Without a doubt, one of the worst books I’ve read in years. It’s 1 in a thousand for all the wrong reasons. Whoever wrote the jacket summary for the novel, should have plunged ahead and written the whole thing. Some thoughts on this “parallel universe” atrocity.

The vocabulary and sentence structure are pretentious and highly annoying. Did the author right click “synonyms” every other word while writing? “A voluptuousness reminiscent of an odalisque”.
Was fulgurant an SAT word the author failed at the time? I can’t think of any reason for it to be used so repetitively. Look at you and your big brain, graduating from Princeton.

Already telling the reader what the symbolism means in case it was lost on them. Persistently and constantly taking the reader outside of the story to admire the writer’s own prowess. Endless musing on what could be if only the protagonist had any sort of self-awareness. Ironic when you think about it.

I’m almost positive no editor touched this novel. That’s not true, I am sincerely hoping no editor touched it. The only interesting part was reading about the Iranian Revolution, and Wikipedia hands out that info already.

All told, a ham-fisted novel that’s best left behind. Perhaps the author always had a dream of writing the Next Great American Novel, and feels stifled in his law practice. I don’t know the motivation, but here’s to hoping that itch is scratched.

I received a copy via Netgalley in return for an honest review, for which I kindly thank them.

I was surprised by what I got, and I am sorry to say, but the novel is not quite what I had expected.

A summary on the backflap says:

From a desperate escape on horseback out of revolutionary Iran to the glittering nightclubs of Paris, from forbidden passion in the halls of Princeton to the high-stakes drama of a New York law practice, THE RIDDLE OF THE SPHINX achieves the rare feat of echoing long after the last page.

A psychological drama that unfolds through the lens of alternate realities, the novel explores free will, destiny and the many guises and disguises of an individual’s identity: A young boy in the elite social circle of the royal Iranian Pahlavi court in the 1970s suffers an abrupt disruption of his privileged life when the Shah and his 2,500-year-old monarchy fall. A Princeton scholar’s promising future is derailed by an obsessive love affair. A corporate lawyer at the pinnacle of his career at a prestigious New York law firm begins to question his picture-perfect life.

I found it hard to get into the story. Grandiloquent and strange use of language, and despite the interesting storyline, it took me quite a long time for me to finish the novel.
Interesting theme, but it just didn't worked out for me.
I am sorry, but not for me.

Wasn't sure what to make of this one from the description, but was intrigued enough to give it a request. It started brilliantly, and I was thoroughly enjoying it. I found the history of Iran fascinating, but that rather quickly devolved into what felt like a super-extended flashback, and that's when it lost me... It felt like the author couldn't quite decide what he wanted to write or how he wanted to frame it, and apparently he didn't get much help from his editor because this one meanders seemingly without purpose for a long time and then feels like a different story altogether when it resumes.

There's great promise, because as I said the beginning was excellent, but I really struggled with this one from a surprisingly early point given that excellence...

This was an interesting read for me. I enjoyed the story and was intrigued by the different culture. On the one hand, I loved that being so central to the story and it drew me in but on the other hand, it also became a bit too bogged down with details for someone unfamiliar with the nuances of the Middle East. Maybe if it were told in a less professorial way, it would have been easier to take in as part of the book as a whole. I think it took away from the flow of the plot instead of what I would imagine the intention was, which would be to inform Westerners about a different culture and that perspective. I think several of the storylines in the narrative were absolutely well-intended and needed voices in Western literature today and I do appreciate the effort.
Overall, my positive experience with this outweighs my negatives, so I would recommend this to other readers.

#TheRiddleOfTheSphinx #NetGalley

I began with great enthusiasm. The book wore me down. It became too didactic and complex. I lost the threads of the story and lost my way in it. I put it down and have yet to return to it.........

How do I begin a review of a novel that kept me captive from page one and didn’t release me until the very end? I didn’t want to break for work, family, friends, or anything. How can I do this book justice? Dear readers, I will try.

Eric (Keyvan) fled Iran as a child during the Islamic revolution and grew up in Paris. He later studied Comparative Literature at Princeton. That is one scenario. What would have happened if he was forced to stay in Iran? So much of one’s life (or death) is determined by a single decision or act made by either the individual or at the hands of someone else.

As a young boy he questioned his sexuality, but at Princeton he knew what he wanted…Mark. He was so obsessed with him that he couldn’t see any of the warning signs or even the bigger picture.


Whether it was an analysis of Proust’s La Recherche, or Gustave Flaubert’s Madame Bovary, Eric could discern the flaws of the characters and the reasons for their ultimate downfall, but he was unable to see this in his own life.

Now as a high-priced New York attorney in a loveless marriage, at age forty-four he is reevaluating his life and the decisions he has made. That is another scenario.

The Riddle of the Sphinx provides several possible outcomes and we keep asking ourselves, “What if…?” Though author Alexandre Montagu does get philosophical, he doesn’t belabor the points. That is, you can enjoy the story simply on its own.

Montagu provides an intelligent story-line without compromising the human or emotion. At all times he is completely aware of the unawareness of his characters. Each one is deftly portrayed, and the images are vivid.

We learn of the history of twentieth-century Iran and how it contributed to Eric’s identity. Events are described in detail, but they’re never mundane, whether from a personal or historical perspective.

There are so many layers to The Riddle of the Sphinx that it would be a perfect book club read. I am not exaggerating when I say that this is the best book I have read in a long time.

The book seemed to be 3 different stories. It begins with a young lad and his socially elite family finding themselves desperate to get out of Iran after the downfall of the Shah in the 70’s. At the end of this section the lad finds himself in love with one of his male classmates. Section two involves Eric in Princeton who is fanatical about his homosexual romance. This emotional episode found me skipping paragraphs and wondering why it was so important to the story.. The final section tells of a highly successful lawyer, married with kids. I cannot say it was one of my favourite stories although I did recognize the author’s excellent writing style,.

I didn't get beyond the first couple of pages. From the reviews I've seen there maybe is a good story, but I felt I was reading something written for an English exam. It was too laboured for me to continue. I normally plough on regardless, but unfortunately I just couldn't get past the writing style. Sorry!

I absolutely loved this book. From the outset it drew me in. I enjoyed how it jumped between different worlds using the same or similar characters. In places it perfectly captures young love and infatuation. An enjoyable and engaging read that also was informative about Iran pre and post Shah rule as well as the Ivy League in America. I would love to read more by this author.

Great read. The author wrote a story that was interesting and moved at a pace that kept me engaged. The characters were easy to invest in.

This book was not at all what I thought it would be and not my usual go to novel. I thought the premise of the book was very good. The description was interesting. The book, however, really failed to capture my interest. I felt that the descriptive adjectives were over used, forced and felt as if they came from a thesaurus. There were multiple run-on sentences and although it could be polished with editing, I’m not sure it would make the paragraphs easier to read. I am not endorsing a simplistic writing style but feel that in order to capture a broader span of readers, the book needed a more straight forward writing style.

I learned a great deal from reading this book. The author lays out the historical events that affect the present-day plot and characters, helping the reader make sense of the characters' motivations and actions.

Author Alexander Montagu has created a very unusual story but it is difficult to write a review about.

I often found it too detailed and it meandered too much - careful editing may overcome this aspect. While the main character Eric was interesting, he lacked depth and substance. The ending endeavoured to give Eric depth but to me the reflecting and philosophising added more confusion than clarity to the character and to the story.

Did I enjoy reading this story? Well I enjoyed parts of it but I must admit I struggled to read some parts finding the story over complicated. Long sections that seemed to go on too much detracted from the often interesting dialogue that was developed. While revelation came to Eric in the end, as a reader, it didn’t come to me as I was lost in a sea of mixed thoughts and philosophies, without being sure as to where the story had reached.

Despite the long winded story telling, the author has a readable style which just needs a little reigning in.


Thanks to Netgalley and publisher Persepolis Publishing for an ebook copy to read and review

Very interesting subject matter, told in an intricate manner that could have been confusing or disorienting, but ends up making perfect sense. The characters and their choices/problems feel real, and the locations are superb (in different time frames) - Iran, Paris, USA.

Because I did not know that this book was ordered on the premises of alternate realities, I initially found the Riddle of the Sphinx a bit confusing. The characters were very finely developed, the background of mixed cultures of Iran felt authentic and were described in language that was richly prosaic. I was fascinated by the lives of the characters in Iran, Paris, and Princeton but was distracted trying to figure out the relationships between the characters in the segments. When it finally dawned on me that the construct of the book was around shifting or alternate realities, it was as if a light turned on and everything made sense. This novel has tremendous depth and a keen understanding of how societal mores dictate one’s life path, or in this case lives paths. Riddle of the Sphinx was beautifully written and certainly psychologically revelatory of times and cultures very different from my life experiences. It was the most intellectually challenging novel I’ve read in quite some time. I consider it worthy of the categorization of literary fiction rather than simple fiction.

This should have been a much better book. There was so much promising material (a family fleeing revolution and adapting to expatriate life); there were intriguing literary devices (at least three alternate versions of the main character's life are spelled out); there was inherent conflict, both cultural and personal (Eric, the protagonist, seems at odds with his sexual orientation). There was, in short, so much potential.

My disappointment wasn't a matter of content, but of execution. Too often the story's flow screeched to a halt, braked by LONG expository passages, most notably in the opening chapters, dealing with the 1979 Iranian revolution, and in the final chapters, where we had a summary of the philosophical points the author might have made subtly without exposition, or might have trusted his readers to "get it." I was reminded of the 60-page philosophical sermon delivered by John Galt in Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged.

Alexandre Montagu is clearly an erudite person. But great modern literature relies on imagery, not vocabulary, to lift it above common fiction. And it didn't seem as if Montagu was trying for genre fiction either: although there were suspenseful moments, this was no thriller. And then there were those all-too-common academic phrases: "male polygamy was virtually abrogated" and "concomitant collapse of laws that maintained male hegemony" turned up in the same paragraph.

Sorry to nitpick, but I spent several hours of my life on something that didn't deliver what it promised. (Thanks to NetGalley for an advance readers copy.)

I chose to read The Riddle of the Sphinx because my family lived in Tehran during the timeframe of Keyvan/Eric’s childhood there and because I am currently—somewhat inadvertently—reading a bunch of “own voices” books and this book fit right in.

Montague uses the “sliding door” technique of showing alternate realities and divides the book, like the answer to the Sphinx’s riddle, into childhood, teen years, and full adulthood. Keyvan/Eric lives a privileged life in Tehran and attends an international school His family no longer practices Islam, and he’s never been in a mosque. While in school he has several same-sex experiences which are outlawed by Islam. When the Shah is deposed and Khomeini takes over the reins of government, Keyvan’s life changes. After his family’s escape from Tehran and their move to Paris, he then goes on to college at Princeton.

The Riddle of the Sphinx has pages and pages of historical information on Persian culture and the impact of Islam on it, including descriptions of the 2500 year rule of the Shah’s family. In addition, in the Princeton segments, there was a lot of description of Proust and his writings. Overall, these segments tended to tell rather than show and I frequently found myself skimming them.

On the other hand, the description of Keyvan/Eric with his various lovers was delightful to read, and Montagu gave very good description of Keyvan/Eric’s sexual awakening in the first two sections of the book. Later, when Eric has emerged fully as Eric and is a mature man with a wife and children and a top-notch career as lawyer, he is dissatisfied with where he ends in life. He grapples with his inner homoerotic desires and his current lifestyle. The final third of the book deals with how he handles this dissatisfaction with his life.

The book is quite character-driven as the reader sees Eric grow and mature as he struggles with his identity. The class of self versus culture and the reaction to life-altering adversity should have driven the novel forward. Unfortunately, there is a lot of pedantic narration that reads textbook-dry.

What a fabulous tale of a boy escaping to manhood, while at the same time escaping from one world to another, in more ways than one. Every page was full of beautiful picturesque prose that kept me enthralled to the very end.

I was unable to continue reading this book to the end. Therefore, I will not review it. I could not get into it. Perhaps this book is just not for me. I hate to give a bad review but I could not stand the writing style.

I didn’t really know anything about Iran, so I found the first part of the book quite interesting, as Keyvan and his mother tried and finally left the country. Then the book kind of became more ordinary to me and didn’t hold my interest as much as that first part.