| Title | : | Le Aye-Aye et Moi |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 2228895822 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9782228895828 |
| Language | : | French |
| Format Type | : | Paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 237 |
| Publication | : | First published January 1, 1992 |
Le Aye-Aye et Moi Reviews
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(3.5) Originally published in 1992, this was Durrell’s last book, a record of his final animal collecting expedition and ongoing conservation efforts in Madagascar. It has his usual warm, funny writing about both people and animals. I’ve seen aye-ayes in his zoo at Jersey and can attest to how strange but endearing these highly rare creatures are. I love his account of his first meeting with one: it bit his walking stick, combed his beard, and finally stuck its long E.T. finger in his ear! “To allow such an astonishing and complex creature to become extinct was as unthinkable as burning a Rembrandt, turning the Sistine Chapel into a disco, or pulling down the Acropolis to make way for a Hilton.”
Durrell seems a touch patronizing about the Malagasy, but his frustration with the futility of on-paper wildlife regulations is understandable. Though the aye-aye and other species were protected, the locals either didn’t know or didn’t care and continued to kill them for food or because they were eating their coconuts. He was struggling significantly with his health by the time of this trip, and mentions how tough the potholed roads were on his hips, but mostly turns his physical travails to humorous effect, like his intestinal issues on first arrival.
Favorite passages:
“Over the years I have found that certain hotels object to your keeping a baby warthog in your room, or fuss because you put snakes in the bath. It is a short-sighted policy which will not bring them custom, in my considered opinion. One is reduced to the vulgar level of a smuggler, having, by subterfuge, to insert a creature into one’s room without making the management privy to one’s designs. It is a hazardous business. For example, a charming South American maid once narrowly missed having a cardiac arrest when she discovered that I was sharing my bed not with my wife or mistress (which would have been acceptable) but with a baby Giant anteater.”
“Malagasy is a fine, rackity-clackity, ringing language which sounds not unlike someone carelessly emptying a barrel of glass marbles down a stone staircase.” -
that is all. -
3.5 stars
"I cannot cope with tummy trouble and a recalcitrant lemur at the same time!"
I know just what you mean, Gerry. I have that problem regularly.
It shouldn't surprise any of us that the little Gerry Durrell we met in
My Family and Other Animals grew up to be the Gerry Durrell who went to Madagascar in his sixties, artificial hips and all, to collect animals in danger of extinction.
The aye-aye is a lemur with extremely long fingers and teeth so sharp they can tear off the top of a coconut in two or three bites. Their teeth don't stop growing, so they need to chomp on things the way beavers do. I didn't know prior to reading this book that lemurs are only found in Madagascar and some neighboring islands. Apparently pretty much all of the animals on Madagascar are unique to the place, due to its geographic isolation.
THE AYE-AYE
THE SIFAKA These guys like to do a little sideways dancing. Check it out:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_7wk...
THE SPORTIVE LEMUR (These guys had to have been the prototype for Gollum.)
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Gerald Durrell travels to Madagascar with the intent to catch some creatures for conservation. That is, breeding program, with the goal of releasing endangered species back to the wild. Of course, provided that there is any habitat left. I fear that many exotic species will have their final years of existence in zoological gardens only.
Gerald is particularly interested in catching six specimens of the elusive aye-aye. This little primate is considered bad luck locally and is killed if caught and sometimes eaten. We get to join the bumpy ride across roads that bear little resemblance to anything a car can drive on. He is funny, in places. In other places, his views seem outdated. I particularly found his description of women irksome. However, the geese mistaking his manhood for a tasty morsel, was definitely a hilarious episode. Catching wild animals is perilous, even when the animal in itself is unlikely to cause any harm.
Edit: so I've checked Wikipedia and Gerald actually was part of an initiative for land conservation. "His health deteriorated rapidly after the 1990 Madagascar trip", that is, the trip he wrote about in this book. He died when he was just 70 years old, in 1995. -
I still can’t really get my head around the fact that I am going to Madagascar in about 5 weeks, a trip arranged by my in-laws. I’m trying to make it feel real the best way I know how—reading. This book recounts Gerald Durrell’s 1990 expedition to the island nation, collecting specimens of rare and endangered animals to bring back to his zoo in England for captive breeding programs. This style of conservation feels a little dated, and Durrell’s prissy-but-game pith-hatted colonial adventurer persona gets a little tiresome at times—he’s not as funny as he thinks he is—but the anecdotes that drive the book are pretty interesting. Durrell and his intrepid team brave crumbling bridges, disintegrating roads, and vicious attack ducks to rescue gentle lemurs, tortoises, snakes, giant jumping rats that would give the Dread Pirate Roberts pause, and of course the titular aye-aye. Durrell’s focus is on the animals, but he does spend some time on the Malagasy people and culture as well, if through a somewhat patronizing lens.
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This book was a surprise and delight! It was part travelogue and part a book about animals and conservation. I loved both aspects. Gerald Durrell, his wife Lee, and their crew head to Madagascar to find the elusive and endangered Aye Aye to they can begin a breeding program and bring it back from extinction.
Madagascar is one of those places that has species of plants and animals that live nowhere but there. The book gives interesting stories about these animals, and also about the people living near them and how the humans impact the wildlife (knowingly or unknowingly.)
I'm a member of the San Diego Zoo and there are two Aye Aye's there ... Unfortunately, I never get to see them because they are nocturnal. However, they have just opened a new(ish) section called Africa Rocks that has a bunch of other lemurs from Madagascar and they are awesome.
However you feel about Zoos they do a lot of good work trying to bring these animals back from the brink. The Durrell's are also responsible for restoring a Kestral from Mauritius of which there were only 4 left.
So if exotic travel, mild humor, endangered species and conservation are of interest, this is a great book. -
Me encantó, pensé que iba a ser algo aburrido por ser una especie de diario de viaje, pero es super divertido y el autor describe la situación de una forma muy muy entretenida.
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The Aye-Aye and I, first published in 1992, is Gerald Durrell's account of his last major animal-collecting expedition, a trip to Madagascar in 1990. This is a Durrell different in some ways from the Durrell of earlier books. If you've read his adventures in The Bafut Beagles, The Drunken Forest, The Whispering Land and so on, you're probably familiar with a Gerry who shins up trees, goes on long treks searching for elusive animals, and has some of the most bizarre (and hair-raising) experiences one could hope - or not hope - for. This is an older Durrell (he was to die just 5 years later, in 1995), his hips ruined by arthritis and replaced with steel, his adventures confined to letting others do much of the climbing and hunting and venturing into the unknown.
Yet, this is a Durrell who is, despite his frailties, still Durrell, with a brilliant sense of humour and an unparalleled enthusiasm and love for animals (including the human variety). The Aye-Aye and I is a fine example of the quintessential Durrell book: brimming with delightful descriptions of everything from the inappropriately named 'gentle lemurs', to the local village school children and their reactions to a first-time viewing of a TV; from an account of a rather painful encounter - while bathing on a thunder box - with a trio of ducks, to the many people, local Malagasy and vazaha (foreigners) who race and gallop, flit and tread through this book.
An absolute delight, and highly recommended for any Durrell fan. -
This book is like if James Herriot was in Madagascar rather than the British countryside. It is very interesting from a conservation point of view, lots of adventures with animals. It is also a real curiosity because despite being written in the 90's it feels like it could have been written 100 years ago. It is rollicking in that way that travel writing rarely is anymore and Durrell clearly cares deeply about his mission.
You can let this book sweep you away with its charms (it is quite charming and funny) but at some point it will inevitably sour. Durrell writes about the Malagasy people without even a hint of concern about the fact that he is from a white country that colonized and enslaved people just like the Malagasy for hundreds of years, and that has portrayed the people of the African continent as godless savages for even longer. It would have taken just a little bit of thought to avoid these pitfalls. Durrell is mostly respectful and delighted by the people he encounters, but when he goes wrong it can go awfully wrong. Much of his frustration, as a conservationist, is directed more towards the governments that know better but don't care, rather than the people themselves, he is close but he is not quite there.
The audio reader (it has just been recorded as an audiobook for the first time) is perfectly suited to the material. -
The Aye-Aye and I When I first picked this book up in the library I thought that it was a fiction book. It wasn't until I got home that I realised it was a sort of travel book come conservation story. The book follows Gerald Durrell, his wife and team from the Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust. The book combines facts about Madagascar, a country which is under threat from slash and burn agriculture destroying animals habitat. The book follows the team as they search for a number of different animals. This was a really good book, well written with good anecdotes from the expeditions.
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A book with an unfortunate-looking cover design that I chose at random from my housemate's bookshelf, not expecting much. Turns out that this book-about a conservationist's adventures in Madagascar procuring some endangered species to sustain their population-is an absolutely delightful, insightful and hilarious read.
As I read along, I realised that Durrell is a respected author who wrote the classic 'My Family and Other Animals', which I haven't read yet but definitely will, along with all his other books now that I've gotten a taste of his way with words.
Amidst the madcap shenanigans there's a strong environmental message. Durrell died in 1995 and was way ahead of his time when it came to environmentalism. He understood that conservation is done best when it starts in the home country of a specific animal and he set about setting up sanctuaries worldwide and training local people to run them. It was pretty depressing how ravaged Madagascar already was when this book was published almost 30 years ago, so I hope there has been some positive progress since then. -
The last book Durrell published during his life about his trips to collect strange animals and save them from extinction. Animalists who complain about zoos should read books like these before they show their ignorance.
In this book I did not like Durrell's insistence on informing us in detail about his medical problems during the trip, specially those which had to do with relieving his vowels. -
Another enjoyable installment from Gerald Durrell’s zoo animal gathering.
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My experience with this book, unfortunately, was tainted by the arduous day I had.
After listening to four Gerald Durrell's books in a row, I can't help but marvel over the extraordinary life he's had. -
Empecé a leerlo sin conocer nada sobre el autor ni la temática y me sorprendió gratamente. El sentido del humor y la narrativa hacen que te introduzcas en un mundo desconocido, como es la zoología, de una forma sencilla, clara y amena.
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1.5/2
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Libro interessante e a tratti spassoso. È però - rispetto agli altri libri di Durrell che ho letto - molto più specifico: è un misto tra un saggio e un diario di viaggio. Mi è venuta ovviamente voglia di andare in Madagascar a farmi ispezionare un orecchio da un Aye Aye, simpatico e misterioso lemure dal dito oblungo, la cui vita è da salvaguardare.
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I came to this book ignorant to the stellar reputation of author Gerald Durrell and his equally stellar rescue efforts for endangered species across the world. All I cared about was learning more about the elusive and, according to some, mystical lemuroid known as the Aye Aye. The Creature with the Magic Finger.
In this, the late Gerald Durrell chronicled his departure from Jersey in order to investigate Madagascar for not only the mythical Aye Aye, but also mouse lemurs of Lac Alaotra, the Fosa, golden brown river snakes and flat tailed tortoises. The problem I had with the book that knocked the book down to three wasn't an issue with the author's penchant for verbose language that sometimes veers into the hazardous territory of becoming bloviating. He was English, after all, and at least he was fortunate enough to suffer a vast vocabulary. No, my only significant trial with the book was waiting for the damned Aye Aye to show up, not at all unlike Gerald and his traveling band of biologists, zoologists and hunters.
Want to hazard a guess as to how long it takes for the Aye Aye to finally take center stage? If you guessed one hundred and thirty pages, you'd be correct. This is a problem considering the book, at least in paperback, is a mere one hundred and sixty seven pages. So, it's one of those tales that's more about the journey than the destination. I did feel that Durrell could have truncated some of his experiences in the villages and areas of Antanambaobe and Tamatave in order to establish a clearer path to the animal whose namesake graces the front cover.
Still, this is not a story for the express sake of telling a story. There is much wisdom in these pages that were meant as a call to arms to do something about the beautiful animals being ravaged and disappearing due to deforestation and illegal poaching. Durrell made animals his life's work. He was lucky enough to be able to write about that work. Bless him wherever the next journey carried him. -
Gerald Durrell writes as if he is telling anecdotes while showing you pictures from his trip. It is very entertaining for a short time, but not a style I could stay with for long. (I read a chapter or two at a time with long breaks or other books between them.)
He is passionate about his work and the need for captive breeding schemes as a last resort for wildlife on the very brink of extinction. He is resolutely upbeat, but you could feel that he must have been close to despair at times.
The book is very informative about Madagascar and its endemic wildlife and habitats. It gets four or five stars for both content and good intentions. I wish I liked it more than I did. -
This could be one of the sadder Gerald Durrell book as he describes the plight of the Madagascan environment. It was also when his age catches up with him so it takes a different tone from his previous writings. As usual, under his pen animals become larger than life and you wish you can meet those unique lemurs, fosas, silfakas for yourself. wonderful book. on my way to collect the rest of his stuff :D
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Durrell's swansong is good: His last animal collecting expedition, which took place in Madagascar. This time Durrell is more concerned about his health, which was quite bad at the time but still manages to create funny situations - the bowel attack in the middle of a village is the best bit. Obviously there are the descriptions of animals and they verge on the beautiful, especially the Aye-Aye.
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Not a bad little book, demonstrates the lengths conservationists go too to protect endangered species but also how flimsy and corruptible the laws are around protecting them. Although titled the Aye-aye and I only the end is really anything to do with them. Still worth a read to get the idea of how fragile Madagascar and its eco system are and how more needs to be done to protect this creatures.
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I'd completely forgotten what a joyous writer Gerald Durrell was - knowledgable, funny, descriptive. I think this may be the last book he wrote which is very sad as it's excellent and makes me want to reread the books of his that I read years ago.
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Lemurs in Madagascar
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Durrell never disappoints. This was a delight, like everything of his that I've read. A bonus was learning the happy after-story from his GOLDEN BATS AND PINK PIGEONS. Not to be missed.
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"In the gloom it came along the branches towards me -- its round, hypnotic eyes blazing; its spoon-like ears turning to and fro independently like radar dishes; its white whiskers touching and moving like sensors; the thin, attenuated fingers on its black hands tapping delicately on the branches as it moved along, like those of a pianist playing a complicated piece by Chopin."
"Thus does Gerald Durrell -- scientist, conservationist, and humorist par excellence -- describe his first encounter with the legendary Aye-aye, the beast with the magic finger that still lurks, though in fast dwindling numbers, in the forests of Madagascar.
"Once thought to be extinct, the Aye-aye, one of the world's strangest creatures, is now found only in small, isolated colonies. Durrell's mission to Madagascar was to try and capture some, bring them back to his world-famous zoo on the island of Jersey, and breed them. Although on a serious scientific expedition, Gerald Durrell has a unique vision and inimitable sense of humor that make his observations and comments wonderously funny no matter how difficult or trying the circumstances. Nothing escapes his sharp eye, whether he is describing the great zoma market, the village dances, the dangerous bridges and river crossings, the strange foods and stranger magic, or the vagaries of local officialdom.
"As in all of Durrell's best writings, it is the animals who are the stars; here, in addition to the Aye-aye itself, the reader will delight in the author's depiction of the cat-like Fosa, the Flat-tailed tortoise, the Gentle lemurs of Lake Alatra, and the Malagasy chameleon (which, according to Durrell, 'looks as if he gets his clothes from a colour-blind Parisian designer.')
" 'It is impossible,' noted the San Francisco Chronicle, 'for Gerald Durrell to write anything that is less than exuberant, eccentric, and amusing.' In his account of this wildlife 'rescue mission.' Durrell is, very simply, at his superb best."
~~front & back flaps
An interesting book, and certainly the descriptions of Madagascar and the Malagasy people are fascinating. But I didn't feel that this was one of his better books -- a bit more pedestrian, a bit less humorous (although the tales of the ducky-wuckies are nothing short of hilarious.) -
Letto grazie al gruppo Libri dal mondo.
Non avevo mai letto niente di
Gerald Durrell quindi questo libro è stata una duplice scoperta perché mi ha permesso di conoscere un po' meglio il Madagascar e i suoi abitanti (sia umani che non) ma anche scoprire il suo operato a favore degli animali in via d'estinzione.
Ho adorato il suo stile molto autoironico e la sua capacità di descrivere le meraviglie di questi luoghi con occhio attento e mente aperta tipici di chi viaggia per fare nuovi incontri e non per confermare i propri pregiudizi.
Conclusa la lettura si ha voglia di leggere altro di Gerry.
Read thanks to the group Libri dal mondo.
This is the first book I read by
Gerald Durrell and it has been a double discovery because it allowed me to learn lots of things about Madagascar and its inhabitants (both humans and animals) but also to find out his work to preserve endangered animals.
I loved his style, his self-mockery and his ability to describe the magnificence of these places with accurate eye and open mind typical of people that travel to bump into new things and not to confirm their prejudices.
When the book is over, you want to read something else by Gerry. -
"The Aye-Aye and I" would have received a high rating 30 years ago, when it came out. There's nothing really wrong with it except it's very dated.
There are so many wonderful books out now, that do the same thing (meaning talking about saving endangered species), but much better. Today we're used to tons of gorgeous color photos. The photos in this book are few, and black & white, and not exciting. The storyline seems to be mostly about the difficulties of traveling in a Third World country, with lots of bureaucratic screw-ups and tropical diseases making everybody miserable. Also Durrell and crew don't seem to be as "hands-on" as contemporary naturalists, with local people doing almost everything for them, but maybe that's because they spent so much time being stuck, lost or sick.
I feel guilty giving this book such a low rating, but compared to more recent books by naturalists, this book is terribly disappointing. -
Madagasgar is home to so many animals found no where else. As the human population increases, its pressure on the environment increases even when the changes hurt the people as a result.
Durrell saw zoos as a last resort for breeding endangered species hoping they could again be released into the wild. He travels to Madagasgar to collect several species to establish breeding colonies in his zoo at Jersey. The Aye-aye, a kind of lemur, is one of them.
As in many of his books about collecting trips, this one is filled with local color. He writes about the people, the animals, the landscape and more with a dash of humor. Another aspect of this trip is his advancing age leaving him unable to do many of the things he used to do and adding some reflections on the effects of growing older.
The book is easy reading, fun reading, interesting reading.
