I'm going to be very vague as I write about Sphinx, out of respect for the introduction of my copy, written by Daniel Levin Becker, which advises the reader who does not already know the unspoken constraint in Sphinx "to do everything in your power to stay ignorant for a while longer: sheathe the front and back covers of the book in kraft paper, avoid discussing it with booksellers, and don't read any reviews unless you're confident that they were written by lousy inattentive critics.*" (Fwiw, the front cover of my edition is harmless; the back cover not.) And, with this injunction to say little, I fear I won't be able to say much at all.
I did like the book quite a bit. I somehow expected it to be a slow or difficult read – it was not, at all. It's a first person narrative about love, and loss, and grief, and coming to terms with loss eventually. It's also about the one-sidedness of relationships, how we can sometimes fail to really see the people we love. This part spoke to me especially.
The translator's note at the end is a must-read as well. The book was written with a constraint that manifests differently in French than in English. The translator's explanation of how she handled this was fascinating (at least to me).
*This last is a jab at the reviewer who read Perec's La Disparition and failed to notice the complete absence of Es.
