- Paperback: 208 pages
- Publisher: Faber and Faber (8 Jan 2001)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0571205895
- ISBN-13: 978-0571205899
- Product Dimensions: 21.3 x 13.5 x 1.5 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 740,834 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Description
Amazon.co.uk Review
When is the absurd not absurd? When the story is chronicled by Jonathan Lethem. In As She Climbed Across the Table, Lethem again manages to take the strangest of set-ups and make them seem commonplace--so much so that, despite the high concepts (Motherless Brooklyn was about a Tourettes-suffering gangster/private eye and Girl in Landscape was a sci-fi coming-of-age story), his books are masterpieces of human characterisation..
The (ostensible) premise of As She Climbed Across the Table concerns the discovery of a hole in the universe by Professor Alice Coombs, and the effect of the discovery on the campus on which she works. A physicist, Coombs and her department create a hole in the universe--a hole that is defined by its complete lack of tangible qualities. As she and her department explore their discovery, they anthropomorphitise it: Alice comes to ascribe a personality to "Lack"; it is this relationship and the effect it has on Coombs' partner, Philip Engstrand (a sociologist who studies the community of academics around him), that the book revolves around. Told from Engstrand's point of view, it is a fantastic tale told without wonder--think Don DeLillo, especially White Noise, another tale of the everyday absurd set on a college campus--and it's all the richer for it. --Randy Silver
Review
'This is a very clever book, with virtuoso ideas and a confident delivery. We shall, I hope, hear much more from this delightfully original writer.' The Times
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
6 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I read Jonathan Lethem's 'Motherless Brooklyn' last year and I was really excited to see 'As she Climbed Across the Table'. Lethem is brilliant at playing with ideas and the words used to express them, but is also an excellent storyteller so that the ideas come to life and inhabit his writing as strongly as his characters do. This novel uses a bizarre physics experiment and people's reaction to 'Lack', the anthropomorphised result, as a way into talking about unrequited love, blindness in all sorts of senses, and our perceptions of the world around us. Lethem writes with a lightness that makes the read a pleasure, while drawing out concepts that kept hitting me as I read, so that by the end I felt almost exhausted, physically and emotionally. This is a book that made me look at the world in a new way as I read, and that makes it a fantastic novel. I recommend this and 'Motherless Brooklyn' to anyone who loves writers who play with language to reveal more about the world while telling a story that keeps the reader engaged.
Format:Paperback
I remember standing in the aisle of a Mr. Paperback bookstore, science fiction section, still in my "Dragonlance" phase in high school. On the shelf, I noticed a book with a picture of a detective with a mirror laid out in front of him, fat lines of drugs, and a kangaroo in the corner. It was called "Gun, With Occasional Music". I bought it immediately, and fell in love with Jonathan Lethem. A few years later, never having spotted any of his other books in the meantime, I found a copy of "As She Climbed Across the Table" in the Bennington College Bookstore (Lethem, incidentally, is a Bennington alum). I bought it immediately, not even glancing at the back for a synopsis. I read it all that night. I had lost a girlfriend recently when I bought this book. I felt like underlining every word of love and loss that was uttered by the lead character. The emotion was deep, the words were beautiful, and it was such a sweet love story told in such an unusual way (i.e., not sappy or stupid), that it was a chill salve for my love-wounds. Lethem is a genius. "As She Cimbed Across the Table" is a must-read for any romantic, as well as anyone looking for a keen satire on the academic life. Bravo and hear hear! I've already told everyone I know about it, and bought a copy for a special girl.
2 of 4 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
My girlfriend loved this... I thought it was okay--a fast read, a bit odd, defintely not like other stuff I read. We (my girlfriend and I) exchanged the books we had just read. She gave me this, and I gave her Watership Down. I think she got the better end of the deal... she thought I got the better end. *smile*
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
dissapointing
Being vaguely interested in physics made reading this book quite difficult to stomach, don't get me started on the hatred of science that the main character seems to express on... Read more
Published 22 months ago by Gray
Quirky but not really satisfying
An interesting idea about human relationships with non-human objects, but the book doesn't really grab. It feels a bit like a short story that has gone on too long. Read more
Published on 12 Feb 2006 by Jezza
Stunning
I love the prose in this book, the sheer beauty of language he brings across. The ideas are very compelling, and the characters are memorable. Read more
Published on 10 Jun 1999
relationship counseling from the Nth dimension.
Make that four stars if the subject matter really appeals to you. The book is carefully crafted, and reflects the general care Letham takes with his novels. Read more
Published on 4 Sep 1998
I laughed, I cried, I bought two more copies for friends.
A fresh, original look at boy-meets-girl, deconstructionism-meets-particle physics, the animal rights movement-meets-the black hole. Read more
Published on 7 Aug 1998
A bizzare, yet strangely touching, love story
It's been a while since I read a book that at once struck me as so bizzare and wonderful at once. The strangeness of the premise - boy meets girl, girl meets void, boy loses girl -... Read more
Published on 14 May 1998
Makes Reading Fun
It's been too long since reading a novel has actually been fun. Lethem rakes everyone in Academe, and they all deserve it. Especially enjoy his language and sheer joy with words. Read more
Published on 9 Mar 1998
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