The Gargoyle (Hardcover)

by Andrew Davidson (Author)
Key Phrases: rebellious angels, aming arrow, confi rmed, Marianne Engel, Mother Christina, Father Sunder (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review
Product Description
An extraordinary debut novel of love that survives the fires of hell and transcends the boundaries of time.

The narrator of The Gargoyle is a very contemporary cynic, physically beautiful and sexually adept, who dwells in the moral vacuum that is modern life. As the book opens, he is driving along a dark road when he is distracted by what seems to be a flight of arrows. He crashes into a ravine and suffers horrible burns over much of his body. As he recovers in a burn ward, undergoing the tortures of the damned, he awaits the day when he can leave the hospital and commit carefully planned suicide—for he is now a monster in appearance as well as in soul.

A beautiful and compelling, but clearly unhinged, sculptress of gargoyles by the name of Marianne Engel appears at the foot of his bed and insists that they were once lovers in medieval Germany. In her telling, he was a badly injured mercenary and she was a nun and scribe in the famed monastery of Engelthal who nursed him back to health. As she spins their tale in Scheherazade fashion and relates equally mesmerizing stories of deathless love in Japan, Iceland, Italy, and England, he finds himself drawn back to life—and, finally, in love. He is released into Marianne's care and takes up residence in her huge stone house. But all is not well. For one thing, the pull of his past sins becomes ever more powerful as the morphine he is prescribed becomes ever more addictive. For another, Marianne receives word from God that she has only twenty-seven sculptures left to complete—and her time on earth will be finished.

Already an international literary sensation, The Gargoyle is an Inferno for our time. It will have you believing in the impossible.

Andrew Davidson Talks About Becoming a Writer
Some of what follows is true.

When I was about seven, I had a turtle named Stripe. I decided, because I liked my turtle and Jacques Cousteau, that I wanted to be a marine biologist. This ambition lasted until I was ten years old, when I spent a year gazing into the abyss, hoping that the abyss would not gaze back at me. At eleven, I longed for a master to teach me the secrets of the ninja, but the teacher did not appear; this probably means that as a student I was not ready. As I entered my teens, I set my heart upon becoming a professional hockey player. On weekend nights, the final game at the local arena ended around 10 p.m. but the icemaker was unable to leave the building until about midnight, as he had to clean the dressing rooms and do maintenance. I bribed him with presents of Aqua Velva aftershave to let me play alone on the rink until he headed home. Despite my devotion, I never developed the skills to make it off the small-town rink and into the big leagues. My dream shattered, at sixteen I started to spend more time writing. I began by changing the lyrics to Doors songs. I rewrote "Break On Through" so that it became "Live to Die": "Soldier in the forest / dodging bullets thick / only took one / to make him cry / All of us just live to die." Clearly, writing was my future.

I soon realized that, since I still had no authorial voice of my own, I should at least imitate better poets than Jim Morrison. Soon I was word-raping Leonard Cohen, e.e. cummings, Sylvia Plath, William Blake, and John Milton. After writing much abusively derivative poetry, I moved onto stage plays written in a mockery of the style of Tennessee Williams, which also didn’t work out so well. Next, I tried to put baby in a corner, until it was explained to me that nobody puts baby in a corner. Following this, I produced short stories that would have been much better if they were much shorter. Then, screenplays that even Alan Smithee wouldn’t direct.

Somewhere along the way, I managed to get a degree in English Literature; this was strange, as I thought I was studying cardiology. Undaunted, off to Vancouver Film School I went, but naturally not to study film. Instead, I took the new media course, because there was this thing called the internet that was just taking off. I also spent a fair amount of time using digital editing software for video and audio. An example project: I slowed down the final movement to Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony, looped it backwards, put in a heavy drumbeat, and end up with a funeral dirge. "Ode to Joy"? I think not. "Ode to Bleakness" is more like it; I was very deep, and showed it by destroying joy.

After this course finished, I had tens of thousands of dollars of student debt, and could no longer avoid getting a job. I soon discovered, in no uncertain terms, that work is no fun. I stuck it out for as long as I could, which was way less than a lifetime. As my thirtieth birthday approached, I became incredibly aware that I had never lived abroad, so I moved to Japan.

I had no idea if I would like Japan, but I vowed to stick it out for a year. I did, and then another year, and another, and another, and another. In the beginning, I worked as a kind of substitute teacher of English, covering stints in classrooms that needed a temporary instructor. I lived in fifteen different cities during my first two years, traveling from the northern island of Hokkaido all the way down to the southern island of Okinawa. It was a great introduction to the country, but eventually the constant relocation became too much. I got a job in a Tokyo office, writing English lessons for Japanese learners on the internet. I lived in the big city for three years, and loved it: hooray for sushi, hooray for sumo, and hooray for cartoon mascots.

While in Japan, I entertained myself by writing and, having already mangled poetry, short stories, stage plays and screenplays, I thought it was time to give a novel a shot. A strange thing happened: I found that I don’t write like other people when it comes to novels—or at least, none of which I know. It’s true that I’ve read comparisons of my novel to a number of other books—The Name of the Rose, The English Patient, The Shadow of the Wind—but I haven’t read any of them. (To my great shame, really, and I suppose I should. Since they are my supposed influences, I should become familiar with them. I’ll appear more intelligent in interviews.)

I liked writing The Gargoyle, and I think I’ll write another novel. If I can, I’ll make up new characters and a new plot. That’s my plan.



From Publishers Weekly
Starred Review. At the start of Davidson's powerful debut, the unnamed narrator, a coke-addled pornographer, drives his car off a mountain road in a part of the country that's never specified. During his painful recovery from horrific burns suffered in the crash, the narrator plots to end his life after his release from the hospital. When a schizophrenic fellow patient, Marianne Engel, begins to visit him and describe her memories of their love affair in medieval Germany, the narrator is at first skeptical, but grows less so. Eventually, he abandons his elaborate suicide plan and envisions a life with Engel, a sculptress specializing in gargoyles. Davidson, in addition to making his flawed protagonist fully sympathetic, blends convincing historical detail with deeply felt emotion in both Engel's recollections of her past life with the narrator and her moving accounts of tragic love. Once launched into this intense tale of unconventional romance, few readers will want to put it down. (Aug.)
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Product Details

• Hardcover: 480 pages
• Publisher: Doubleday; First Edition edition (August 5, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0385524943
• ISBN-13: 978-0385524940
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 6.6 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars See all reviews (206 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #34,105 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

109 of 126 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Grotesque and lovely, July 24, 2008

By	Ashley Megan "amazonfox" (Vernon, CT United States) - See all my reviews

(What's this?)

Read this book. Read it. Just shut up and read it, already. Are you reading it? Why not? I told you to read it!

"But it's yucky!" you complain. "The narrator gets all burned and gross, and he's mean, and what's up with the crazy lady?"

All right, yes, I will grant you, the first few chapters are incredibly difficult to get through, particularly if you have a delicate stomach. The unnamed narrator does, indeed, get in a horrific car crash where he is terribly, almost fatally, burnt. What follows is a stomach-turningly graphic depiction of what goes on in a burn ward. Stephen King would probably turn green at some of these scenes. You will be tempted to set "The Gargoyle" down and walk away. But I'm begging you to come back. Your suffering will be rewarded.

This is what Marianne claims, as she enters the narrator's life in the gown of a psychiatric patient at the hospital. She is jealous of his pain, as she believes that it means God has not forgotten him. Marianne is 700 years old, born in the year 1300 and raised in a convent. She is overjoyed when she meets the scarred narrator, as she believes that he is her long-dead lover returned to her. She then must set about convincing him of her story: of how the two fell in love all those years ago and how they were separated, about her divine mission to set her hearts free by carving huge gargoyles out of stone, and about the redemptive powers of love, suffering, and sacrifice.

So much happens in this book I don't even know how to start describing it. Marianne takes the narrator in and begins telling him stories. Interspersed with the tale of her own past are four other short love stories, set in eras and locations as varied as feudal Japan, medieval Italy, Victorian England, and Viking Iceland. These stories weave in and out of the main one, forming tentative connections and complementing its themes. Literary classics are alluded to as well, most notably Dante's Inferno. People suffer and die (or not), they sacrifice everything they have for love, they create powerful art and watch it destroyed, they journey to the underworld, and they approach God. And through it all are the two lynchpins of this book, love and pain, forever entwined, each intensifying the other, unwanted and unlooked for but present in every page.

This is quite simply one of the most powerful, intense, gripping, and captivating books I have read in a long time. Maybe it's too intense for some readers; I can tell already from the reviews that many are put off by this love story between the disfigured misanthrope and the schizophrenic artist. But if you have the strength to shoulder the burdens Andrew Davidson places on the reader, I promise, your suffering will be rewarded.

31 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Exquisite. Poignant. Beautiful., August 11, 2008

By	Harkius "harkius" (Laramie, WY) - See all my reviews

(What's this?)

As ever, the plot is adequately summarized in other reviews, so I will not go in detail here. Instead, I will tell you why you should read this novel.

I can understand why many people didn't like this book. I personally loved it, but that is not the point, yet. Many people will not like the details that the author describes about burn recovery and/or will be displeased with the other physical descriptions.

One reviewer goes so far as to mention the eponymous character a "male fantaasy". Which is amusing to no end, if you have read this novel. The male lead is not a fantasy for most men. It would simply be awful. It is clear in his description that he loathes his life, even before his accident.

One of the refreshing things about the book is that the narrator never asks for forgiveness from the reader. He doesn't ask for understanding. He is unrelentingly self-interested for the beginning of the book and then interested only in Marianne Engel for the remainder. This, to me, was beautiful. It was a description of the healing moment for a soul in agony. The narrator, whose name we never learn, spends the beginning of his life hating himself and those around him. He doesn't feel anything, ever. It's only after he has lost everything that he valued and is stripped of the empty shell of his life that he begins to gain an understanding of beauty and compassion.

His growth is charming, including his involvement in the relationship of other characters. The author has done a wonderful job of creating two individuals, tied to one another: The Narrator and Marianne Engel. The remainder of the characters do indeed lack detail, with few exceptions (and the ones that are present are awkward enough to seem a heavy-handed redaction at the behest of an editor - thankfully, they are brief). The point is never that these people are supposed to be detailed. The point is that they are vignettes, stories of a love in another time and in another place.

The backstory of Marianne Engel and the Narrator are also beautiful and tragic. Both stories interweave in the fashion of an experienced storyteller. Normally I find the maintenance of stories in two timelines to be quite tedious. The efforts to reintegrate them is always awkward and predictable. In this case, however, Marianne Engel is a constant. And she is not merely telling a story of a different time and place. She is reminding her love who he is.

One final comment. The portrayal of the characters in this novel is what gives it its beauty. Some reviewers have mentioned that there is little conflict in the present story (although there is plenty in the vignettes and in the backstory). This is untrue. There is conflict between the Narrator and himself. In reality, there are really only two characters in this tale, and even Marianne Engel is secondary. The character that is of interest has no name - he is our narrator. The detailing of Marianne Engel is quite accurate for a person with a mental disorder (or a person who has lived 700 years on a divine mission), the detailing of the dog, the nurses, and the other characters is also spot on, the point is the main character. The point is that he has learned to love. The point is that he has learned to accept his heart, and to release it.

Within the last forty pages lie the most beautiful description of love that I have ever read. Also here is the most exquisite description of faith that I have ever experienced.

It is a tale of love. And of loss. And it should be read by anyone who has ever loved or ever lost. Or both. Rent it, buy it, steal it. Just read it. Then pass it to someone you love.

A

Harkius

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great stuff, August 3, 2008

By	Seven Kitties "7kitties" (Blue Point, NY USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

(What's this?)

Other reviewers manage to give reasonable skeletons of the plot, but one thing with this novel is that basic shape doesn't give a good idea of the flavor. Sure, there are some stereotyped or possibly overplayed elements (but hey, who here is entirely original?!) like the Spunky Asian Girl and the Neurotic Psychiatrist, but what makes them worth your while, and what most reviewers seem to be forgetting, is that they are given to us THROUGH a first person narrator, who is self consciously aware that he is writing a book. (You get a prize if you survived that last sentence).

First-person narration is notoriously and wonderfully unreliable--as we read and try and decide if this person really is as unlikeable as he started out, he in turn is trying to decide if Marianne is nuts, or just another woman (out of many) or, maybe, the real deal.

It's a risky thing--that apparently didn't pay off for some readers--to introduce the narrator as he was: an arrogant smug, drug-abusing dirtbag. Yuck, I said, after reading the first three pages. This guy deserves what's happening to him and it's gross. I put it down for a week. Then I picked it up again, deciding to give it another chance. On the second try, I got swept into Davidson's use of language--he has some breathtaking similes in this novel, and some beautifully evocative prose, and the story unfolds through a variety of tale-telling that covers a host of emotions. Some of the mini-stories are wonderfully sad, and there are points where the narrator actually made me laugh with his sarcasm.

So, people seem pretty split on this novel, and I think I can suggest why: if you like hard-hitting plots with lots of action and tension and a breakneck pace, you will not like this book. If you don't like 'literary' language, or having to figure out what to do with interrupted narratives, you will not like this book.

However, if you like beautiful writing, complex narrative structures and a protagonist who is, if not loveable, is surely fascinating, you will love this book. It has a deep sense of literariness to it, and most of his historical research is faultless. Really a wonderful, if kinda-ugly book.