The Gargoyle by Andrew Davidson, reviewed by Jess

The Gargoyle by Andrew Davidson

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars


The Gargoyle is an intriguing and intelligent novel that I couldn't put down, despite occasional annoyance with the overly-flowery language, the momentum being spoiled when interesting sections ended too soon (and believe me, parts are simply stunning, particularly Dante's hell as a dream), or when the prose got lumpy.

The book's nameless narrator is horrifically burned in a car accident, after a hallucination distracts him and causes him to drive off a cliff. The story begins with graphic descriptions of his treatment for burns, including very clinical descriptions which sound as though they've been lifted straight from the pages of a medical journal. We learn that he was a porn star in his pre-accident life, and led a debauched and selfish lifestyle. Not only is he now disfigured and in constant pain, but he also lost his penis in the accident, leaving him with no chance of a return to his old life style.

Giving up all hope, he starts to fantasise about an elaborate suicide plan he'll undertake as soon as he is well enough to leave the hospital. But he soon forgets it when a mysterious woman named Marianne Engel starts visiting. She claims to have known him in previous lives, and tells him a series of tales about how they met, and the ways they died, whilst nursing him.

>She turns out to be a sculptor who specialises in gargoyles, but also a former psychiatric patient, with either suspected schizophrenia or bipolar disorder. I found it unbelievable that after so much apparent treatment and time spent on the wards, her doctors were unable to determine which if either she had, given they are characterised by different symptoms.

The main bulk of the stories Marianne tells concern her life as a nun and her translation of Dante's Inferno, which was supposedly brought to her originally by our now-monstrous hero. These stories, presented in the form of first person chapters, are more interesting than the present-day narrative. This left me wondering why Davidson didn't use these as a full novel, especially as he'd obviously gone to some lengths with his research.

The full-on disclosure of the narrator's background points to a redemption story early on. However, I was fascinated, and found the opening similar in tone to Chuck Palahniuk's Invisible Monsters. The style is somewhat different from Palahniuk's, and would have delivered a harder emotional hit had it been a touch less romanticised. I found the obvious conclusion a let down, but because of the circular nature of the plot and the 'morality tale' feel, it couldn't go anywhere else at the end of its magical and inspired journey.

I felt physically repulsed throughout the book, but as a reader who likes it raw I didn't find this objectionable. Despite containing strong elements of Fantasy and Horror, The Gargoyle is probably best placed with Modern Fiction. I'd strongly recommend it as a good example of a mainstream cross-over novel. The intertextual element renewed my interest in Dante's Inferno and inspired me to hunt down a copy. I see it as no bad thing that this book could introduce new readers to such an important poem, although I suspect others may feel that using it as a plot device to such an extent is a rip off.

Although The Gargoyle is blatant and slightly pretentious, Davies still manages to pull off a richly woven, bizarre love story that's not for the squeamish.

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Scrofula by Matt Dennison, reviewed by Jill Librarian

Scrofula by Matt Dennison

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars


Scrofula, a collection of twenty poems by Matt Dennison, is strongest in the poems detailing ordinary life. These include the poems Scrofula, Found in My Garden After the Rain, Premise, and The Spider Weaves.

I admit it, the title sent me to the dictionary—knowing scrofula was some kind of illness—to find

"scrofu·la (skräf′yə lə)—noun-tuberculosis of the lymphatic glands, esp. of the neck, characterized by the enlargement of the glands, suppuration, and scar formation."

This first poem, bearing the title also of the book, has strong, clear images that linger in the mind. As the young man and old man searched through the hill's "hundred summers' growth" for buried head stones, they "marched with pitchforks/ side by side, shoving their fingers into the ground, feeling for what had been slowly bowed/ and buried by the dull weight of time", and further in, "..how entire families would be/ laid out in descending scales of grief, all voices stopped within the same small/ circle of days and how one family, from suckling child to father, had been Taken By Scrofula/ in the winter of 1868, the dark/ earthy sound of which I tried again/ and again in the thick summer air" and going on, includes a quiet tribute to the old man—"tying the posts together in a complicated,/ old-fashioned way whose secret of doing/ I knew would vanish with the old man"—paying tribute to life and to death which calls us "in the ultimate foreign tongue."

In "Found In My Garden After the Rain" a simple find of flint in the garden calls up the beginnings of mankind , flint knapping, and spirals back to today. This poem has nice meter married to some excellent lines. In Premise, the child wants proof of God in his daily life, but the mundane proves too strong. The ending is matter-of-fact but very moving.

Salvation, one of the longer poems, a spirited rejection of traditional church services, is a joy to read. Also "Balboa Egret", with its lovely quatrain:

"Under the house in a low, minor key,
an old cat told a Chinese tale--eyes closed,
>mouth near dirt, she droned on and on
to the delight of her young."

I recommend this small but sturdy compilation to all lovers of poetry.

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