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A review by precy
Sphinx by Anne Garréta
2.0
I thought about giving 3 stars, but the second half of the book was too bad! First, I read it in French, so it’s interesting to see the challenge of writing without attributing gender to the main characters and the author did that in a very smart way! Other than that you know very well who is who, cause the gender is not in the grammar, but it’s in the behaviour, in the way the main characters are treated in the different spaces, no woman would go through some situations with the same facility as one of the characters!
Now, my main issues: certainly the author did not think that a black person one day would read such an “intellectual” book, she was wrong! I did the exercise to think about the French mindset at the time she wrote it, but even though some things aged badly to be very nice. I thought maybe it was written like this causa the main character was a French bourgeois and it reflected this social group mindset, but the last pages just make me think, ok the author has the same issue.
Other than that, the romance was poor! Tell my why the main character was in love with A*** other than their awesome sexy body? By the end I didn’t know any relevant thing about A*** other than their career, their amazing dance skills, the lack of interest for art (because apparently dance is not art) and that it was a Afro American person. The love for her is not explained, it sounds only as sexual obsession cause A*** was the opposite, the unacceptable by the society… in the end you don’t care what happen with them. I could care less!
I saw in many comments “you can feel yourself in the Parisian night life”, you couldn’t been wrong, I lived in Paris for 10 years, and other than know the Eden was around Pigalle, many times I felt lost in space and time, I was trying to understand where the story was happening, and it sounded so not right many times. And last comment, all the philosophical part of the book was a big NO! It was in a moment that I didn’t care with the main character anymore and it looked only like words with no purpose only to fill the paper.
Now, my main issues: certainly the author did not think that a black person one day would read such an “intellectual” book, she was wrong! I did the exercise to think about the French mindset at the time she wrote it, but even though some things aged badly to be very nice. I thought maybe it was written like this causa the main character was a French bourgeois and it reflected this social group mindset, but the last pages just make me think, ok the author has the same issue.
Other than that, the romance was poor! Tell my why the main character was in love with A*** other than their awesome sexy body? By the end I didn’t know any relevant thing about A*** other than their career, their amazing dance skills, the lack of interest for art (because apparently dance is not art) and that it was a Afro American person. The love for her is not explained, it sounds only as sexual obsession cause A*** was the opposite, the unacceptable by the society… in the end you don’t care what happen with them. I could care less!
I saw in many comments “you can feel yourself in the Parisian night life”, you couldn’t been wrong, I lived in Paris for 10 years, and other than know the Eden was around Pigalle, many times I felt lost in space and time, I was trying to understand where the story was happening, and it sounded so not right many times. And last comment, all the philosophical part of the book was a big NO! It was in a moment that I didn’t care with the main character anymore and it looked only like words with no purpose only to fill the paper.