal Relations: Looking Beneath and Beyond
- 7 The Heroic Vitalism of D. H. Lawrence
- 8 James Joyce and the Life of Dubliners
- 9 Evelyn Waugh and the City of Aquatint
- 10 Virginia Woolf and Time's Chariot
- 11 Robert Graves' Sense of History
- 12 Christopher Isherwood and Berlin in Decline
- 13 Aldous Huxley and the Dangers of a World Without Ideas
- 14 Somerset Maugham and the Strengths of Simplicity
- 15 Agatha Christie and the Magic of Murder
- 16 Conan Doyle and Sherlock Holmes
- 17 Galsworthy and Social and Sexual Transition
- 18 The Unchanging World of P. G. Wodehouse
- 19 Frank Richards and the Preposterous Excesses of Billy Bunter
- 20 John Buchan and a Life beyond Letters
- 21 Richmal crompton's William and the Charms of the Unorthodox
- 22 Edith Nesbit and the Pleasures of Childhood
- 23 The Excessive Vitalism of Bernard Shaw
- 24 The Melancholia of Katherine Mansfield
- 25 J. M. Barrie and the Boy Who Never Grew Up
- 26 Kenneth Grahame's Singular Mr Toad
- 27 The Wicked Worlds of George Orwell
- 28 Enid Blyton's Evocations of Britain
- 29 Tolkien and the Pursuit and Achievement of Power
- 30 Transitions in the Worlds of C. S. Lewis
- 31 Noël Coward and the Games People Play
- 32 Rattigan's Sensitivities
- 33 Lawrence Durrell and the Uses of Sexuality
- 34 Anthony Powell and the Hollow Heart of the New England
- 35 Angus Wilson and the Pursuit of Values
- 36 William Golding and the Limits of Civilization
- 37 Anthony Burgess and the Energy of the Outsider
- 38 The Ineffable Angst of Samuel Beckett
- 39 Pinter and the Politics of Literature
- 40 Ian Fleming's Establishment and its Guardian
- 41 Le Carré's Hard-pressed Concept of Honour
- 42 Beyond Shadows – Naipaul's Brilliant Bad Temper
- 43 Muriel Spark and Remembrances of Mortality
- 44 The Bizarre Worlds of J. G. Ballard
- 45 Simon Raven's Extravagant Decency
- 46 Salman Rushdie's Magic
- 47 Vikram Seth's Romanticism
- 48 Ruth Prawer Jhabvala's Pictures of Past and Present
- 49 The Relentless Anguish of Kazuo Ishiguro
- 50 Gerald Durrell's Human Zoos
- 51 T. E. Lawrence and the Limits of Commitment
50 - Gerald Durrell's Human Zoos
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 September 2013
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Preface
- Introduction
- 1 Graham Greene, the West, and Human Factors
- 2 Imperialism and Sentiment: Paul Scott's Raj Quartet and the Mountbattens
- 3 Forster's Views on Race and Class and Moral Imperatives
- 4 Kipling on Goodness and the Great Game
- 5 Political Perspectives and Moral Fervour in Joseph Conrad
- 6 Henry James on Personal Relations: Looking Beneath and Beyond
- 7 The Heroic Vitalism of D. H. Lawrence
- 8 James Joyce and the Life of Dubliners
- 9 Evelyn Waugh and the City of Aquatint
- 10 Virginia Woolf and Time's Chariot
- 11 Robert Graves' Sense of History
- 12 Christopher Isherwood and Berlin in Decline
- 13 Aldous Huxley and the Dangers of a World Without Ideas
- 14 Somerset Maugham and the Strengths of Simplicity
- 15 Agatha Christie and the Magic of Murder
- 16 Conan Doyle and Sherlock Holmes
- 17 Galsworthy and Social and Sexual Transition
- 18 The Unchanging World of P. G. Wodehouse
- 19 Frank Richards and the Preposterous Excesses of Billy Bunter
- 20 John Buchan and a Life beyond Letters
- 21 Richmal crompton's William and the Charms of the Unorthodox
- 22 Edith Nesbit and the Pleasures of Childhood
- 23 The Excessive Vitalism of Bernard Shaw
- 24 The Melancholia of Katherine Mansfield
- 25 J. M. Barrie and the Boy Who Never Grew Up
- 26 Kenneth Grahame's Singular Mr Toad
- 27 The Wicked Worlds of George Orwell
- 28 Enid Blyton's Evocations of Britain
- 29 Tolkien and the Pursuit and Achievement of Power
- 30 Transitions in the Worlds of C. S. Lewis
- 31 Noël Coward and the Games People Play
- 32 Rattigan's Sensitivities
- 33 Lawrence Durrell and the Uses of Sexuality
- 34 Anthony Powell and the Hollow Heart of the New England
- 35 Angus Wilson and the Pursuit of Values
- 36 William Golding and the Limits of Civilization
- 37 Anthony Burgess and the Energy of the Outsider
- 38 The Ineffable Angst of Samuel Beckett
- 39 Pinter and the Politics of Literature
- 40 Ian Fleming's Establishment and its Guardian
- 41 Le Carré's Hard-pressed Concept of Honour
- 42 Beyond Shadows – Naipaul's Brilliant Bad Temper
- 43 Muriel Spark and Remembrances of Mortality
- 44 The Bizarre Worlds of J. G. Ballard
- 45 Simon Raven's Extravagant Decency
- 46 Salman Rushdie's Magic
- 47 Vikram Seth's Romanticism
- 48 Ruth Prawer Jhabvala's Pictures of Past and Present
- 49 The Relentless Anguish of Kazuo Ishiguro
- 50 Gerald Durrell's Human Zoos
- 51 T. E. Lawrence and the Limits of Commitment
Summary
An element of self-indulgence will doubtless be suspected in the last couple of writers I shall include in this series, though I feel there are good reasons for including them. In the first place, they represent genres that are a significant part of English letters, in the one case travel, in the other history. Secondly, they have interesting literary connections, of different sorts, and also exemplify factors I have found recurring again and again in the biographies of the writers I have included in the series.
To begin with Gerald Durrell, he belonged to what used to be termed an Anglo-Indian family. In the old sense, that meant Britishers who worked in India. The same was true of George Orwell (who like Durrell was born in India) and Terence Rattigan and of course, Kipling. Writers who spent time in India, many of them writing about the country, included Forster and Simon Raven and Paul Scott and Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, and of course, the Indians, Naipaul and Rushdie and Seth.
Durrell moved back to England when he was three, following his father's death, but the family obviously continued to have a wanderlust, and in 1935 they moved to Corfu, an island off the coast of Greece. That provided my first introduction to the Durrells, Gerald and his eldest brother Lawrence, a much more famous writer of course. Gerald, in 1956, wrote My Family and other Animals, ostensibly an autobiographical account of the family's time in Corfu.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Twentieth Century ClassicsReflections on Writers and their Times, pp. 209 - 212Publisher: Foundation BooksPrint publication year: 2013