How did you interpret The Gargoyle?

[Mara]

I finished this book recently and really enjoyed it. I was just wondering what others thought about the symbolism of the book. I'm not sure I really understood it. It has motivated me to start reading The Inferno by Dante. I am wondering if that will give me a better sense of the meaning and symbolism of the novel. Any thoughts or insights would be greatly appreciated!

[Mara]

The symbolism I inferred was that of the death or ending of a life and resurrection. (Like the death of Christ on Good Friday and his resurrection on Easter which is paralleled in Dante's Inferno.) When the narrator was burned, he became the gargoyle so to speak, his true form was created just like Marianne's gargoyle creations came out of marble. He had to go through the ordeal of being severely burned to feel emotions and become vulnerable to truly become himself. I'm just a little confused as to Marianne Engel's past lives and how she fit into each story that she told the narrator. What did you all think?

[Erin]

I, too, feel inspired to read Dante's Inferno after reading and re-reading The Gargoyle. I read The Gargoyle originally in July and really enjoyed it. Then my book club elected to do this book for October so I decided to re-read it. It took a while to get the book from the library, so I took out the CD audio book and found that I got different things from listening to someone else read the story.

Re-reading it increased my desire to read Dante and explore further. I think that The Gargoyle is a brilliant work of literary fiction and has so much depth a single pass through it isn't enough to analyse all that it contains.

[Jason]

it sounds like sales of Dante's Inferno will have got a little boost from this book because I have also gone out and bought a copy after reading the Gargoyle.
Once I got past the first 50-60 pages, which I found extremely hard going, I was spellbound by this book. I think I'll probably go back and re-read it once I read the Inferno as it may provide a different view point. That said I don't think anyone need be put off reading this if they haven't any knowledge of the Inferno beyond the basic "descent into hell" premise.

[Anais]

I read this book a few month ago. I loved it. the idea that our souls are the results of different lives. I think I loved it specially because I've always believed that we are more than ourselves, that some part of us come from something that existed before us...anyway I loved that book and when I finished it I couldnt stop crying thinking about the protagonist and his feeling of guilt and the love that she put into the sculpture. just beautiful

[Kat]

The first time I read The Gargoyle, I was in high school. I absolutely loved it, but much of its brilliance was lost on my empty mind. The second time I read it, I had graduated college and was quite familiar with Dante's Inferno and some of the other texts referenced throughout the work. I definitely felt the narrator, like Dante, reached personal enlightenment by overcoming his fears of the unknown and of his own perceived inadequacies (think Plato's Allegory of the Cave on that one). The characters of Dante and the narrator are actually quite similar. Both are around the same age, contemplating suicide, and are guided through past lives and horrors which inevitably are linked with their own. Dante, having seen the entirety of the Inferno, has nothing left to fear, and it is his emergence from fear that will allow him to attain virtue and reach paradise. Perhaps this is paralleled by the narrator as he watches Marianne disappear into the water that night on the beach (under the stars as well, perhaps?) or in his emergence from the bitchsnake-killing mindwarp.

I'm also left wondering if the bitchsnake is a synthesis of the three creatures (the leopard, lion, and she-wolf, which together represent the Seven Deadly Sins) Dante encounters before meeting Virgil. After all, a snake is an apt embodiment of all seven of them!


I could write an essay on this book, but I should probably get back to the research paper I need to write for my grad school application. (Funnily enough, it discusses the Seven Deadly Sins and has a good 4-5 pages dedicated to The Inferno!)

[Stéphanie]

I got more and more interested in Dante's inferno because of this book. I think it kinda was the thing that made me more interested in latin too.

[Kat]

I'll be honest -- after reading this book for the second time, I've taken it upon myself to start learning Latin as well!

[George]

Mara wrote: "I finished this book recently and really enjoyed it. I was just wondering what others thought about the symbolism of the book. I'm not sure I really understood it. It has motivated me to start r..."

Finished reading the book a while back. It was not a bad book. However, when you step back and take a look at the story as a whole, there is not really a lot happening. Dude gets burnt, dude goes to rehab while stays with a weird goth chick who has an OCD compulsion to carve 90 some-odd statues. Dude continues to attend rehab, chick finishes statues and dies. Life lessons learned, the end.

[Kat]

However, when you step back and take a look at the story as a whole, there is not really a lot happening. Dude gets burnt, dude goes to rehab while stays with a weird goth chick who has an OCD compulsion to carve 90 some-odd statues. Dude continues to attend rehab, chick finishes statues and dies. Life lessons learned, the end.

Lack of action does not indicate lack of quality or literary worth. (I know you said it wasn't a bad book, but I'm just putting it out there!) Those plot points you listed are merely tools to unpack the true brilliance of the book: the paralleling of Dante's Inferno, the quest for enlightenment, and the idea that to become virtuous, one must understand and confront fear and vice.

(Then again, this book falls right into my literary niche and field of study, so maybe I'm biased!)

[George]

Kat wrote: "However, when you step back and take a look at the story as a whole, there is not really a lot happening. Dude gets burnt, dude goes to rehab while stays with a weird goth chick who has an OCD comp..."

True enlightenment comes from choice. The main character had little or no choice through out the whole novel. There was never and danger of him relapsing back to his old self due mainly to his physical deformities and his total financial dependency on the OCD chick. The dude just passively followed the path that was neatly laid out for him. No conflicts, all smooth sailing. Like I said before, not a badly written book, but over-rated none the less. References to Dante's Inferno doesn't make it any better.

[Dee]

Why does the narrator always call Marianne Engel by her first and last name? It reminds me of Louis Cypher in Angel Heart who turned out to be Lucifer. Any theories?

[Tony]

I can't say I understood all the symbolism, but I took from it a message of redemption. A soulless man in a soulless life, before the accident, who is guided from his empty life, from his own personal hell. Learning to love and regaining his soul with the help of Marianne Engel, whos name is of course German for Angel. I would like to have understood the meaning of her story better. I do however know that this book stayed with me like only a very few books ever do or can. I look forward to whatever else Andrew writes.
I'm sure most know this but I didnt until recently that the first letter of each chapter spells out ALL THINGS IN A SINGLE BOOK BOUND BY LOVE, derived from a passage in Dantes "Paradiso". Also the last letter of each chapter spells DIE LIEBE IST STARK WIE DER TOD, MARIANNE, meaning "Love is as strong as death, Marianne."

[hIpnoticraQs]

I never noticed that about the first and last letters of the chapters. I agree with you completely Tony, the book has stayed with me for a few years.

[Reem]

I think this book is simply brilliant !
The built-in contradictions (like life/death, before/after, reality/illusion..), the historical backgrounds, the choice of words...apart from the depth of it !! Everything about it makes us swing between different worlds and realities in an outstanding journey..in just few pages!
And the most important thing is: this book makes you THINK, dig for more information and ask questions!