The Gargoyle | Andrew Davidson | On Beauty, Hell, and Healing in Andrew Davidson's "The Gargoyle"

The Gargoyle | Andrew Davidson | Grotesque and Beautiful

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The Gargoyle

	The Gargoyle Andrew Davidson Doubleday, 2008 - 480 pages average customer review:based on 155 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

On Beauty, Hell, and Healing in Andrew Davidson's "The Gargoyle"

Andrew Davidson's THE GARGOYLE continues to win acclaim for a number of reasons: one is the author's insightful blend of world cultures to create a single tapestry of world-class literature. Another is his seemingly seamless fusion of classic genres such as Gothic, erotica, and horror to create something new beneath the literary sun. And a third is his invention of two of the most compelling characters in modern literature.

The role played by the defining power of character throughout The Gargoyle becomes evident in its first horrific opening pages as our nameless anti-hero drinks and drives his way to a life-altering crash. The detailed account of the inferno that engulfs and permanently disfigures him is as lucidly terrifying as it is mesmerizingly precise. It's not the kind of thing that most people survive but this man does, albeit with severe anatomical damage and loss: "I could hear the bubbling of my skin as the flames kissed it." In fact, as a man and former porn star, he suffers the loss of the one appendage with which he had earned his living.

During the course of his hospital recovery, the narrator battles thoughts of suicide, a growing addiction to morphine, and the excruciating pain of cultivating the growth of brand new skin. Enter Marianne Engel--"She appeared in the burn ward door dressed in a light green hospital gown, with those unsolvable eyes and that riotously entangled hair"--a former psychiatric patient and artist famed for sculpting gargoyles. She is convinced that she and the once-upon-a-time porn star have shared at least one major previous lifetime together when she was a German nun and he was a mercenary soldier. Even more odd, however, is Marianne's claim to have never died at all while waiting some seven centuries to reconnect with her once-beloved. She is comfortable enough with this belief that she strips naked in her new/old friend's hospital room to reveal a body covered with a luxury of tattoos: a beaded rosary and cross, a snake coiling up her leg to her sex, a Sacred Heart on her left breast, a pair of angel wings upon her back, and more.

Whereas we might expect the irony to be painful, it is instead profoundly daring. Engel stands before her friend painted with beautiful symbols while the man once accustomed to being paid for his beauty is now something more akin to her gargoyle sculptures. To a degree, it would seem that his extreme disfigurements make him into the "Gargoyle" of the book's title. But herein may lie a central aspect of author Davidson's literary art. Is his anti-hero a gargoyle now because of how he looks, or was he in fact more of a gargoyle because of the cynicism and self-absorption that dominated his personality before his life-transforming accident? And does the ensuing journey through his personal hell to emotional and spiritual recovery make actually make him more beautiful than he ever was in the past?

Marianne seems at first to be a hyper eccentric teller of tales whose stories simultaneously puzzle, captivate, and motivate her friend. It turns out, however, that these stories--in such diverse settings as France, Japan, Germany, and Iceland--have a much greater function than simply passing the time while recuperating. Davidson's skill at evoking the passions and dilemmas of characters in different cultures and historical eras is truly admirable. Likewise, his Dickensian talent for the creation of a cast of supporting characters who, against the odds, lend credible depth, substance, and color to the narrator's and Marianne's fantastic story.

Maniacal or not (or more precisely, "schizophrenic or not," as our narrator suspects) Marianne becomes much like the angel indicated by the tattooed wings on her back as she moves our narrator into her home. There, she alternately nurses, tells one amazing story after another, and works herself into frenzied bloody exhaustion to complete a final series of gargoyle sculptures, with the very last being of you-know-who. As one grows weaker and the other grows stronger, their original roles reverse and readers find themselves rethinking the plausibility of Marianne's extraordinary claims.

Interwoven masterfully throughout The Gargoyle are deeply embedded allusions to Dante Alighieri's Inferno that not only tell the history of the book itself, but that in some ways re-write the masterpiece and present it in modern form as The Gargoyle. To fully understand such a notion, one has to read and actually experience Davidson's triumphant first novel. A number of readers have suggested that taking on The Inferno (for those of us who did not get to it in high school or college) either after or before reading The Gargoyle, doubly enhances the pleasure of delving into this exceptional work of new millennium fiction.

by Author-Poet Aberjhani
author of The American Poet Who Went Home Again
and Christmas When Music Almost Killed the World

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Grotesque and Beautiful

I loved this book. I loved the grotesque micro-imagery and the sparing of no physical details. I expected this to be a 'pop' book, a quick read that I'd put away and not think of again. This is not the case. I have thought about it many times and even had a dream about it. I would never have guessed this was Mr. Davidson's first novel. He writes too well and the flow is like an established author. He is also able to juggle two story lines - one in the present and one in the past. The protagonists of the present story are a man who has lived a superficial life and a woman who has been diagnosed as shizophrenic. The man has been burned very severely after a night of doing a lot of drugs and driving under the influence. His priorities prior to his hospitalization post-burn have been money, drugs, and lots of sex. The woman who approaches him in the hospital, saying "I see you've been burned again", begins to tell him stories of their past lives together, giving him small bits day by day. Is she crazy? Is all this real? Read the book and find out. I could not put it down. Neither could my husband. I'm surprised it's not a best-seller because it has all the makings. The one thing I did not like was all the hype on the web. I think this book can and will make it on its own by word of mouth and folks reading the reviews. I certainly look forward to Mr. Davidson's next book. I think this novel would make a great movie!

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Fun story that keeps you on your toes

This book switches from past to present beautifully. You want to know more about the mysterious Marianne, as she grips you with her words and actions. it was a great read, and leaves you wanting more.

Whoa - I couldn't put it down!

This is a writer to watch - I was so impressed by Davidson's skill with language. His prose was so stunning that I'd periodically have to pause, reread, and reread to indulge my inner muse. The vivid, often grotesque imagery made this reading experience incredibly full, physical. YES, THE NARRATOR IS HATEFUL! It is his total transformation that gives this novel its appeal. The writer has authentically worked his way into the spine of this character, and so I was captivated by him from the start. Marianne's accounts add dimension to the world of this novel - the stories across centuries are fantastically varied yet the same. The characters reincarnate and face the same burdens until the incongruencies within their souls resolve, by strength of will (Marianne), and vulnerability (narrator) - they extrapolate the stories we exhaustively reenact over and over again in our own finite lives, until we can do the same. How apt - this cutting away of skin, of external self - this blessing of debridement, profoundly exposes self and in turn liberates it.

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