Review : The Gargoyle

Posted by kay on April 15, 2009 2:26 am in 2.5 stars reads | 3 comments

The Gargoyle by Andrew Davidson
Pages : 465
Genre : fiction, mystery, and more
My Rating :

I sat for a few, long minutes, thinking hard about what I would say about The Gargoyle. So much so, in fact, that it almost gave me a headache. This book is one of the most challenging to review, because it had me go from one extreme to the other; at first, I thought I had just found a new favorite book, only to discover, halfway through, that I couldn’t wait to be done with it. Sad, but true.

In a few words, The Gargoyle is the story of a drug addicted pornographer who burns alive in a car accident. While recovering at the hospital, he meets pretty-but-crazy Marianne Engel, a patient there who works as a gargoyle carver. Marianne tells him how they once were lovers in the 14th century; she sits and shares with him tales about lovers who died for their love; she brings him back to her home to nurse him when he’s out of the hospital; she undresses to show him all of her tattoos; she also undresses when she carves while eating coffee (yes, eating, not drinking, although she also drinks it while smoking in a compulsive manner) and she sleeps on her stone, naked, before carving it. (Note that they’ll never consume their love since the narrator lost most of his plumping in mentioned before fire).

The beginning was morbidly interesting. The description of his injuries and of the healing process were extremely detailed; I rolled my eyes a few times, like I do when I watch autopsies on t.v. shows (you know, when you don’t want to watch but you end up watching anyway?) It was fascinating and the author had obviously done a lot of research. The narrator’s semi-ironic voice also lightened the tone in this part of the story.

Then enters Marianne Engel, and for me, everything went wrong from then on. I think the best way to describe this would be that it was a similar experience to Twilight (I should mention that I am not a Twilight hater, just not a fan); reading The Gargoyle was like reading someone else’s fantasy, one inspired by a dream with no head or tail. The “lovers stories” were in parts interesting, but they were numerous and made me feel disconnected to the story. It was also hard to get into Marianne’s story of reincarnation and hearing God’s voice, since the narrator spent most of the book calling her crazy, schizophrenic and/or maniaco-depressive.

I still gave the book a 2.5 stars ratings, for two reasons. First, it’s true I enjoyed greatly some parts of the book, even if they were the most horrific ones. The second reason is, I think this book just wasn’t meant for me. Davidson isn’t a bad writer at all. I enjoyed his writing, just not the story. It was just a little too much for me to handle: too much horror with too much romance with too many unconnected stories with too many prancing-around-naked-just-for-the-sake-of-it scenes.