Andrew Davidson – The Gargoyle

116. The Gargoyle by Andrew Davidson (2008)

Length: 468 pages

Genre: Literary Fiction; Historical Fiction

Started: 20 September 2008
Finished: 22 September 2008

Redemption comes from
combination of burned man
and schizophrenic woman.

My mad haiku skillz are apparently taking the day off; this one’s terrible. In my defense, though, it’s a lot of book to sum up in 17 syllables! Read on for a slightly more verbose description and review…

Summary: The unnamed narrator of The Gargoyle was a consummate modern cynic, atheist, pornographer, and cocaine addict. However, within the first few pages, he is transformed by a car accident which leaves him stranded in a hospital with disfiguring burns over most of his body. His life is a blur of surgeries, skin grafts, pain, morphine addiction, and thoughts of suicide, until the day that Marianne Engel wanders into the burn ward. She’s a beautiful, compelling, and mentally ill woman, carver of giant stone gargoyles, who claims that she and the narrator were lovers seven hundred years ago in Germany, where she was a nun and he a mercenary. Slowly she begins to tell him the story of their history, as well as stories of love that span time and cross continents. Even though our narrator doesn’t really believe her, he finds himself relying on her presence… which is problematic, because God has informed her that she only has twenty-seven more hearts to give to her carvings, after which she will die.

Review: There has been so much positive buzz surrounding this book that it seems a little bit of overkill to add my voice to the choir, but I will say this: All of that positive buzz is well and truly deserved. It was apparent to me from the first few pages that this was not your average first novel… or even your average novel, period. What grabbed me right from the get-go was how recognizable and relatable everything was. I’m not a coke-addled porn star, nor have I ever been seriously burned, but the cynical, skeptical, sarcastic narrator’s voice felt immediately familiar, and the fact that our narrator has to suspend his disbelief with Marianne makes it easier for the reader to make the similar leap. The writing is powerful and frank, and although occasionally the imagery misses the mark (the “mozzarella commando” line highlighted by the negative review on EW.com is no less silly in context), thankfully these missteps are rare, and in general Davidson uses his language like a scapel – sharp and incisive, and at times brutally so. At the same time, the sections told in Marianne’s voice are believably different, and flow in a different rhythm that mirrors her personality. There’s a point a bit more than halfway where the pacing falters – the characters get into a bit of a holding pattern, and I wasn’t sure how Davidson was going to carry the story to the ending, but even so, I never got the impression of the book dragging; I devoured it regardless.

Personally, I think what made this book so powerful and so moving is that is a book about redemption, and which has a very strong religious (specifically, Christian/Catholic) element, but the narrator’s redemption is not a religious one. There’s a subtle line between a spiritual journey and a religious journey, and that distinction doesn’t always get recognized, especially in novels with such heavy religious themes (apart from Marianne being a nun and hearing the voice of the Christian God, Dante’s Inferno features prominently). In The Gargoyle, however, the narrator’s redemption doesn’t come from “finding God”, or any religious conversion, but from something more subtle and more personal – and therefore ultimately more accessible and more powerful for the reader. 4.5 out of 5 stars.

Recommendation: Beautifully crafted, intense, and insightful, The Gargoyle is going to feel the most familiar to readers of historical fiction, but it’s not so simply categorized, and it’s good enough that it shouldn’t be missed by readers of any genre. I’ll be looking forward to Davidson’s next book, for sure.

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Links: Official book website, Unshelved Book Club comic strip

Other Reviews: In the Shadow of Mt. TBR, The Literate Housewife Review, Devourer of Books, Literarily, Bermudaonion’s Weblog, Shhh I’m Reading…, Book-a-rama
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First Line: Accidents ambush the unexpecting, often violently, just like love.

Vocab:

• p. 8: “The procedure is called an escharotomy, and it gives the swelling tissue the freedom to expand.” – Incision into a burn scab in order to lessen its pull on the surrounding tissue.
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• p. 213: “The arrow had cut through the breast of your habergeon and much of the material around it was burnt away, but I could feel something heavy and rectangular in the inside pocket.” – A short, sleeveless coat of mail.
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• p. 223: “I protested because of the rain, but he simply pulled on his pluviale and came anyway.” – Vestment of the Catholic church – a coat or cape, frequently water-resistant, decorated with religious scenes on the back.
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• p. 311: “We were given whichever fruits were in season – cherries, plums, apples, pears, and sloes – and luxury items like cloves and ginger, mustard and fennel, sugar and almonds.” – Either of two eastern North American plum trees or shrubs, Prunus alleghaniensis, having dark purple fruit, or P. americana, having yellow or red fruit. (I’d heard of sloe gin, but never actually wondered what that meant.)
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Quotes:

p. 133: And, just as the word “Jap” suggests racism, so the word “bitch” suggests misogyny, but the truth is that I dislike most men as much as I dislike most women. If anything, I am an equal opportunity misanthropist. Or, rather, I was. I believe that I have changed since the day I attacked Sayuri. While I’m not claiming that I now feel great love for all people, I can state with some confidence that I hate fewer people than I used to. This may seem like a weak claim to personal growth, but sometimes these things should be judged by distance traveled rather than by current position.

I like the phrase “equal-opportunity misanthropist”. (Hi John!)

p. 319: There is no logical reason to believe in God. There are emotional reasons, certainly, but I cannot have faith that nothing is something simply because it would be reassuring. I can no more believe in God than I can believe an invisible monkey lives in my ass; however, I would believe in both if they could be scientifically proven. This is the crux of the problem for atheists: It is impossible to prove the nonexistence of a thing, and yet theists tend to put the onus on us to prove just that. “An absence of proof is not proof of absence,” they say smugly. Well, true enough. But all it would take is one giant flaming crucifix in the sky, NO MONKEY IN YOUR ASS? seen by everyone in the world at the same time, WHAT ABOUT A SNAKE IN YOUR SPINE? to convince me that God does exist.

Defense of atheism is rare in literature (at least in the literature I find myself reading), particularly in a novel with such a heavy grounding in religion. Very interesting.