Cover Image: The Riddle of the Sphinx

The Riddle of the Sphinx

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Member Reviews

I found the writing in this book basic, repetitive and unengaging. The characters are unconvincing, the dialogue artificial and the narrative tedious. The first section is mildly promising but then it becomes bogged down in unnecessary details, clichés and repetition. There is very little tension, conflict or intrigue. I found the ending more than a little pompous.

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Thank you to the publisher for allowing me to read and review this ARC. Full review to be found on Goodreads and on my website.

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I wanted to enjoy this book but found it difficult to read. I'm sure there are readers who will connect more with it than I did.

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This book defines stays with you. This book follows the life of a man who grew up very privileged in the 1970's in Iran, through early adulthood at Princeton in the 80's and his life as a corporate lawyer as an adult. This book explores finding oneself, exploring ones sexuality, and becoming the person who you were meant to become. The only part that really threw me was how choppy the different section of his life were written. There wasn't a smooth transition and it felt like you leaped from one point in his life to the next.

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This book read like an act of self-indulgent vanity on the author's part. It was also in desperate need of a heavy-handed editor with no ego involved in the editorial process. I could not finish it.

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There were times this book was very confusing. At the end, I went back and reread a few places and finally understood what had happened. I think the beginning was much better than the end. It's basically a "what if your life had turned out a different way" book. It was fragmented and hard to follow at times. I think the writer is good and I would be interested to read some of their other books, I just think this book wasn't for me.
Thank you NetGalley for the chance to read this book. and give an honest review.

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"The Riddle of the Sphinx" was not quite what I expected, but it was a good book. The protagonist, Eric, is a partner in a major New York City law firm and has just completed a major deal for the firm when he runs into an old acquaintance from Iran, who mentions the fates of some childhood friends, including Farhad, with whom he had first experienced the mystery of same-sex attraction. The story then switches to Iran in the 1970s and the childhood of Eric (Keyvan), whose family is well-to-do and has connections to the Shah and his family. When the Islamic Revolution occurs, some of his family is forced to flee. The author does a wonderful job of portraying the confusion, uncertainty, fear, and radical changes that the Revolution brought about, the failure of the Shah and his officials to recognize what they were facing until it was too late, and how the Revolution tore apart and transformed friendships and relationships.

The story then switches to Princeton where Eric is attending college, studying literature, with an emphasis on French literature. However, most of the college years focuses on his exploration of his sexuality and an ill-fated relationship with a fellow student at a time, the mid-1980s, when homosexuality was still largely hidden, it was particularly verboten in Iranian society, and the AIDS epidemic was gaining prominence, so keeping his sexual preference hidden was especially important (even more so for his partner, Mark). The book ends by returning to the present day and Eric experiencing an "awakening" of sorts.

While the book is a "coming of age" story in some respects, it is much more than that. Eric becomes so infatuated with Mark and their relationship that anything that calls into question the relationship (such as Mark's hesitancy at times and the precautions he takes to keep his secret hidden) leaves him essentially unhinged. As a result, he fails to recognize how his behavior is affected himself and his existing friendships, which will ultimately be his temporary undoing. The author utilizes the literature and philosophy that Eric has studied and is studying as a commentary on the persona of Eric, with multiple comments about how, if Eric was thinking clearly, he would recognize that he was falling into some of the same traps as great literary figures. Also, when Eric or others are discussing aspects of the books and characters they are studying and what the author was trying to convey, Eric or his classmates, at times, are describing themselves with realizing it. At the heart of the story is that we are often blinded to who we really are, being distracted by a combination of external events and internal confusion.

I received a copy of the e-book from NetGalley in exchange for a review.

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Loved the reality-based parts in this book.... fascinating, tragic, engrossing... but the dream world stuff was distracting. Still, when I finished reading the very last page, this story stayed with me, hard to forget. Thank you for the read!

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I got a couple pages into the book and had to put it down. The writing style was jarring and uninteresting. Time skipped around and I could tell I already was not going to be interested in both the characters and the plot. This novel simply was not for me.

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A very well written story - an escape from the Iran at the time of the downfall of the Shah - with plenty of historical detail. The book needs the reader's attention as the story combines illusions with reality and the alternative histories arising from small decisions. Well-written and gripping.

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This is book is average. I never felt like I could connect with the character and instead got lost in a vocabulary lesson. The author is wordy but not descriptive. His language choices make one pause to comprehend the word choice and lose the smoothness of the reading the sentence. I am not against highly descriptive vocabulary and love to learn a new word; however, if I feel that each sentence is disrupted by a word that could have used a better, more common synonym then it is too much. I was a distraction that took away from enjoying the story.

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Based on Buddhist ideas, this is a deeply philosophical novel that I found rather too intelligent for its own good. The narrative style is unusual in that it diverges in the three narratives, showing different paths that the characters could have taken, which can be a little confusing. All of the narratives are concerning men struggling with homosexuality but I though the author's approach was reminiscent of the kind of morality type novels where the reader is warned that relationships of this kind can only come to a bad or unhappy end! Certainly the relationships are described in the most unerotic ways and skimmed over as much as possible. I found myself getting frustrated by all the padding - too many characters, lack of focus on plot and characters. I think there are much better litfic books out there which are more readable and less likely to make you feel dense and unsatisfied by the end!

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Sometimes stepping outside one's comfort zone for reading works and sometimes it just doesn't. This is a case of the latter I'm afraid. The book is historically structured comprising of three major periods in the central character's life. Each is largely self-contained and is written in a style that is easily grasped. As other reviewers have noted, it provides an interesting insight into pre-revolution Persia and the collapse of the regime overseen by the Shah. Seen through a child's eyes from a position of affluence through to exile, the first part of the story is probably the most rewarding. The issues in later time periods provide a reflection on gey love and how it fits within the timeframe.

At times it was difficult to differentiate the central character from significant others around him as the point of view was not always clear. Nevertheless, there is strong characterisation as well as contextualisation to make the story meaningful.

The pace is slow, there is a steady progression between scenes with occasional periods of tension, but this isn't a story but rather it conforms to the style of autobiography.

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I received this book from netgalley, and wanted to submit a more thorough honest review than I normally do. The book was probably more a 3.5 than a 4.

This book does explore many concepts that I am intrigued with currently, particularly east thought, and the state of the current financial/cultural climate. I was warmed most by his description of Iran just before the Revolution. I think an exploration of how different choices we make alter our lives could have been done better. It was still enjoyable to read. It is interesting how narratives shift and change, we see an imagine in today’s society of who terrorists are but not how they are made.

What I find most fascinating and the aspects are were most drawn to are how the story of how religion is warped by people to gain power and control to move people to go against their nature to act in ways that are generally antithetical to personal beliefs if not a total offense to actual scriptural texts.

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A good read that didn't quite live up to my (high) expectations.

I was drawn to this book by the protagonist's Iranian childhood, Princeton education, NYC legal career. What an amazing life trajectory. And as other reviewers have noted, we Americans don't get a lot of fiction dealing with Iranian American characters.

And yet this novel went very slooooowly for me. I just wasn't that drawn in by the plot or the writing. Lots of telling, not enough showing, especially in the romantic and sexual aspects of the story.

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Absolutely brilliant book, the best first-time read for a while. Very well written, not a dull moment, and ended up being a very different story than it felt throughout. Mesmerising!

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Thank you NetGalley for the advance read copy of this book in exchange for a fair and honest review.

This is the story of Kevyan/Eric and three points in his life. He grew up in Tehran right before the revolution and what it was like when it was time to get out. We then see him at Princeton for College trying to find himself and love. Lastly we see him as an adult 30 years later, successful, married with daughters.

This book is leaving me scratching my head. I am not sure if I liked it or not. It is not a light read, but not a heavy read either. If you go by the definition of a good book being something that touches you on some level - whether laughter, fear, insightfulness, etc - then this was a good book. I did feel like it was a college thesis paper turned into a novel, yet I was able to take away some nuggets that made me think and reflect and for that, I feel it was a good book.

The main character is well formed, the secondary characters are not as evolved but serve their purpose.

If this review reads with ambiguity, that is because, after digesting what I read and sleeping on it, I am still at odds. Perhaps some may even construe that as a sign of a good book.

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I sincerely wanted to like this book but I feel this story is still very much in rough draft form. The constant interruptions of expository passages make the story line fragmented and frustrate the reader. The history elements were fascinating but I wish they were better woven in the story line. Finally, the ending left me cold and felt like a college essay.

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The Riddle of the Sphinx by Alexandre Montagu was given to me thru Net Galley for an honest review. The Riddle of the Sphinx was truly a unique, wonderful, thrilling, and at times, heartbreaking novel. When first meeting Keyvan, we get the backdrop of the dramatic change in Iran. Keyvan and his family flee out of Iran, as he tries to navigate thru the changes around him, he must also learn to navigate his own heart. The next chapter in this wondrous book, Eric is an undergraduate at Princeton University. Eric tries to put aside of the uneasiness of the sexual feelings that he has for one of his classmates, and no longer can brush them aside. Eric understands that how he feels is normal, despite the fact others feel they must hide them (their sexuality) for it is forbidden for them to love someone of the same sex. The third chapter in The Riddle of the Sphinx, Eric has a very secure job with a very prestigious law firm, but beneath all of that, he is not truly who he is suppose to be. Once again, Eric is fighting against himself, but he is hurting the very people around him, including himself. Eric's journey continues with him realizing that he should not punish himself for the way he feels, his choices(or the lack there of), and take it out on the very people around him. I love this book because it pulls at me, it challenges me, not to mention the underlying meanings within the book. Thank you Alexandre Montagu for writing this novel, and taking me on Eric's journey.

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2.5 "sincere, embryonic, convoluted" stars !!

Thank you to Netgalley, the author and Persepolis Publishing for a copy of the book in exchange for a review.

This is a difficult review to write as I read a highly unfinished book still in very early stages of development. The book should not have been published as is. This book had the potential to be a four or five star book full of passion, historical interest and life wisdoms. Instead I read a book that was extremely sincere but severely lacking in cohesiveness, inconsistent writing and possessed too many disparate ideas for a book of this length.

The plotlines in parts one and two had potential to be extremely fascinating. Part one told of a wealthy family's struggles with the rise of the Ayottolah Khomeini and the fall of the Shah in Iran. The second part was the discovery of deep and beautiful gay love at Princeton University. Both stories were told in a flat and linear fashion and the characters were never allowed to meander, develop and truly grow. The third part of the book was such a mess that I am not sure if it should even remain. The dream sequences were so contrived and the discovery of Buddhist profundities was extremely far fetched.

This book deserves to be edited, reworked, edited again, workshopped and then presented to the world again. I do believe that that there is a ruby here but alas it has yet to be mined.

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