I just completed Gerald Durrell’s delightful memoir, My Family and Other Animals, from which I will share an excerpt. The setting is Corfu in the 1930s, at a private villa, several hours into a large house party involving excessive food and drink. Dodo is a female dog in estrus who sneaked out of confinement into the garden, only to be confronted by a pack of eager suitors.

Dodo galloped into the crowded drawing-room, screaming for help, and hot on her heels came the panting, snarling, barging wave of dogs. [The three resident male dogs…] were horrified by the scene. If anyone was going to seduce Dodo, they felt, it was going to be one of them, not some scrawny village pariah. They hurled themselves with gusto upon Dodo’s pursuers, and in a moment the room was a mass of fighting, snarling dogs and leaping hysterical guests trying to avoid being bitten. 

Most of the people in the room try to climb onto the furniture. Some lob sofa cushions at the dogs, with the result that clouds of feathers now drift over the melee. Others spray soda siphons at the dogs, or empty glasses of wine onto them. Finally, one man retrieves a significantly-sized water container from the kitchen and raises it over his head.

The guests fled in all directions, but they were not quick enough. The polished, glittering mass of water curved through the air and hit the floor, to burst up again and then curve and break like a tidal wave over the room. It had the most disastrous results as far as the nearest guests were concerned, but it had the most startling and instantaneous effect on the dogs. Frightened by the boom and swish of water, they let go of each other and fled out into the night, leaving behind them a scene of carnage that was breathtaking. The room looked like a hen-roost that had been hit by a cyclone; our friends milled about, damp and feather-encrusted; feathers had settled on the lamps and the acrid smell of burning filled the room. 

Reading this made me wonder if I would be a better writer with this sort of material, though almost immediately I decided I am happier without four wet dogs and a roomful of burning feathers to deal with. Then it hit me: maybe the author made this up. Although this memoir is classified under Zoology in the library, because these personal vignettes are interspersed with observations from nature, I already know the author took some liberties. For example, his most famous sibling, Lawrence Durrell, is depicted as unmarried and living with the family at this time, whereas in fact he was married and living in a separate location in Corfu.

One conclusion: Writing–and probably a lot of other portions of life–can be elevated by imagination. One question: Why doesn’t this clear example of fiction masquerading as fact annoy me as the alternative facts in the news do?

• Perhaps because it reads as a story told by a friend, and why should a great story have to be true? Stories teach, amuse, and engage us by appealing to universal truths, not specific ones. At the end of this particular story, the hostess calmly asks her sons to distribute towels and urges the guests onto the veranda for more food and drink, with Dodo firmly tucked under her arm. I admire her fortitude, though doubt I could emulate it.
• Partly because it is someone’s memory, and memory is a tenuous thing. I don’t know if any of my readers still believe the model of memory as a digital recording device, but numerous studies have debunked that. To review a memory is to change it; prompts close to the formation of a traumatic memory change it; emotions, experiences, disease, and aging change it.
• Mostly because this story doesn’t enrich anyone or harm anyone. If you aren’t sure what I mean, just use your imagination.