AS SHE CLIMBED ACROSS THE TABLE PDF, EPUB, EBOOK Jonathan Lethem | 208 pages | 06 Jan 2005 | FABER & FABER | 9780571225293 | English | London, United Kingdom As She Climbed Across the Table - Jonathan Lethem - Google книги As two physicists, Alice and Professor Soft, create their own approaches to the Lack, Alice drifts away from her close relationship with Engstrand. Refusing to believe her love for him can die so completely, Engstrand does whatever he can to remain close to Alice, even getting pulled into the cabal which is eventually formed to regulate access to the Lack. Lethem's characterizations are good, for the most part, and many of the characters exhibit change, if not growth throughout the course of the novel. Initial reader's reaction to a character is often proved false by later events as Engstrand, and through him to reader, comes to know characters better. Even characters who at first seem likely to be unlikable foils turn out to be nothing more or less than an average person trying to succeed. This is actually one of the central themes of the novel. Alice's estrangement from Philip and his own desire to retain her are signs of their seeking their own identity. Both characters are as blind to themselves as Evan and Garth, the two blind men Alice invites to move in with Philip, are to their surroundings. In one notable scene, Philip even goes so far as to adopt a personality completely unrelated to the academic he really is, claiming, instead, to be a consultant to identify Nobel quality research. Perhaps my biggest complaint about this novel has nothing to do with Lethem at all. His first three books have amazingly evocative covers, from the beaten-up detective novel look of Gun, With Occasion Music to the Old Road Side appearance of Amnesia Moon. In moving from a smaller publisher to Doubleday, Lethem's cover art seems to suffer from a desire to push him into the mainstream. I picked up this novel intending only to read a few pages before going to bed. By the time I forced myself to put it down, I had read more than half the book, anxious to be able to return to Lethem's university and knowing the novel was too short. Lethem's novels and short stories, one of which is a Nebula nominee continue to get better. With luck, he'll have a long, productive literary life. Ingenious, hilarious, and genuinely mind-expanding, As She Climbed Across the Table is the best boy-meets-girl-meets- void story ever written. I love Jonathan Lethem's voice. The style he writes in is so casual, so sly you feel like you need to reread the words to make sure you haven't missed something important or at least clever. As She 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 As She Climbed Across the Table. Jonathan Lethem. As She Climbed Across the Table by Jonathan Lethem Initial reader's reaction to a character is often proved false by later events as Engstrand, and through him to reader, comes to know characters better. Even characters who at first seem likely to be unlikable foils turn out to be nothing more or less than an average person trying to succeed. This is actually one of the central themes of the novel. Alice's estrangement from Philip and his own desire to retain her are signs of their seeking their own identity. Both characters are as blind to themselves as Evan and Garth, the two blind men Alice invites to move in with Philip, are to their surroundings. In one notable scene, Philip even goes so far as to adopt a personality completely unrelated to the academic he really is, claiming, instead, to be a consultant to identify Nobel quality research. Perhaps my biggest complaint about this novel has nothing to do with Lethem at all. His first three books have amazingly evocative covers, from the beaten-up detective novel look of Gun, With Occasion Music to the Old Road Side appearance of Amnesia Moon. In moving from a smaller publisher to Doubleday, Lethem's cover art seems to suffer from a desire to push him into the mainstream. I picked up this novel intending only to read a few pages before going to bed. By the time I forced myself to put it down, I had read more than half the book, anxious to be able to return to Lethem's university and knowing the novel was too short. Lethem's novels and short stories, one of which is a Nebula nominee continue to get better. With luck, he'll have a long, productive literary life. Purchase this book in hardcover from. Purchase this book in trade paperback from. Return to. But Lack is a nullity with taste—tastes; it absorbs a pomegranate, light bulbs, an argyle sock; it disdains a bow tie, an ice ax, and a scrambled duck egg. To Alice, this selectivity translates as an irresistible personality. To Philip, it makes Lack an unbeatable rival, for how can he win Alice back from something that has no flaws—because it has no qualities? Ingenious, hilarious, and genuinely mind-expanding, As She Climbed Across the Table is the best boy-meets-girl-meets-void story ever written. I love Jonathan Lethem's voice. The style he writes in is so casual, so sly you feel like you need to reread the words to make sure you haven't missed something important or at least clever. As She At times this book amused me, and at times it annoyed me. As She Climbed Across the Table - Wikipedia He enters Lacks chamber and slides himself into Lack. He wakes up the next morning realizing he is no longer in the universe he was the night before. After retrieving B as proof of the universe, Philip heads back to Lack and climbs in. However, instead of going back to reality as he expects, he enters a new universe that has no light. The universe is inhabited by Evan and Garth, two blind men who had also climbed into Lack. The two men help Philip climb into Lack once again. This time, instead of entering a new universe, he merges and becomes one with Lack. Alice, feeling that Philip and Lack are now one thing, attempts one last time to enter Lack. Reviewers considered the book a light read that was entertaining. Steven E. Alford says "It embodies a distilled, gentle, silly look at the world". Glen Engel-Cox points out that instead of like a traditional science fiction, focusing on a "driven scientist in that endless pursuit of knowledge", As She Climbed Across the Table focuses on "someone like us [a science fiction reader], intrigued by the type but not one of them himself. Eric Weeks compares it to The Tao of Physics with its "muddled attempts to be philosophical about quantum mechanics which fail to get the physics correct. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. Dewey Decimal. Retrieved June 27, Jonathan Lethem. The Exegesis of Philip K. Omega the Unknown. Carter Scholz Christopher Sorrentino. Categories : American novels science fiction novels Novels by Jonathan Lethem American science fiction novels Novels set in California Doubleday publisher books. The sequence in the book's final pages, when Phillip finally enters Lack, was brilliant. The book definitely needed a lot more of that and a lot less self pity. My favourite moment of the entire book was when one of the characters, Soft, declares that men can grow and expand in the company of women in a way that they cannot in the company of men or a mixed group. Which just underpins the entire tone of the novel: women are to be steamrolled and silenced by the will of men around them, because they're silly and not very good at physics. Their only escape is a hole into another universe built out of themselves. Or something. I found this book a bit weird, crazy and funny at times. I was confused as to what the heck these people were thinking. I think they all need their heads examined. May 08, Crystal rated it liked it Recommends it for: lovers of satire or psuedoscience. Jonathan Lethem's As She Climbed Across the Table is two books in one: a parable about love and obsession, and a sharp satire of academia. It is narrated by Phillip Engstrand, a sociology professor who talks entirely too much. Phillip tells us the story of Lack, a hole in the universe opened by an accident of physics, and of the various academics who find themselves drawn in by it pun probably intended. Phillip's lover, Alice, is one such academic. She is a particle physicist who is entranced b Jonathan Lethem's As She Climbed Across the Table is two books in one: a parable about love and obsession, and a sharp satire of academia. She is a particle physicist who is entranced by what she perceives as Lack's personality- that is, his preference for some objects over others, and his seeming rejection of her. As the story progresses her obsession becomes more pronounced and more painful, sending ripples of cause and effect through Phillip and the entire campus as our protagonist tries first to win her back, and then to simply understand. At times, in fact, the satirical elements of the story seemed heavy-handed to me, as though Lethem was just wallowing around and being impressed by his own cleverness.