Sphinx

The blurb on the title and, indeed, what likely drives you to the book, was ... not entirely accurate in my reading. That's not the main thrust of the book from what I read, and indeed as soon as I got a bit through it I started imagining genders for the two main characters in the love story, who aren't directly talked about with gender but who do hit two fairly common gender stereotypes.Also, this book is not a full novel. I brought it on a flight hoping to read through it all on the trip there, and finished in an hour. I ended up playing a cellphone game.But Sphinx is definitely worth reading. There is a twist in the middle - it is disappointing in some ways - mainly because of how it hews to an overall convention in society in general, one I can't directly name if I want to avoid spoilers (and do I!) - but while I was reading it, I was spellbound.I don't know if I would say the characters are 100% developed, but I don't think that's the point. This novel made me feel things I definitely didn't expect, and the sentences are beautiful - I imagine that they don't translate over perfectly from the french but they give what I would imagine is the same feeling, a sort of weighted stasis and ennui that permeates the covers like a wave. It isn't even, really, the sentences, but it's how the sentences and their languid ... stuffed-ness? ... complements the book as a whole, where everything within it feels like it's set to burst.I really liked this book. I do wish it was what I had expected when I picked it up, but what I got in its place was fantastic anyways, so I can't complain too much. :)

This book is a great romance novel! It provides the love story of two very different characters and doesn't reveal their genders! It is very entertaining and easy to read.

I purchased this book because it was billed as a "genderless romance." While this is nominally true, in the sense that neither the protagonist nor their love interest are ever explicitly gendered, I found that the book fell far short of that premise, as every other character in the story is explicitly gendered. Moreover, aside from one interaction early on, not knowing the characters' gender is never relevant to the plot, much less critical.In general, if you'd like to read a moody, philosophical exploration of youth and relationships, you may enjoy this book. But if you're looking for an Oulipian experiment, you'll be disappointed.

First-novel longueurs are here, but they are eclipsed by the astonishingly ambitious project that it represents. It's not a spoiler, or if it is it's already occurred in the blurb above, to say that a sexy novel about lovers written without any gender markers is a very different challenge in English than in French, a very strictly gendered language.Translator Ramadan took a trait that eased Author Garréta's trajectory to accomplish this complex feat, the use of a grammatical tense that English does not have and that makes the speaker sound ever so pretentious, and then she runs with its effect on the prose.Soul heavy from too much knowing, body tired from feeling pensive and powerless at the same time, so riven by this obsessive ennui that nothing, or almost nothing, can distract from it anymore. Back then, if I recall correctly, I used to describe the world as a theater where processions of corpses danced in a macabre ball of drives and desires. My contempt and ennui did not, however, keep me from observing how this dance dissolved into an amorous waltz. Languid nights at the whim of syncopated rhythms and fleeting pulses; the road to hell was lit with pale lanterns; the bottom of the abyss drew closer indefinitely; I moved through the smooth insides of a whirlwind and gazed at deformed images of ecstatic bodies in the slow, hoarse death rattle of tortured flesh.That is, I think you'll all agree with me, pretty mannered writing. I like it, but then I would; the semi-colons, the layering of clauses...well! My Christmas came early with this read! It felt like I was reading a good translation of Proust.Yes, that is so a compliment.What shines through in this croquembouche of a story is the way that eliminating the simple fact of gender enables a love story, a passionate, consummated love story, to take on layers of meaning that otherwise wouldn't be available to readers. It enables the narrator to muse on the unsuitability of their fellow theology student, a man, as a target for a fling, a little light sexual fun...but because the fellow student is set on becoming a celibate priest, or because he is a man? It doesn't necessarily matter, but the two possibilities are very different even today. They were even moreso in the France of 1986.And now we butt up against the one real issue I can see someone taking with this read: A***, lover of our narrator, is Black. It's a fact that we're made aware of, and that plays a significant role in the narrator's attraction to and arousal with A***'s body. I'm not quite convinced it's exoticization, in the fetishistic sense. It's present in the narrator's arousal, though I can't see that being any other way...after all, the object of one's lust is always possessed of traits and qualities that are arousing, including physical ones; and there is not a single thing about the narrator's other appraisals of A*** that suggest a less-than-genuine interest in all their facets. What is more troubling is that the ending is what it is. There is a racialized account of violence and the actions in question take place in Harlem. Granted that the book appeared in 1986 and that was a historically extra-violent time in Harlem, in New York, and in multiple other major US cities as the crack epidemic was reaching its peak.Still, it's a thing that is present in the story and that could present a very different impression to a Person of Color. I give the information to you for your consideration. I lived in New York City at that time and was routinely very cautious for my personal safety, so it's permaybehaps down to my own familiarity with the milieu that prevents me from seeing it as anything but a reflection of the reality I lived here, and then.I will say that what happened, and how it went down, knocked a star off my rating. My respect for the project of creating an ungendered love story that still contained passionate pleasure is undimmed. It's the manner in which Author Garréta chose to dismount the story-horse that did not meet with my whole-hearted approval.Nothing is ever exactly as one would wish it to be, though, is it.

This heartbreaking love story was filled with beautiful prose. Personally, I took a pen to my copy and marked it all over. Absolutely loved and absolutely recommend.

Good book, the power of language

It's great. It is a unique play onto how we perceive gender. Loved it.

A fascinating book.

There’s no real story or character development in this book, just 152 pages of pointless words. The premise was very intriguing but the book simply didn’t deliver. On the plus side, the translator’s notes were quite interesting.

The book is written in such a way that if you do not know the premise behind the book it will amaze you when you realise and or find out. It is a love story, that is all you need to know. Do not research this book.. just read it

The cover is very dirty. It doesn't​ look like a new book.

Great design, great book, neat packaging and shipping not lateGood product and good vendors, would definitely recommendThank you

Item arrived reasonably fast & was in immaculate condition. Can't wait to finally sink my teeth into this novel. Also came with a cute bookmark which was a great touch! 👌🏻