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    As She Climbed Across the Table
    As She Climbed Across the Table
    As She Climbed Across the Table
    Audiobook5 hours

    As She Climbed Across the Table

    Written by Jonathan Lethem

    Narrated by David Aaron Baker

    3.5/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    Philip is in love with Alice. As the novel opens, he is beginning to lose her. Not to another man, as he fears, but to, literally, nothing. Alice is a physicist, and a team at the University where both she and Philip work has created a hole, a vacuum, a doorway of nothingness inside the laboratory. They call it "Lack." Alice becomes obsessed with Lack, as Philip is obsessed by Alice.

    The novel is at the same time an astute and wise portrait of unrequited love (albeit of a very unusual kind) a hilarious academic parody, a book of ideas and a social satire. It is utterly original, but in the school of Thomas Pynchon, Don DeLillo, Katherine Dunn, and David Foster Wallace.

    Passion, humor, yearning and knowledge, blended together in a suspenseful love story that could be characterized as "American Magical Realism."
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio Publishing Group
    Release dateSep 4, 2007
    ISBN9780739357255
    As She Climbed Across the Table
    Author

    Jonathan Lethem

    Jonathan Lethem is the bestselling author of thirteen novels, including Brooklyn Crime Novel, The Feral Detective, and Motherless Brooklyn, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award. His five story collections include Men and Cartoons and Lucky Alan, and his short fiction has appeared in the New Yorker, Harper’s Magazine, and the Paris Review, among other publications, garnering a Pushcart Prize, a World Fantasy Award, and inclusion in The Best American Short Stories. He lives in Los Angeles and Maine.

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    Reviews for As She Climbed Across the Table

    3.5/5

    377 ratings15 reviews

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    • 4/5

      Apr 4, 2024

      Read this on audio. It was a random pick when I was searching thru Libby for a new audiobook. I like Lethem a lot, and this was one I hadn't heard of before. Its a short (under 6 hours) but weird tale that is essentially a love triangle story where Philip is in love with his physicist girlfriend Alice, but he is losing her, not to another man, but to nothing. Actually nothing, an anomaly in a lab, a hole, or perhaps a doorway, that they call "Lack". Is it sentient, or is there someone on the other side? Philip doesn't know and he's very concerned for Alice. One of his early works. Third, after Gun, with Occasional Music and Amnesia Moon. A very odd, but enjoyable read
    • 3/5

      Sep 12, 2022

      My first Lethem, and totally not what I was expecting. I did not realize that he started out writing sci-fi, so this book was a surprise. It is also quite funny--I rarely find books that are supposed to be funny actually funny, but I very much enjoy the tongue-in-cheek humor Lethe, offers up here. His graduate student studying the gravity-related injuries of athletes? Hilarious.

      Was this great? No. But it was a fairly quick enjoyable read, a nice break from the more serious (and drier) things I have been reading of late.

      Also, is this University of North California at Beauchamp meant to be Cal? Or a clone of Cal in this other world? Or just a mishmash place of public universities?
    • 4/5

      Jul 31, 2014

      Reading this book was a sometimes emotional experience to me because I related a little too much for the character of Alice--I know all too well what it's like to love something in the way that you want it to swallow you whole. I didn't like the protagonist too much so that took me out of the book some, but overall, an interesting story that raised some questions in my head about the nature of reality and of consciousness.
    • 3/5

      Feb 8, 2014

      At times this book amused me, and at times it annoyed me. I think it is a book best read in the years right after its publication, because it feels now, a dozen years on, to be too caught up in a trend that may have overstayed its welcome: the literary exploration of the scientific. Unlike more conventional science-fiction that might take on a bit of the far-out or futuristic in its exploration of themes, this is a story that is about the story of physics and the physics of story. It is wrapped up in itself in a way that gives rise to things both interesting and a bit claustrophobic. It will not stop. It runs almost perpetually on its own cleverness. It failed to be as fun as it was trying to be, and that's too bad, because I think Lethem is a good writer and has worked out some interesting ideas here. But I also don't want to read novels about notions. I want to be more interested in characters than this kind of satire can allow me to do. I want motivations not to be stand-ins for something other than true, explicable, understandable desires. Not all the time, but at least half the time, and more than half the time, I didn't really know why anyone in this novel wanted any of the things that made them go. They were all just parts of a machine that was intended to move a certain way and to keep me interested by how dizzy it made me. But then when I stopped looking at it, I kind of wished I hadn't eaten all that cotton candy.
    • 3/5

      Dec 15, 2013

      This is the first book by Lethem that I read. I enjoyed the pseudo-physics and the non-stop academic cynicism and cynical academics. Philip, the main character of the book, is very well constructed. You understand him. You hear his thoughts, you listen to his conversations, and you know how he is feeling at any given moment. The world is filtered through Philip. The world is interpreted by Philip. So at the end of the book, when Braxia explains his theory about Lack, and even later, when Philip and Lack are one, we can look back and re-read the world Philip has already defined for us, constructed with his ample chatter, his intellectual observations, and his obsessive search for Alice - aptly named for another Alice, lost in a rabbit's hole, an endless pit, Lack - and we can fully appreciate how we construct reality. (Funny, this makes even more sense after reading about the correspondence and difference between one's own reality and the shared common reality and how humans come to learn the difference in Kathryn Schultz' Being Wrong. Lack, the error, defines and constructs a world, or many worlds. Now I am beginning to make non-sense sense.)

      But something is missing here. Perhaps I wanted more to know about how and why Alice fell in love with the void. I felt like Lethem or Philip tried to explain this to me many times, but failed? Or I was not convinced by any of their banter? I am not sure.

      All in all, it was an enjoyable read. Philip sounds a lot like what I sound like in my head, so I had no trouble following him through winding chains of thought. But those who do not like wordy, witty, and sometimes tiring chatter might find Philip a bit too much.
    • 4/5

      May 20, 2013

      This is the first of Lethem’s novels that can be accurately described as one, rather than a stretched out short story or a crudely pasted together amalgamation of short stories. As She Climbed Across The Table concerns a love-lorn anthropologist, Phillip, whose physicist girlfriend Alice has become obsessed with a wormhole dubbed “Lack” which has been created in her physics department at a California university. Lack is notable for making certain random objects disappear, while others pass right through it. Phillip becomes increasingly concerned at Alice’s obsession with Lack, which he suspects is bordering on romantic infatuation.

      I wouldn’t call this a satirical novel, as others have, though it certainly pokes a lot of fun at various academic pursuits, and academia and university life in general. This is the first of Lethem’s novels which is ostensibly set in the real world, but although the speculative element – a manufactured wormhole, not so different to what’s going on at CERN – is easy to swallow, it later develops into events which, while fascinating, made the book quite surreal. It’s a love story, and while I wasn’t particularly wrapped up in it, I never had trouble believing it.

      That’s one of Lethem’s great qualities – he’s always totally in control of his prose, even if his story comes off the rails a bit. It reminds me quite a lot of the early novels of Michael Chabon, about which I said that Chabon was already a master writer, just not a master storyteller. Both writers have prose good enough that I’m willing to forgive the overall pointlessness of some of their novels. The closest word, I guess, is “readable,” though that implies shallowness and ease of reading, which isn’t quite what I mean.

      Both authors are also adept at perfectly capturing human thoughts and emotions and discussions. Their characters are perpetually thinking things they aren’t saying, and analysing their train wreck conversations in real time while pretending everything is fine. I like it. It’s realistic. It reminds me of how I (and, I presume, everyone else) think about how I stumble through life without ever actually articulating it, even in my head.

      Anyway. I’m enjoying reading through Lethem’s early novels, even if I wouldn’t necessarily recommend them. Next up is Girl in Landscape, followed by the first of his books that’s actually well-known, Motherless Brooklyn.
    • 4/5

      Apr 6, 2013

      Reading this early Lethem book, I was struck by how many of his books explore the nature of love--not his only concern but certainly one he returns to now and then. A gracious, clever, funny and sad novel.
    • 4/5

      May 12, 2012

      I enjoyed Lethem's use of academic speak to describe the narrator's world, his emotions. As an academic, I loved the romanticization of the language. (Some people find this type of book, like Special Topics in Calamity Physics to be "pedantic," or they find themselves put off by the writing. I did not find it pedantic or myself put off, not in the least. You might.)

      This isn't a dense read, or a deep read... It is a lyrical read, and a sometimes witty read. A quick, quiet read.
    • 3/5

      Jan 16, 2011

      If this were a movie, Netflix would classify it as a “quirky romantic comedy.” Lethem’s “As She climbed across the Table,” is the story of a love triangle involving a man, a woman, and a physics experiment. Philip Engstrand is an anthropology professor who conducts research on the behavior of interdisciplinary scholars, thereby earning the nickname “Dean of Interdiscipline” or “Interdean” for short. Alice Coombs is a high-energy particle physicist, who works in that hardest of sciences with the senior Dr. Soft. The triangle is completed by Lack, an artificial black hole that Soft has created. Lack is no ordinary black hole, though; he is selective in what he consumes into his infinite density. Strawberries, light bulbs, argyle socks, yes, but bow ties and aluminum foil, no. Alice attributes intelligence to Lack on this basis of his selectivity, and falls deeply in love with him, determined to have him consumer her.

      Quirky enough yet? Amongst the other characters in this book are a pair of blind men who are forever synchronizing their watches and confirming their location (“ “We’re three blocks from the pay phone,’ said the first. ‘Correction,’ said the second, ‘Four blocks from the bus stop.’ ‘The pay phone and the bus stop are two blocks apart.’ ‘I think we’re speaking of two different payphones.’” They share a therapist, Cynthia Jalter, who specializes in obsessive coupling and dual cognitive systems. Adding to this cast of characters is Carmo Braxia, the suave Italian physicist brought in by Soft to help analyze Lack, and Georges de Tooth, the university’s resident deconstructionist who attempts to interpret Lack as pure text.

      This book is at its best when presenting a parody of academia, for example when describing the rearsch of one of Engstand’s graduate students, who “had applied for funding to study the geographic spray of athletes on a playing field following an injury. He wanted to understand the disbursement of bodies around the epicenter of the wounded player, the position of the medics and coaches, and the sympathy or skepticism implicit in the stances chosen. All taking into account the seriousness of the injury, the score in the match when it occurred, the value of the player injured.” Amongst this students’ findings are that “[s]ubjects who express sympathy at a teammate’s fall are sixty-eight percent likelier to sustain a treatable gravity-related injury in the same game.”

      Alas, in the end, the parody is limited to snippets, and the rest of the book doesn’t go sufficiently far beyond being quirky. It’s an enjoyable, quick read, but unlikely to be the kind of book that you think much about after you finish it.
    • 4/5

      Aug 13, 2010

      Alice Coombs is the modern and adult version of Alice in Wonderland. But instead of falling down a rabbit hole, she becomes irresistibly attracted to a black hole that was created in her physics lab. This hole, anthropomorphized as Lack, exhibits a personality in the form of which objects it ('he') will consume and which are rejected. So Alice falls in love with this scientific curiosity, and it's making her boyfriend Philip understandably jealous. But as suspicions are aroused that they're 'leading the witness' by interpreting Lack's selectivity as personality, Alice becomes more and more enthralled with Lack. The only flaw in their romance is that he refuses to swallow her up. She's tried.

      So As She Climbed Across the Table is a light academic satire, given that Alice becomes caught up in her work as near to literally as possible. The critique of academia questions the possibility of objectivity, and whether observers can possibly actually observe without bias. At one point, a literature professor steps in to offer the liberal arts reader response approach: "In this field we speak of the text, in this case Lack, as possessing an independent life, free of context. The idea is that any given text contains its own decryption kit, if we approach it free of bias." The absurdity of it all, studying and interpreting and falling in love with 'nothing,' skewers the liberal arts, soft sciences, and hard sciences in one fell swoop. Nice.
    • 3/5

      Jun 9, 2010

      Strange. Very strange. That’s what I thought about Jonathan Lethem’s story about Lack. If you want to know what Lack is, it’s nothing. You see, there was a university laboratory in which physicists were doing an experiment and almost ended up with another universe. The problem was that there was a lack of it being complete. Instead, there remained just an opening. No one was sure into what. Another universe? A complete void?

      This must sound odd. More odd yet is the fact that Alice Coombs, girlfriend of Professor Philip Engstrand, falls in love with Lack. Lack’s nothing, you’re probably thinking. Well, even nothing has an effect on its environment. Lethem’s story is that of people at the university trying to find out exactly what Lack is or isn’t.

      Sorry that I can’t make this story any clearer. Suffice it to say I thought the story was downright silly. I even decided I didn’t like it until the end. However, the ending seemed perfect to me.

      Read this book only if you like to read something bizarre. There’s nothing offensive (or overly exciting) in this book. Just know that it’s a bit off the beaten track.
    • 4/5

      Apr 15, 2010

      Philip loves Alice, but Alice has forsaken Philip and fallen in love with a hole in the universe created when her physics experiment went a tad awry; Philip wants Alice back - but how do you compete with Nothing?

      A bizarre book. Weird but compelling. Amusing and peculiarly (in both senses of the word) entertaining. After I finished the book I couldn't decide whether or not I liked it, couldn't stop thinking about it, mentally gave it a firm prod and a thorough shake to see if I could make sense of it, and finally gave up all of the above and just let it percolate around my brain. A memorable read, but definitely odd.
    • 4/5

      May 30, 2008

      Jonathan Lethem can't stick to a genre, which is one of my favorite things about him. This is his science fiction/satire of academia novel - professor's wife falls in love with something of dubious existence. Though I like it, it isn't one of his best, and I found the ending unsatisfying... but I think that was part of the point.
    • 4/5

      Oct 8, 2007

      Lovely writing. Eerie, bizarre and oddly charming.
    • 4/5

      Dec 27, 2005

      Good story but also a little cold and distant.