By Amari Leiva-Urzua
He, She, They. What about ‘I’?
As we go through the season of Mardi Gras, the topic of gender complexity always seems to bubble to the surface.
Throughout history, gender has been defined, redefined, and now undefined through the arts, one of the most subtle mediums being literature. From texts such as Virginia Woolf’s Orlando: A biography, Jeanette Winterson’s Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit, to the Netflix-adapted sensation ‘Heartstopper’, books have reflected society’s need for gender freedom.
Nevertheless, none of these novels have been able to execute the gender ambiguity of Anne Garréta’s novella Sphinx, first published in French in 1986 and translated to English in 2016.
Anne Garréta is the first and only LGBTQI+ member of the prestigious French literary circle, the OuLiPo. Authors in this circle are known for writing novels that deliberately include a literary constraint.
For instance, Georges Perec wrote his novel The Disappearance (La Disparition), without ever using the letter ‘e.’ Garréta, taking on this tradition, decided to eliminate her characters’ gender entirely from her novella while writing in French, a naturally gendered language.
Garréta, as part of the LGBTQI+ community, grew up as part of a minority in French society. As she recalls in an interview with Sarah Gerard for The Paris Review, she always felt a “determination to upend the system of gender in language … do something transgressive”.
At the time she wrote Sphinx she was a full-time DJ in Paris nightclubs. It was this exposure to nightclub culture that inspired her to explore the “feeling of being in common”, of blurred boundaries between bodies and in relationships, she said.
It is this feature that makes Sphinx unique because, unlike other LGBTQI+ books that lean towards portraying gender fluidity, Garréta uses the first-person pronoun ‘I’ and anonymity to blur the boundaries of gender.
Recounting a riveting love story between the unnamed narrator, a theology student, and A***, an African-American cabaret dancer from Harlem, Garréta manages to conceal the gender of both these characters.
In doing so, she allows all readers – binary, LGBTQI+, gender-fluid and gender-neutral – to identify with the characters, bridging the gap of difference and marginalisation while promoting gender acceptance.
To read the story is not only to be plunged into a romantic Parisian landscape of nightclubs and cabaret, but to realise how much we, as readers, depend on knowing the gender of the characters.
Unconsciously you will be looking for clues to decipher the narrator’s and their lover’s gender through their appearance, actions, movements, words. All the things that carry stereotypical suggestions of gender.
Garréta covers her tracks well, playing with these archetypes and leading the reader to believe a character might be female before inserting a masculine trope, only to be confused once more by another feminine feature.
“The danger comes when you think you’ve figured it [the gender] out,” said Garreta. “You’re very likely to fall flat on your face.”
This gender ambiguity allows for a freedom of expression and identification. As writer Joseph Schreiber emphasises in the blog series Why This Book Should Win, Sphinx provides an “open reading experience” where the reader “can choose gender, sex, and sexuality as desired”.
So, this month, make sure to add Sphinx to your reading list – no matter if you’re a He, She or They – because this book fits all.
Featured image: Anne Garréta’s novella Sphinx is a gender-neutral romance set within Parisian nightlife. Photos: Amari Leiva-Urzua/Marc Barrrot/CC/Flickr
