Today’s review wouldn’t be possible if it weren’t for Pam of  Pam’s Perspective. Her glowing review for Andrew Davidson’s The Gargoyle sparked my interest right away, and when I found myself with time to spare at the library, that’s what I reached for. And after reading it in a record 4 days (it helped being sick all day one of those days), I think I owe her an enormous thank you.

Think 1001 Nights meets The Hunchback of Notre Dame, with a heavy dose of Inferno for good measure

Genre: fiction, novel

Plot: This remarkable books begins as the narrator plunges off the road in a terrible car accident that leaves him severely burned. As he endures the torments of burn recovery, his only thought is planning his elaborate suicide. Then he meets Marianne Engel, a sculptress who claims they were lovers in medieval Germany. Although he is skeptical, she enchants him with her tales of love and sacrifice from Finland to Japan, slowly  nursing his spirit back to health. The story doesn’t end there, though–as the narrator’s morphine addiction increases, Marianne is convinced she has a short time to live and devotes a frantic amount of energy into her carvings. Does the narrator have the strength to care for her, too?

Structure: Each of the chapters were of a hefty size, but they were seperated into much smaller vignettes. The story is told from the unnamed narrator’s perspective, intertwined with Marianne’s stories of their past life or of other doomed lovers around the world; the effect is addictive, as Davidson through Marianne tells the story of their medival past in chunks, always pausing just when the story reaches a crucial revelation.

Execution: This novel would have been remarkable for anyone, but for a debut it’s unbelievably impressive. The first 100 pages are intoxicating; the writing is brillantly witty and fascinating in the objective, but self-depricating, way of describing the more excruciating consequences of the narrator’s burns. When Marianne enters the picture, things become much less sarcastic and slow down, but still the pages nearly fly by as  the story spirals deeper and deeper. Davidson uses myth in an almost primitive way:  as a means of entertainment, yes, but also as an instrument of transformation. And the contrast between Marianne’s unshakable–if eccentric–faith and the narrator’s unfailing cynicism was a beautiful portrait of faith and reason falling in together.

Marianne, I think, is what really made the book sparkle. While the narrator’s transformation was moving, her personality was endearing. She was eccentric, yes, but not in an overly cliched way. In other words, this wasn’t Dharma from Dharma & Greg, or Phoebe from Friends. She was crazy in her own unique way, but sympathetically. Despite the narrator’s rational explanation that she is a manic-depressive schizophrenic, you can’t help but believe her stories and appreciate her devotion. And any writer who can create a character who we know is mentally unstable anad yet cause us to yearn for her purity, her goodness, her brightness of spirit has clearly found his craft.

Theme:  burn victims, medieval Germany, Dante’s Inferno

Read this if  you like unusual romances, or have a fetish for medieval architecture

4 out of 5 stars

Other works:
Hopefully Davidson will get back to work so I can add something here!

If you liked this, you  might also like:
Rana Dasgupta’s Tokyo Cancelled  (for the 1001 Nights aspect)
Sarah Dunant’s Sacred Hearts (f0r the parts that took place in a monastery)
Ali Shaw’s The Girl with the Glass Feet (for the unusual use of mythos)
Glen Duncan’s I, Lucifer (for the heavy-handed church imagery and the unrelenting wit)