Part two
Chapter 7 - The Daffodil - Yellow Villa
Chapter 8 - The Tortoise Hills
Characters:
- Theodore
- Margo
- Leslie
- Michael
- Gerry
- Mother
- Roger
- Madame Cyclops
- Zapotec
- Lugaretzia
- Jonquil
- Durant
- Melanie
- Larry
The
mountains behind the villa were full of tortoises.
Once, Gerry
and Roger saw a tortoise coming out of the ground.
Suddenly
the hills became covered with them.
There
were all different
Gerry
collected 35 specimens in two hours.
After
the tortoises had their first meal they started acting
"romantically".
The male
tortoises would fight for the female tortoises doing battles.
These
fights interested Gerry and Roger.
The
female would pick a winner and Jerry and Roger would follow the happy couple on
their honeymoon.
The
tortoises would procreate in a very inefficient way, even Gerry had to help.
Gerry got
intimate with a female tortoise and named her Madame Cyclops.
Madame
Cyclops laid 9 eggs.
Jerry
took an egg to add it to his collection.
The
villa was filled of Larry's friends afterwards.
The
first one to arrive was "Zapotec", a poet.
He would
talk and drink a lot as well as try to flirt with every woman on the villa,
even Lugaretzia.
The next
visitors were three artist, Jonquil, Durant and Michael.
Michael
was allergic to several things. One of his allergies were horses.
Once
Michael got very bad because Mother tucked a horse-rug under his chin, what
affected him.
Then arrived
Melanie, Countess de Torro.
She had had
erysipelas, so she lost all her hair.
Mother
didn't like her and asked Larry to send her away.
Larry
didn't like her too, but he wanted to study her at close hand.
They
asked Theodore to give them his opinion about it and she end up staying.
Afterwards
Theodore told a story about the King of Greek, when he visited Corfu.
The King
went to see a show about the Battle of Thermopylae and in the fight scene a
real fight began.
The King
end up loving the show because he found it very realistic.
Opinion:
I think
this Chapter is a very interesting one, because of the several things that
happen in it.
Is
interesting to visualize the different kind of friends Larry has, as well as
all situations happening.
This is
one of my favorite chapters of this book and I would recommend to read the hole
chapter as well.
Chapter 9 - The World in a Wall
Characters:
- Gerry
- Larry
- Lugaretzia
- Roger
- Margo
- Leslie
- Mother
- Theodore
- Spiro
- The Belgian consul
At the beginning of the chapter Gerald is exploring the cracks in the wall.
Inside the cracks are many creatures, some of them are predators
others predators.
Gerry finds some black scorpions, they seem very interesting, so he
captures a fat female scorpion with tiny babies clinging to her form and he decides to put her in a matchbox, thinking that nobody will notice them.
When he arrives at the villa he places the matchbox on the mantelpiece and forgets about it during the meal.
When they finish eating, Larry open the box and the scorpion sting him, screaming he throws the box and all scorpions spread on the table. The meal is a mess; all the family is trying to capture them, Roger get scared and bites Lugaretzia.
Mother decides to hire a new french teacher.
The new teacher is the Belgian consul, he is an elegant man
that loves cats.
Gerald does not like french classes.
Thursday Theodore visits the family to see the seaplane from Athens that lands near the villa.
Gerry likes to go around and explore with Theodore that is very intelligent.
They spend the afternoon together and return home with jars, bottles and tubes full of wonderful fauna.
Opinion:
This is a very interesting chapter. I like how Gerald describe describes the animals and the situation, with all the details it is very easy to imagine what happens.
Chapter 10 - The Pageant of Fireflies
Characters (humans):
- Peter
- Margo
- Mother
- Gerry
- Larry
Characters (animals):
- Ulysses
- Roger
- Place: House, small bay
- Time: Summer
Summary:
- Peter is his new tutor. He´s a tall, handsome young man from Oxford. When he arrived, Gerry thought his lessons were “painful to an extreme”, because they only saw about fractions and percentages, geological strata, and nouns, verbs, and adverbs. But then, Peter relaxed. To teach him English, he allowed Gerry to write something everyday. Gerry didn´t want a diary because he already kept one, but decided to write a book. Each chapter of his book ended epically (Mum being attacked by a jaguar, for example)
- Peter and Margo stroll in the garden to look at flowers. It´s the first time Margo seems interested in gardening.
- The Bug House: A room on the first floor to keep Gerry´s animals. Here, there´s a bat Gerry stuffed by himself. It decayed, and had to throw it away. Peter told him he could teach him taxidermy.
- Tried to catch another bat- Failed, but catched a baby owl, which he named Ulysses.
- Roger tried to be Friends with Ulysses, but the owl scratched his muzzle
- Family baths at night. They go to a small bay by using The Sea Cow (a boat). Porpoises rise around Gerry near that bay.
- Moonlight picnic in this bay:
- Theodore was invited
- Mother uses an ugly bathing-costume. Roger can´t recognize her with it
- There are a lot of fireflies and porpoises
Chapter 11 - The Enchanted Archipelago
This chapters begins with the family
deciding to buy a new motor boat which they named the sea cow in which they travelled
instead of using the streets.
They discover some mini islands were Gerry
stats enjoying too much to be since there he is able to collect plenty of
marine wildlife and plants for his pond.
Later on the entire family gets bored of
waiting so long for Gerry to fool around in the island so they stopped going.
Due to this adversity, Gerry had the bright
idea of using his upcoming birthday to get a boat of his own and some other
useful tools and presents along the way. Therefore he wrote specific lists for
each member o0f the family so getting his desired presents would have a better
chance of success.
He asked the most things from mother
because he knew she would most probably buy everything she had on her list.
Then he prepared a list of books for Larry due to his inclination to literature
and art. On the list made for Margo most of the possible presents could be
found on her favorite stores, but in the case of Leslie it was different, this
time he faced Leslie and requested him to build him a boat.
Time after they went on with the party and
each of them decided to invite ten problem, but there was a minor issue because
pretty much every single one of them invited 9 different people each with the
exception of Theodore who received 5 separate invitations.
Later on, they go to the main square to buy
the presents but also to leave Lugaretzia at the doctor so she can go along a
procedure to remove her teeth.
The day of the party arrives and Spiro
brings a previous butler from the royal family to help in the preparations.
Meanwhile Leslie finishes the boat and after a long discussion including the
other members of the family, they baptize the new addition as the Bootle
bumtrincket. During the premiere of the small boat the former tutor at the time
felled to the lake because the boat had some issues and the mastil got broken.
Leslie fixed the boat but during this time
the party went on and all of the guest came, Gerry got two new dogs and pretty
much everyone else got drunk.
Chapter 12 - The Woodcock Winter
Characters:
- Gerry
- Mother
- Leslie
- Larry
- Margo
- Spiro
- Lugaretzia.
Location:
- Daffodil-yellow villa
When:
- Summer/Winter
Animals that appear in the chapter :
- Roger
- Widdle
- Puke.
Mother didin’t like the union between Margo and Peter. She said they were “too fond for one another”, that’s why she broke them up. Margo got really depressed. One day, she recieved a letter from Peter, which said that he would go back and look for her. Winter came and covered the villa with snow. And because it was hunting season, Leslie went to hunt sometimes. He brought one time a wild boar home. Leslie offers Larry to go hunting with him, but as always, Larry complains about the task and pulls his “I know it all” act.
When they came home at night, Larry got really drunk and locked himself in his room. Early in the morning, Margo realized that the villa had caught fire. Everybody was panicking. Larry didn’t really understand why everyone was panicking, he thought that they were over reacting. He was also hangover and Margo noticed it.
Opinion:
Gerrald Durrell’s Writing surprised me more every time I opened the book to read a new chapter. I find his writing very amusing and exellent because of it’s details.
Gerrald Durrell’s Writing surprised me more every time I opened the book to read a new chapter. I find his writing very amusing and exellent because of it’s details.
Conversation 2
Characters:
- Gerry (didn’t speak)
- Mother
- Larry
- Leslie
- Roger
- Margo
- Puke
- Lugaretzia (mentioned)
- Aunt Hermione (mentioned)
- Uncle Stephen (mentioned)
- Aunt Mabel (mentioned)
- Henry (mentioned)
Spring arrived at the island and the family spent most of its time on the veranda, eating, sleeping, reading, or arguing. Here, the whole family opened mails which Spiro brought to them.
The mails mainly consisted of gun catalogues for Leslie, fashion magazines for Margo, animal journals for Jerry, books or letters from authors, artists or musicians for Larry and letters from relatives and seed catalogues for Mother. Occasionally, hey used to share bits of mails with the family. Mother read aunt Hermione’s letter out loud and it said that the doctors didn’t hold out much hope for her. Aunt Hermione also said in her letter that she wanted to go to Corfu and stay with them because the doctors advised a warm climate.
Margo, Leslie and Larry strongly opposed to this idea and gave mother numerous excuses and reasons to not let aunt Hermione visit them, like telling her that they didn’t want her to come because she sang hymns, that they didn’t have room for her or that Mother was sick. In the end, Larry’s idea of moving to a smaller villa was taken and they moved. Like that, they were able to tell her that they had no room without lying.
Opinion:
This chapter is really amusing and shows how different family members feel about aunt Hermione. I think this chapter is very funny because Larry and Leslie were ready to do anything to convince Mother that Aunt Hermione shouldn’t visit them. Gerry didn’t speak in this chapter but was present during the discussion.