An extraordinary debut novel of love that survives the fires of hell and transcends the boundaries of timeThe 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 …
An extraordinary debut novel of love that survives the fires of hell and transcends the boundaries of timeThe 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.
Whilst I was reading this book, someone asked me if it was a love story and I replied 'I doubt it'. Well it turned out I was mistaken because enduring love is at the very centre of the story. There are two distinct voices in the narration, so at no point was I unsure about whose story I was reading. I did prefer the narrator's prose more than Marianne's. I felt her stories rambled a bit and felt they were more like legends. However I did enjoy them more as they started to intertwine with the narrator's story and the central concept of an eternal soul.
And for all those pedants out there, Marianne does correct the narrator on the proper definition of gargoyle.
A dark night, a car accident, a fire, a burnt man. The hospital. The burns, the slow recovery. The mysterious woman, the fortress, the gargoyles that want themselves out of the stone.
Mystic and fantasy. Pain, strong emotions, and above all love. Deep and unconditional love. Love that lasts 700 years.
I was captivating by the story even from the first page. Sometimes the feelings were overwhelmed. Disgust and pain, terrible pain.
Sometimes the details about the burns and the medical procedures bocome horrible, you want to stop, the reading becomes painful, but you just can’t. You even discover that they are essential and they the story couldn’t be completed without them.
I wish I could write more about this book. But I cannot. I am still captivating; really this story just blew me away. There were moments that I …
Love is as strong as death, as hard as hell
A dark night, a car accident, a fire, a burnt man. The hospital. The burns, the slow recovery. The mysterious woman, the fortress, the gargoyles that want themselves out of the stone.
Mystic and fantasy. Pain, strong emotions, and above all love. Deep and unconditional love. Love that lasts 700 years.
I was captivating by the story even from the first page. Sometimes the feelings were overwhelmed. Disgust and pain, terrible pain.
Sometimes the details about the burns and the medical procedures bocome horrible, you want to stop, the reading becomes painful, but you just can’t. You even discover that they are essential and they the story couldn’t be completed without them.
I wish I could write more about this book. But I cannot. I am still captivating; really this story just blew me away. There were moments that I wanted to cry. I have had dreams in my sleep.
It is Davidson’s debut book and I can only recognise that he has the gift of creating and writing fantastic beautiful stories. One of the best books I have read this year. Just read it.
