The Gargoyle

"Accidents ambush the unsuspecting, often violently, just like love."

—The Burned Man

A 2008 historical/fantasy/romance novel by Andrew Davidson about a porn actor/drug addict burn victim who meets an eccentric artist who claims to know him from another life--several, actually--and spins him endless yarns of their lives together as he slowly recovers. Eventually, she takes him back to her home, where she works obsessively on her art, endlessly carving ~~gargoyles~~ grotesques out of stone for days and weeks on end, as she believes it to be her mission. Soon, it's not clear who is caring for whom. Is Marianne Engel just harmlessly loony, or perhaps dangerously unhinged, or is there something real within her stories? Relies heavily on Classical Mythology, all sorts of issues of Heaven and Hell, as well as ample Fun with Foreign Languages as she tells The Narrator stories from throughout the ages.

Compare to: American Gods, Divine Comedy. Not to be confused with Gargoyles .-----

Tropes used in The Gargoyle include:

Aborted Arc: In chapter two, The Narrator says that he has murdered someone...and then we never hear about it again. Unless he's unconsciously referring to his life as a soldier in the 13th century, but it's way too early in the narrative for that.
- This story is told from a time AFTER Marianne's death. Her death is his murder. He states quite clearly in the end that he could have stopped her, knew she would die when she swam out, but let her go anyway.
Alternate History
Antiquated Linguistics: Marianne Engel has a rather grand, flowery way of speaking.
Arranged Marriage: More like "forced"--attemped by the daimyo on Sei. It doesn't really work out.
Beauty Equals Goodness: Subverted with The Narrator--he was beautiful before, but he eventually feels that he only becomes a good person after being horribly disfigured.
Big Fancy House: Castle, actually
Bittersweet Ending
The Black Death: Kills Francesco and Graziana
Body Horror: One word: penectomy Not to mention the rest of the burns.
- The Narrator's "snake," a.k.a. his horrendous morphine addiction
Briefcase Full of Money
Buried Alive: Sei and The Narrator, briefly, in the beginning of his vision of Hell
Burn Your Gays: Sigurðr
Call A Grotesque A Gargoyle: There's a difference, you know.
Can't Have Sex Ever: Well, not in this life.
Christmas Cake: Referenced by name in relation to Sayuri.
Church Militant: Agletrudis.
Circles of Hell: Literally.
Cloudcuckoolander: Marianne Engel. Even if her stories are completely true, she's still quite weird - and she herself acknowledges this.
Complete Monster: Kuonrat.
Deadpan Snarker: The Narrator
Death by Childbirth: The Narrator's mother
Disabled Snarker: The Narrator, post-accident
Driven to Suicide: The Narrator fantasizes about a ridiculously elaborate suicide whilst in the hospital
Drugs Are Bad: In a way--they cause The Narrator's car crash, but he eventually considers that to have been a good thing, and when he detoxes from the morphine, he goes on an epic journey of self-discovery through Hell. So, not entirely bad...
- But they're certainly bad in the case of The Narrator's adoptive "parents," who eventually die in a meth lab explosion and are seen in Hell
Fancy Dinner: Marianne Engel organizes many of these.
Florence Nightingale Effect: Played with. In the hospital, Marianne Engel doesn't do anything directly medical for The Narrator, she just provides him with friendship and distraction. Later, at her home, though, she does care for her. Played straight in the 13-century storyline.
Foreign Looking Font: Used all over the place.
Full-Name Basis: Marianne Engel is almost always referred to by her full name. Though it may or may not be her real name; she just started calling herself that at some point
High Octane Nightmare Fuel: The Narrator's detailed descriptions of his accident and his injuries are pretty disturbing, especially when he urges the reader to imagine their own skin burning in seemingly slow-motion
Ho Yay: Sigurðr and Einarr; the 13th-century version of the Narrator and Brandeis
Hollywood Atheist: Avoided. The Narrator states early on that he doesn't believe in God, and while he certainly becomes more interested in theology and even goes to Hell, sort of, he doesn't change his mind.
- And his reasons for not believing in God aren't anything as simple as Dead Little Sister or his traumatic childhood.
Incompatible Orientation: Sigurðr and Einarr.
Karma: Subverted--The Narrator's injuries sure seem like poetic justice, especially losing his penis when he was practically a sex addict, but he states that since he's an atheist, he doesn't believe God or anything else was out to get him, his accident was just chance.
Littlest Burn Victim: Thérèse
Love Hurts: The image on that page is freakishly accurate.
Mad Artist
Mad Oracle
Man On Fire: Played REALLY, REALLY straight.
Manic Pixie Dream Girl: To the extreme.
Meaningful Rename: Einarr and Friðleifr rename their child after Sigurðr, after he dies saving them
Mercy Kill: A few times: Francesco asks his brother to do this when he's dying of the plague and his wife has already died, and he does, with an arrow to the heart. This is then echoed when Marianne kills her husband this way when he's been slowly tortured to death by Kuonrat
Mission from God: Marianne Engel believes that she has been told to give away her thousands of hearts, and so she "frees" gargoyles from their stone and gives them hearts
Near-Death Experience
Nerds Are Virgins: Wildly subverted with The Narrator, who claims to be a book lover
Never Found the Body: Marianne Engel, after she walks into the sea, and Tom
No Fourth Wall: The Narrator regularly refers to "this story" and "this book" and addresses the reader directly, often acknowledging things that seem unbelievable or speculating about the reader's reaction to certain things.
No Name Given: We are never told the narrator's name, not even when Marianne Engel carves it into her chest with a chisel
Nun-Too-Holy: Marianne Engel, in her 13th-century version.
Off with His Head: The fate of Brandeis
Omniglot: Marianne Engel.
Pair the Spares: Gregor and Sayuri
Parental Neglect: The Graces are drug addicts and basically do nothing to raise The Narrator
Power Tattoo: Marianne Engel is covered in 'em
Really Seven Hundred Years Old
Religious Horror: Lots, mostly in Hell
Rescue Romance: On several levels.
Ret-Gone: An in-universe example--Marianne's 13th-century work translating the Inferno was erased from history because she left the convent and got married.
Scars Are Forever: The Narrator's burns, to be sure, but before that, the mysterious scar on his chest, which is later revealed to be from being shot with an arrow in his past life--twice. Maybe.
Seeking Sanctuary: Used a few times in the 13th century plot.
Shotgun Wedding: Sayuri and Gregor, although her parents aren't actually all that mad.
Shout-Out: Marianne Engel has sold her gargoyles to "one writer who is almost universally recognized as the king of the horror genre," as well as a "director known for his highly poetic films about outcasts" who has "a mop of wild dark hair" that resembles Marianne Engel's.
Shown Their Work: Davidson clearly did a shit-ton of research about burns and burn treatment.
Someone to Remember Him By: In the 13th-century story--subverted, kind of, because the baby dies, or is 'taken' from her by God somehow
Switching POV: The modern-day story is told by the unnamed burned man; the other stories are told by Marianne Engel, in the second person when she's telling him what she believes to be their story from another time. The "bitchsnake" (i.e., the evil part of the narrator's mind) also pops in with commentary now and again.
The Pornomancer: The Narrator is this before his accident, rather literally
The Power of Love
The Storyteller: Marianne Engel. Good grief.
There Is No Kill Like Overkill: The Narrator's planned suicide is decidedly over-the-top, and his death in the 13th century: beaten, shot at, nailed to a wall and slowly burned alive is also rather elaborate and agonizing, leading to Marianne's Mercy Kill
To Hell and Back: Literally...well, sort of. He's detoxing from morphine and debates internally about whether he's hallucinating, but then eventually decides not. The experience is highly meaningful, anyway.
Unreliable Narrator: The burned man believes Marianne Engel to be this for a while, but...it's debatable
Widow Woman: Vicky
Wipe That Smile Off Your Face: The Narrator says this to the eternally cheerful Sayuri, complete with racist slur. (He apologizes, though.)
- Funny thing was he wasn't racist. Considering just how much the Narrator knows about Japan, it implies he's very interested in the Japanese culture. He just wanted to piss her off and thought that was the best way. (It wasn't.)