The Overloaded Ark

Most people were only familiar with Lawrence Durrell until BBC aired The Durrells in Corfu. With that film version of the family, young Gerry became a popular character, and the real life Gerald's writings and nature conservancy work finally got the attention it deserves. In this book, Gerald goes to Cameroon to collect up a variety of wildlife specimens for study. The shenanigans that ensue are reminiscent of the antics from the BBC series, animals acting true to their nature and Gerald hanging on for dear life. It was a wonderful, quick read that had me smiling and laughing throughout. Gerald's description of the specimens he collects, their behavior, and the surrounding landscape is always lyrical and captivating, just scientific show more enough to satisfy curiosity.

5 bones!!!!!
Highly recommended. show less

What a blend of reactions I have to this little book. I love Durrell, always have. But it is hard to read the way animals were then collected for zoos. The young Durrell cared lots for his creatures, but he was willing to shoot guns inside caves to scare bats into reach for capture. Humour, rhapsodic moments in the writing, and an ark full of insight are provided here. Buckle your seatbelt, sensitive modern reader.

Durrell's voice is winsome, I think, and a little wry, which to my ear dates more slowly than some other, more proper and ponderous nature writers. I've seen other reviewers complaining about the use of pidgin and the colonial attitude evinced by the author, but it strikes me as perfectly accurate to the early 1950s. There are also parts about the trapping, keeping, and selling animals I find unsavoury but true to the times. On the whole, though, his sheer love of wildlife wins the day for me, and Durrell expostulating with dilatory young boys holding dead birds (which they insist are perfectly healthy) is laugh-out-loud funny even after all this time.

Naturalist and author Gerald Durrell writes in an open, friendly manner while still managing to impart a lot of information and his first book, The Overloaded Ark, is a fine example of the style and humor that were to become his trademarks in all his later works. This is the story of his first animal collecting expedition as he travels to British Cameroon in 1947 with ornithologist John Yealland. Their primary goal was in the collecting of birds, reptiles and small mammals that were shipped back to various zoos in Britain.

Although well able to see the funny side of his interactions with both the natives as well as the animals that he came into contact with, I couldn’t help but miss the laugh-out-loud humor that is to be found in his show more Corfu Trilogy. The difference is his exuberance and delight in poking fun at his family members that was such a big part of the trilogy.

The Overloaded Ark is a delightful, yet somewhat dated read. What does remain fresh is Durrell’s obvious love of nature and his winsome manner in passing these stories on to his readers. show less

This book is about his first wildlife collecting trip- to Cameroon in Central Africa- with a colleague John Yealland, who specialized in birds.... Just as interesting as his descriptions of tracking and catching the wildlife are his accounts of travel into remote areas, encounters with native people, working to build cages, feed and tend to the creatures, some of which had never been kept in captivity before.... So many curious creatures Durrell found- the Calabar ground python whose head looks like its tail, the giant otter shrew (the internet tells me it is not a real shrew but a tenrec), the beautiful gaboon viper whose back is marked with a row of perfect rectangles, the rare and coveted angwantibo- a lemur not to be confused with show more the potto, the brush tailed porcupine which led him to a nasty encounter in a cave. Durrell crawled into a lot of caves in this book. In particular looking for bats but he founds lots of other wildlife in the dark. Also tromped around the thick forest after nightfall to catch nocturnal animals, and followed packs of dogs in the hope of catching a serval- he saw one close at hand but never caught one. The dogs several times tracked down giant monitor lizards instead. There are lots of monkeys mentioned, beautiful birds of many sorts, chameleons, great snakes and diminutive antelope. Last of all a chimpanzee named Chumley. I'm sure I've read about Chumley in one of his other books, probably it was Encounter with Animals? I was sad to read of his end in this one...

There's so much more. Description of the landscape and surroundings are very detailed. The book closes with a short account of his trip home on board ship with the collection. He took a lot of care over their health and handling, and only had a few losses. With relief at the end of the journey he finally saw the animals loaded onto zoo vans, headed for their new homes. It's nice there is a little index in the back listing all the species mentioned in the text. The ink illustrations by Sabine Bauer are lovely.

more at the Dogear Diary show less

Durrell and friend go on collecting trip to British Cameroons and their interactions with the tribal peoples and the animals they collect form the bulk of the book. Rereading it after a space of maybe twenty years one is struck by the tremendous waste of animal life involved in the expedition.

Where da beef? In this book, that's where: Gerald Durrell spent most of his life collecting interesting animal specimens and Durrell is an interesting human specimen himself. His well chronicled life (mostly chronicled by Durrell) begins with the hilarious, and very succesfull, "My family and Other Animals". It is ably followed up with the equally hilarious "Birds, Beasts and Relatives". Both books are full of tales from the Durrell family's years on the Greek Island of Corfu, pre WWII. Little Gerry dives right into the flora and fauna of the island, including its human fauna. I own very few nonfiction books with such a plethora of memorable characters. Now, of course, we get to the volume in question. It is plenty good, and worth show more multiple readings over years, as is "A Zoo In My Luggage" and several other books detailing trips to collect animals. A word of warning, don't go nuts and buy all the zillion Durrell titles. Some of them are out of print for a reason and were most likely dashed off by Durrell to finance a collecting trip or two. If you read a sampling of Amazon.com reviews you will sniff these out and avoid wasting you hard earned lucre. And please, get "My Familiy and Other Animals and "Birds, Beasts and Relatives" right now, if you dont have them already. show less