The Gargoyle Hunters at Page 100

Books open doors to worlds we can never inhabit.  There are a form of internet for the imagination taking you to places an author has defined with words and description. Well-crafted books create worlds, expose worlds and make you feel a part of those worlds if only for a time.

A book I am reading me now, it is taking me to the New York of the late 1970s. This is the second book I have read about Gotham in that era in the last six months. This one seems to be the better of the two.

What I am reading is part family drama and part adventure tale.  In large measure it is also an homage to the craftsmanship of 19^th century immigrant builders in American.  The Gargoyle Hunters  is not what I would call a page turner so much as it is a leisurely pick it up whenever tale.  While I am reading it I am thoroughly enjoying it.  However, when I have put it down and gone on to other things it does not immediately call me back.  Some books have an allure; they just demand to be read.  The Remains of the Day was that way for me. Another book I could not put down, although it has been years since I read it, was Hermann Hesse’s Narcissus and Goldmund.  

I digress.

At this point I have read about the first 100 pages of the The Gargoyle Hunters and I am pretty sure I will finish it.  Stark images of urban decay always fascinate me.  The main characters make a living out of architectural theft. In some instances theft might be too harsh a description.  Taking pieces of the cornice of a demolished tenement from a rubble pile before it is carted away hardly seems like theft.  But other instances where the duo “salvage” old world craftsmanship are much less ambiguously theft plain and simple.

Most of my interest in the father and son duo of architectural pilferers is driven by my love of my adopted home city of Toronto, Ontario.  For years Toronto was seemingly stuck in time. Old Ontario yellow brick buildings and large Dominion edifices populated the landscape.  With the city’s growth those old buildings are disappearing quickly.  Places like Kensington Market with its row homes are under siege.  All of the filigree, the gargoyles, the mosaics, and the cast scenes of work’s value in the industrial age are being discarded. What a crime, what a loss.

At this point I really don’t know where The Gargoyle Hunters will lead me and whether at the end I will feel that it wasted “my precious time.” Still, I am going to give the account a shot.

Another reason I am reading it is more selfish.  When I don’t read something other than the swamp of political commentary that is awash around us, I don’t get ideas for my personal writing.  Reading for me sparks creativity.

I will let you know what I think when I am done.