As She Climbed Across the Table by Jonathan Lethem

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Terrific. Compelling. True. Sad.

I'll recommend you try not to read reviews, or even the jacket, because they give away too much. In particular, some of the early vocabulary sets the scene nicely but, armed with unwanted foreknowledge injected by reviews & such, somewhat obviously to me.

I suppose I will have an interesting conversation with Ben about whether this was scifi or not. I'll say it is because my only prerequisite is a scientifically grounded premise. After that a book can be and this one is, all about people. It's a sad, earnest love story and I read it without stopping.

... Spoilers below ...

Regarding the last pages, I anticipated an alternate ending I'd have liked better, where Philip crawls back OUT, and then the Lack closes with him the only person to claim ever to have crossed over, and even THAT could just be part of his hangover. Thereafter Alice hates him for killing her b/f and it's a sad ending. A stray damp cat footprint could be used to sway our reader's understanding of what really happened one way or another.

Oh, and under the great quotes section... Italian Physicist Braxia becomes my hero in the book when, quizzed on the metaphysics of the phenomenon, he simply says, "there are no metaphysics."



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