My family and other animals

Due to rubbish traffic over the last few days into and back from work I have been stuck with this book club choice for many hours. OK, I know it's a classic and all that and a puffin book (sorry, but the language is so outdated there are not many kids who would enjoy this unless they are beetle loving freaks...but beetle loving freak kids would rather be hunting for beetles than reading this I guess.) but my god, it has bored me rigid and infuriated me. maybe that is because 40 something women with no pets ( and no children) are not really its target audience I suppose.

It annoyed me because there is not enough about his family, it's all about Gerald's love of beetles, pigeons, turtles, dogs and general creation as seen through his 8 year old eyes in his run down villa in Greece. 

The descriptions are lovely I suppose ( but not that great) and ultimately dull if you don't get off on natural history. Plus my annoyance comes from the language . I dislike all this privileged, upper class, rather batty British literature nonsense. Durrell's family, his mother, his sister and two older brothers are all obvious eccentrics with weird ways but local Greeks are the ones who are called 'mentally defective'. Somehow over a couple of pages the Durrells seem to pick up almost perfect Greek, how do they manage that?  Who is supporting their hippy like existence in 'romantic' 1930 s Corfu and why does no one seem to work or do anything apart from waft around in lots of capes and cloaks, sunbathe a lot and let Gerald run lose to collect beetles with Roger the dog? 

I haven't finished this book. I can't, I've had enough and will donate it back into the charity system. But reading this has made me realise that I am a lover of people and plot in my books. Daft individuals and whimsical characters, with a heavy dose of animal antics and barely veiled British superiority just doesnt do it for me. 

God, I sound awful slagging off a puffin book. But hey, it's the truth!   Come to think of it I never liked Wind in the Willows as a kid. How I felt reading that ,so long ago, is probably similar to how this book made me feel; bored and irritated!