Gef The Mongoose Quotes

The mongoose took a while to warm to the family, at least enough that he did not as often threaten their life and livestock.

The only reason mongooses don’t speak regularly is that they are shy.

Underneath all their deserved frustration with the mongoose is often the sort of love one might have for the black sheep of one’s family, a kind of He may be obnoxious, but he is ours.

Squirrels are not indigenous to the Isle of Man, though quibbling about native species does seem bold when dealing with the reality of a talking mongoose.

Now, people would no doubt pay richly for the chance to spend the night at a remote home potentially occupied by a verbal varmint, but this attitude was a half-century away from the Irvings’ occupancy.

Gef’s story, which would have been nonsense even if it had not come from the mouth of a talking mongoose, was that he was born in New Delhi on June 7th, 1852. This meant he was at least eighty when he met the Irvings. On average, mongooses live twenty years, though this is the lifespan of a nonverbal mongoose. No one has yet established the longevity of one given the power of speech, but we may assume it is at least ninety.

Physiologically, Gef was not a mongoose. He did not possess the almost canine forepaws of his supposed species but tiny articulated, three-fingered (and a thumb) appendages that could manipulate items and, as occasion demanded, squeeze the life out of the rabbits he would gift.

Gef had no message for the world other than tweaking the nose of believers and doubters alike and demanding to be left alone with his family. Aside from potentially existing at all, Gef performed no miracle.

Gef became the receptacle of all Irving’s misspent wants and frustrations, a focal point for the things the family could not say aloud. He could have Jim’s broader knowledge, Voirrey’s adolescence, and Margaret’s witchery. He could be the son from whom Jim had become estranged, the friend Voirrey did not find in Peel, the desirous confidante that Margaret could not find in her husband.

A talking mongoose, one must admit, is a more captivating figure than the typical Charlie McCarthy knockoff.

One can point to countless Sasquatches and their morphological kin, ghosts by the bushel, and aliens by the mothership load, but Gef existed just this once.