Reviews

Sphinx by Anne Garréta

rosalindpoet's review against another edition

3.0

ok, i wanted SO badly to love this book. i really did. the writing is beautiful - i very much commend emma ramadan for her work on this translation. it's overwrought, yeah, but that's part of its charm. i'm a sucker for misery and unending ennui. & i can see how writing a gender-neutral novel in french would give you a lot of difficulties that a non-gendered language wouldn't.

but i just can't take any more of this

Spoiler

goddamned dead gay trope. i just can't do it. any book with dead freaking gays should have a big warning label in 120 pt red impact font. if there isn't a website where you can look up if gays die in a piece of media, i'm starting one. seriously. hmu if you're interested. so that kind of ruined the book for me, because honestly, we die enough. gay people die enough and trans people die enough that we shouldn't​ be subjected to it when we're just trying to read cool experimental novels and live our lives. not cool, anne garreta.

anyway. my rating isn't because i thought this book was mediocre, but because i had a lot of different opinions in vastly different directions. 2 stars for the spoiler, and 4 stars for the technical quality of the writing. also, if you're lgbt and thinking about reading this, please read the spoiler before making your decision - i wish i'd known.

nooneyouknow's review against another edition

4.0

Remarkable and very French. Not a casual read by any stretch of the imagination. The intricacy of this one will keep me thinking for quite some time.

maia_with_an_i's review against another edition

1.0

Meh.

Maybe I'm too dense to understand the book's appeal. Some parts were interesting and compelling. Others were frustrating and confusing.

To me, it appeared that the narrator was in lust with A***, not at all in love. First, let me say that I'm not a fan of this to begin with. This especially left a bad taste in my mouth because A*** is supposed to be black and witnessing the hypersexualization of POC is so wearying.

Blah. I don't know.

There were some positive aspects, but quite a few problematic elements in my opinion.

That is all.

tapiocuh's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious sad medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

malikasbooks's review against another edition

3.0

While pages and pages of ruminations and meditations on tragedy are not exactly my idea of a good time, the writing is breathtakingly beautiful. After reading the translator's note, I'm absolutely dying to read it in the original French.

grise's review against another edition

emotional reflective sad fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.0

solid_circle's review against another edition

dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense fast-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

I think this actually works if you interpret the character not as someone that the reader is supposed to feel particularly sympathetic towards but as somebody who dooms themselves to the fate they reach because of their pretentiousness and privileged lack of self-awareness. The use of "black mommas" and the like was just plain unnecessary though.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death

Moderate: Racism and Death of parent

mysimas's review against another edition

challenging dark reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

3.0

As the translator herself admits in the afterword, the ‘quirk’ of this book isn’t all that quirky or remarkable when transferred into English. Unfortunately I don’t speak any French and the book hasn’t been translated into my native Czech, so I guess I’ll just have to be on the lookout for a German edition (and then never read it because the language in this book is advanced. Holy.)

So, having read the book in English, all that remains to be appreciated is the story itself and the writing style. Both were fine. Very pensive, and poetic. The middle part/3rd chapter lost me a little as it was entirely introspective and abstract and I couldn’t quite follow; the other chapters were more grounded and had me invested to see what comes next. Fascinatingly, all but the introspective chapter ended in

death — the random junkie, A., A.’s mom, the narrator. Maybe it was the narrator’s soul that died in chapter 3?

. 

And as other comment/s point/s out, the gender of the narrator at the very least can be guessed at, judging by how they’re treated by others. With A. it’s a little more hazy for me.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death and Grief

Minor: Infidelity

conventicleofmagpies's review against another edition

challenging dark reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character

3.75

coco_lolo's review against another edition

1.0

I'm always up for trying something new and different, hence why I read Sphinx: more out of curiosity for how it's constructed than any real interest in the novel. And while it's fascinating how this was written in French without gendering the main character and A***, and then successfully translated into English, the story itself bored me. The narrator was insufferable, which I know is the point, but it's difficult to tolerate that level of pretentiousness; my thoughts often wandered when he/she went on and on about things that weren't even substantial. And I know it was the author's intention for us not to get to know A***, reflecting how the narrator really doesn't know this person he/she is obsessed with, but I couldn't connect to A*** either because of this. In the end, nothing mattered to me.

There were definitely some interesting points made, such as the narrator's desire to own A*** more for his/her own pleasure than anything A*** did, but I found this extremely tedious and unrewarding.