RaveZyzzyva\"There is something both freeing and unsettling about the prose of Sphinx. Though the sentiments at the heart of the novel are universal–love, passion, and melancholy–the agents of such feelings are strikingly absent, phantom-like forms that refuse to be pinned to the page and examined as specimens … Garréta’s mastery is in never committing to one allusion or formation, like the mythological sphinx. Subsequently, she avoids didacticism, while still hinting at moral and philosophical dilemmas. From the very beginning, the story is framed as a symbolic fall from grace … A modestly thin book, the novel reveals a cavernous depth. This profundity emerges less from the subject matter than from the way it is told, although, as we will see, language ultimately affects its content in surprising ways. The fact is that Sphinx is at its core an extremely ambitious experiment pushing the boundaries of language.\
