Sphinx

Set in present-day London, Rome, and Leningrad, Stalin's Moscow, and the St. Petersburg of the czars, this novel centers on the cold war between truth and lies

Sphinx is the third in Thomas's trilogy of Russian novels, following Ararat ( LJ 3/1/83) and Swallow ( LJ 11/15/83) . Its fragmented plot concerns a Welsh journalist named Lloyd George and his obsession with a mysterious, sphinxlike woman whom he meets while traveling through Russia in 1982. George both hopes and fears that Nadia may be a "swallow," a KGB operative whose mission is to seduce visiting Westerners. If she is, at least he will get to sleep with her! The book itself is a sphinxlike puzzle that is part screenplay, part novel, and part poem, with Thomas paying allusive homage to the ghost of Pushkin throughout. Whether the digressive text forms a coherent whole or is merely a clever pastiche of things Russian is not immediately clear. Nevertheless, Thomas's many fans will line up for this one, and even newcomers will be seduced. Edward B. St. John, Loyola Marymount Univ. Lib., Los Angeles
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