Short Story

‘A Gorilla in the Guest Room’ written by Gerald Durrell in 1962 is about the relation between a gorilla named N’pongo and his caretaker Mr. Durrell.

Only one problem is, he doesn’t have that much money on him at the moment. His wife tells him he was mad to accept the proposal in the first place since he doesn’t have money and that gorilla may turn out to be a chimpanzee. But Mr. Durrell tells her that he’ll ask all the rich men to contribute for this to which his wife laughs saying no one will pay for it. Mr. Durrell rings one of his colleagues and asks him to send him a list of the richest men of that island. In about 30 minutes that colleague gives him a list.

He rings up the first person who happens to accept the proposal and agrees to pay for a small portion. By lunchtime, he has collected two hundred pounds. The next person on the list is Major Domo. The name isn’t familiar to him so he doesn’t know what his reaction would be. But he’s shocked when the man agrees to pay thousand pounds for the gorilla.The main topic is of course their relationship but it has other parts as well; the way he has described the relationship of Nandy and N’pongo will make you roll on the floor laughing. It’s just adorable. At times he has also shown the kind of harsh treatment animals have to go through at human hands through Nandy’s character.