Minutes August Book: The Gargoyle

The Gargoyle


by Andrew Davidson


(Chosen by KM)


KM chose this book on the recommendation of 'the good doctor' - her GP with whom she often discusses bookclub choices. The GP has a great track record of suggestion books to read.

Andrew Davidson was born in Pinawa, Manitoba, Canada and graduated in 1995 from the University of British Columbia with a B.A. in English literature. He has worked as a teacher in Japan, where he has lived on and off, and as a writer of English lessons for Japanese websites. The Gargoyle, the product of seven years' worth of research and composition, is his first book. Davidson lives in Winnipeg, Manitoba.

(General biographical details from publisher's website.)

What the publisher says about the book:

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.

What we discussed about the book:

• The graphic description of the burn treatment process. To what extent did we feel his suffering and his sense of despair?
• The number of events in the story that were linked to Good Friday. What was the significance of that?
• What was the snake? Was it self-doubt? A conscience? Was it addiction?
• Did Marianne have a mental illness? Was she bipolar? Or was she really 700 years old?
• Was the entire story an hallucination while he was in a drug-induced coma following the accident?
• In what ways were the 'parables' linked and how did they progress the plot.
• Was the purpose of the parable-stories to bring to the main character an understanding of the nature of love?
• What WAS the main character's name?
• How effective was the journey through hell as a representation of withdrawal from drug addiction?
• What was the role of the food feasts that Marianne would bring into the hospital?
• Why did the main character have a background in the pornography industry? In what way did that create the character?
• The purpose of the arrow imagery throughout the book.

Then we were sidetracked into:

• Did anyone cry reading this book? What does it take in a book to make each of us cry?
• How the first letter of each of the chapters spells out: 'All things in a single book bound by love' (Dante) and the last letter of each chapter spells out: 'Die Liebe is strak wie der Tod Marianne.' Is this just too clever and tricky an element? Or does it add to our understanding of the story?
• How would you describe the genre of this book? Is it magic realism?
• How each of the parables was balanced on a combination of elements: air/earth/water/fire. Each of the characters lived by one and died by one.
• The links between the nuns' names who nursed the burn victim and the contemporary nurses' names: Mathildis/Maddie, Elisabeth/Beth, Constantia/Connie.
• Was the last chapter a little too 'Hollywood' in tying up the ends? Would we have preferred a different ending point?

And in other news...

• We discussed how various schools view the taking of holidays during school term.
• The value of ordering books from http://www.bookdepository.co.uk/ (no postage fees)
• Would we swap meals with a stranger?
• The impact of Crackberries on family/worklife balance. Is it impolite to continue to check it at another person's house if they've asked you not to? Is it impolite to ask them in the first place?
• And we wondered how many times EXACTLY we've heard the story about how RR was the only one to read Gypsy's book.
• EDITED TO ADD: KM brought along some delicious Bougatsa (like the dog in the book) for us to try!

Ratings:

Ratings average: 7.85

Ratings range: 4 to 9

Next book: Jasper Jones by Craig Silvey (LC's choice)