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You Don't Love Me Yet
Bestselling author Jonathan Lethem delivers a hilarious novel about love, art, and what it's like to be young in Los Angeles. Lucinda Hoekke's daytime gig as a telephone operator at the Complaint Line—an art gallery's high-minded installation piece—is about as exciting as listening to dead air. Her real passion is playing bass in her forever struggling, forever unnamed band. But recently a frequent caller, the Complainer, as Lucinda dubs him, has captivated her with his philosophical musings. When Lucinda's band begins to incorporate the Complainer's catchy, existential phrases into their song lyrics, they are suddenly on the cusp of their big break. There is only one problem: the Complainer wants in.
240 pages, Paperback
First published May 29, 2007
74 people are currently reading
1873 people want to read
About the author
Jonathan Lethem
236 books2,657 followersJonathan Allen Lethem (born February 19, 1964) is an American novelist, essayist and short story writer.
His first novel, Gun, with Occasional Music, a genre work that mixed elements of science fiction and detective fiction, was published in 1994. It was followed by three more science fiction novels. In 1999, Lethem published Motherless Brooklyn, a National Book Critics Circle Award-winning novel that achieved mainstream success. In 2003, he published The Fortress of Solitude, which became a New York Times Best Seller.
In 2005, he received a MacArthur Fellowship
His first novel, Gun, with Occasional Music, a genre work that mixed elements of science fiction and detective fiction, was published in 1994. It was followed by three more science fiction novels. In 1999, Lethem published Motherless Brooklyn, a National Book Critics Circle Award-winning novel that achieved mainstream success. In 2003, he published The Fortress of Solitude, which became a New York Times Best Seller.
In 2005, he received a MacArthur Fellowship
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 657 reviews
July 29, 2010
Audio book experiment II failed.
I am pretty sure this book would have blown even if I had read it on the page. I listened to it while driving back and forth to Santa Clara from my home office for a project I was working on. I was sick of my iPod so I thought I'd try audio books. (I have since learned from friend recommendations and personal experience that it is not the best idea to listen to fiction while driving.)
Anyway, as far as I could surmise, this book is about a young band trying to break into the music business. Some weird shit happened with a kangaroo in a bathroom, but I had totally lost track of what was going on by the time I realized there was a kangaroo in a bathroom. There was a sex scene which almost made me drive off the road, so that accounts for the second star.
Why I didn't like this book:
1. The writing is poor. It was read by the author himself so I thought it would at least sound the way he intended, but even that didn't help.
2. The title of the book is ripped off from a Roky Erickson song. It bums me out that this crappy book is named after such a beautiful song. Erickson wasn't even acknowledged anywhere in the book. So I am here to tell you (for what it's worth): No, Jonathan Lethem didn't think of the title on his own.
3. And this is my biggest pet peeve. The band eventually gets a gig and rocks the house with their single. The crowd chants for them to play their single a second time, so they do and they rock the house again. THIS WOULD NEVER HAPPEN! NO ONE likes it when a band plays a single twice in one show! It never, ever sounds as good as the first time and it's totally lame and it kills the moment. It's like telling the audience you have no additional material and you'll never be more than that one song. It is the lamest move a band can ever make. I can't believe Lethem actually put that in his book.
I am pretty sure this book would have blown even if I had read it on the page. I listened to it while driving back and forth to Santa Clara from my home office for a project I was working on. I was sick of my iPod so I thought I'd try audio books. (I have since learned from friend recommendations and personal experience that it is not the best idea to listen to fiction while driving.)
Anyway, as far as I could surmise, this book is about a young band trying to break into the music business. Some weird shit happened with a kangaroo in a bathroom, but I had totally lost track of what was going on by the time I realized there was a kangaroo in a bathroom. There was a sex scene which almost made me drive off the road, so that accounts for the second star.
Why I didn't like this book:
1. The writing is poor. It was read by the author himself so I thought it would at least sound the way he intended, but even that didn't help.
2. The title of the book is ripped off from a Roky Erickson song. It bums me out that this crappy book is named after such a beautiful song. Erickson wasn't even acknowledged anywhere in the book. So I am here to tell you (for what it's worth): No, Jonathan Lethem didn't think of the title on his own.
3. And this is my biggest pet peeve. The band eventually gets a gig and rocks the house with their single. The crowd chants for them to play their single a second time, so they do and they rock the house again. THIS WOULD NEVER HAPPEN! NO ONE likes it when a band plays a single twice in one show! It never, ever sounds as good as the first time and it's totally lame and it kills the moment. It's like telling the audience you have no additional material and you'll never be more than that one song. It is the lamest move a band can ever make. I can't believe Lethem actually put that in his book.
March 30, 2021
"You Don't Love Me Yet" is at times a well written book, and even has moments where it is very well written. Unfortunately the story was just not all that interesting to me. I believe the main reason for this was because I was bored and irritated by the main character, a woman named Lucinda who is, to put it succinctly, a very lame person. She is wishy washy, selfish, and more than a little dumb. I get that this was the point, I just did not care for it, and thus the book fell very flat.
The story follows the brief rise and fall of a mediocre rock band, and it is in following that plotline that the book holds the most interest. There is some sharp satire on musicians and the music industry in those parts of the novel. Unfortunately when the text steers into the romances and miasma of the relationships of the band's members I was very bored. Mainly I think because I did not care for the characters. As a result I could not celebrate the tidy and reader friendly conclusion because I was not invested in the character's happiness.
The book received a two star rating from me because of the interesting ideas Mr. Lethem presented through the character of Carl the complainer. Carl is an enigma. I don't "get" him, nor did I really like him, but I appreciated what his character added to the text. Pages 152-155 in the book are where Lethem really hits his stride with Carl.
Mr. Lethem is obviously a talented writer, as evidenced by parts of this book. However, he has written much better than "You Don't Love Me Yet" and I would read those instead of this one.
The story follows the brief rise and fall of a mediocre rock band, and it is in following that plotline that the book holds the most interest. There is some sharp satire on musicians and the music industry in those parts of the novel. Unfortunately when the text steers into the romances and miasma of the relationships of the band's members I was very bored. Mainly I think because I did not care for the characters. As a result I could not celebrate the tidy and reader friendly conclusion because I was not invested in the character's happiness.
The book received a two star rating from me because of the interesting ideas Mr. Lethem presented through the character of Carl the complainer. Carl is an enigma. I don't "get" him, nor did I really like him, but I appreciated what his character added to the text. Pages 152-155 in the book are where Lethem really hits his stride with Carl.
Mr. Lethem is obviously a talented writer, as evidenced by parts of this book. However, he has written much better than "You Don't Love Me Yet" and I would read those instead of this one.
July 17, 2007
(Reprinted from the Chicago Center for Literature and Photography [cclapcenter.com].)
Longtime followers of my creative projects know that in general I don't like publishing bad reviews; that for the most part I see it as a waste of both my time and yours, in that I could be spending that time instead pointing out great artists you may have never heard of. However, since one of the things this website is dedicated to is honest artistic criticism, I also feel it's important to acknowledge books that I found just too bad to bother finishing, as well as give you an idea of why I found them that bad to begin with. Hence, this series of short essays.
The Accused: You Don't Love Me Yet, by Jonathan Lethem
How far I got: 99 pages (about halfway through)
Crimes:
1) Asking us to give a rat's ass about the truly miserable indie-rock characters on display -- possibly the most untalented, pretentious, snotty, empty-headed, naval-gazing Los Angeles losers the world of contemporary literature has ever given us.
2) Reminding us of just how many of these circle-jerk losers end up internationally famous as part of the indie-rock scene, in many cases because of some postmodern media-celebrity-slash-performance-artist who is usually snottier and less tolerable than even them. Yeah, thanks, Lethem; like being an underground artist isn't f---ing depressing enough.
3) Positing a world where an attractive, empowered female bass player would become obsessed with one of the most obviously misogynistic woman-hating literary characters I've come across in years; so obsessed, in fact, that she starts creating lyrics for her band around the obliquely sexist things the man tells her during their anonymous phone-complaint sessions, which of course are part of a super-duper-pretentious conceptual-art installation piece that the bass player has been hired to be a part of (don't ask, seriously, SERIOUSLY, don't ask).
4) Living in Brooklyn. Yeah, you heard me.
Verdict: Oh, so guilty.
Sentence: A five-year exile from the traditional literary industry, writing snotty CD reviews instead for Pitchfork. Seriously, Doubleday -- you need to start peddling this crap to pretentious 19-year-old indie-rockers who don't know any better, and leave us intelligent people the f--k alone.
Longtime followers of my creative projects know that in general I don't like publishing bad reviews; that for the most part I see it as a waste of both my time and yours, in that I could be spending that time instead pointing out great artists you may have never heard of. However, since one of the things this website is dedicated to is honest artistic criticism, I also feel it's important to acknowledge books that I found just too bad to bother finishing, as well as give you an idea of why I found them that bad to begin with. Hence, this series of short essays.
The Accused: You Don't Love Me Yet, by Jonathan Lethem
How far I got: 99 pages (about halfway through)
Crimes:
1) Asking us to give a rat's ass about the truly miserable indie-rock characters on display -- possibly the most untalented, pretentious, snotty, empty-headed, naval-gazing Los Angeles losers the world of contemporary literature has ever given us.
2) Reminding us of just how many of these circle-jerk losers end up internationally famous as part of the indie-rock scene, in many cases because of some postmodern media-celebrity-slash-performance-artist who is usually snottier and less tolerable than even them. Yeah, thanks, Lethem; like being an underground artist isn't f---ing depressing enough.
3) Positing a world where an attractive, empowered female bass player would become obsessed with one of the most obviously misogynistic woman-hating literary characters I've come across in years; so obsessed, in fact, that she starts creating lyrics for her band around the obliquely sexist things the man tells her during their anonymous phone-complaint sessions, which of course are part of a super-duper-pretentious conceptual-art installation piece that the bass player has been hired to be a part of (don't ask, seriously, SERIOUSLY, don't ask).
4) Living in Brooklyn. Yeah, you heard me.
Verdict: Oh, so guilty.
Sentence: A five-year exile from the traditional literary industry, writing snotty CD reviews instead for Pitchfork. Seriously, Doubleday -- you need to start peddling this crap to pretentious 19-year-old indie-rockers who don't know any better, and leave us intelligent people the f--k alone.
April 6, 2019
Riflessi in superficie.
Amo i colori acidi, mi piace indossarli, soprattutto il verde acido; ricordo ancora quando a trent'anni andavo a ballare all'Alien con la mia amica Donatella: avevo un collant verde ramarro - acido, ovviamente - che indossavo con un paio di short minigonna grigio ardesia, completamente in contrasto con me, con una parte di me, che invece è più convenzionale e neutra, dai capelli al trucco.
Al contrario ho un brutto rapporto con l'Arte concettuale e con l'Arte Contemporanea in genere (tranne luminose eccezioni, sia chiaro). Solo sentir parlare di installazioni mi innervosisce e mi provoca immediatamente l'orticaria, perché io, che amo visceralmente Leonardo da Vinci e Pierre August Renoir, difficilmente mi emoziono, sia pur apprezzandoli, davanti ad un'opera di Calder o di Duchamp.
Eppure questo romanzo è proprio un mischione delle tinte che amo e al tempo stesso un'allegorica installazione; ed è forse proprio per questo che ci ho girato intorno come una visitatrice al Macro, diffidente e prevenuta, ma pronta a farmi rapire dai suoi colori e a lasciarmi contaminare dalla sua stravaganza.
È la storia di quattro trentenni e della loro band, una band senza nome, in una Los Angeles che si vive solo nei locali e nelle case; è una storia 'underground' in cui ai colori acidi delle canzoni della band, al ruolo che Lucinda, una dei quattro, la più protagonista dei quattro, recita nell'installazione dell'artista e suo ex-fidanzato Falmouth, alla canguro depressa che Matthew il cantante della band rapisce dallo zoo dove lavora e ospita nella sua vasca da bagno, si contrappone il ritratto di una generazione in cerca di identità, ma soprattutto di amore, cercato, consumato e riciclato nelle sue forme più strane e inusuali.
È una storia in cui ciascuno dei protagonisti, a modo suo, 'reclama' qualcosa, proprio come il 'reclamante' Carl, lo strano personaggio che balza fuori in carne e ossa dall'installazione di Falmouth e che diventa elemento disturbante per Lucinda e, come un pezzo del domino che cadendo genera una reazione a catena, destabilizzante per gli altri membri della band e lo stesso artista.
Non c'è profondità senza superficie dice Lucinda sulla spiaggia di Malibu, scorgendo con gli occhi un mondo che non le era ancora mai apparso fino a quel momento, un mondo di coppie che passeggiano sulla spiaggia, di ristorantini sul mare, di focene che giocano nell'acqua; ed io ripenso all'ultima volta che sono stata da quelle parti, quando a portarmici era stato Romain Gary, nel bellissimo La promessa dell'alba, e al modo completamente diverso in cui questi due autori mi hanno fatto sedere sulla spiaggia e, guardando l'oceano, pensare alla vita; ripenso al tempo che è passato da allora, alle cose che sono successe, e mi chiedo se invece, tante volte, la profondità non nasconda solo la superficie.
Non ti amo ancora, caro Lethem, ma posso provarci, in fondo all you need is love.
Qui il booktrailer del romanzo.
Amo i colori acidi, mi piace indossarli, soprattutto il verde acido; ricordo ancora quando a trent'anni andavo a ballare all'Alien con la mia amica Donatella: avevo un collant verde ramarro - acido, ovviamente - che indossavo con un paio di short minigonna grigio ardesia, completamente in contrasto con me, con una parte di me, che invece è più convenzionale e neutra, dai capelli al trucco.
Al contrario ho un brutto rapporto con l'Arte concettuale e con l'Arte Contemporanea in genere (tranne luminose eccezioni, sia chiaro). Solo sentir parlare di installazioni mi innervosisce e mi provoca immediatamente l'orticaria, perché io, che amo visceralmente Leonardo da Vinci e Pierre August Renoir, difficilmente mi emoziono, sia pur apprezzandoli, davanti ad un'opera di Calder o di Duchamp.
Eppure questo romanzo è proprio un mischione delle tinte che amo e al tempo stesso un'allegorica installazione; ed è forse proprio per questo che ci ho girato intorno come una visitatrice al Macro, diffidente e prevenuta, ma pronta a farmi rapire dai suoi colori e a lasciarmi contaminare dalla sua stravaganza.
È la storia di quattro trentenni e della loro band, una band senza nome, in una Los Angeles che si vive solo nei locali e nelle case; è una storia 'underground' in cui ai colori acidi delle canzoni della band, al ruolo che Lucinda, una dei quattro, la più protagonista dei quattro, recita nell'installazione dell'artista e suo ex-fidanzato Falmouth, alla canguro depressa che Matthew il cantante della band rapisce dallo zoo dove lavora e ospita nella sua vasca da bagno, si contrappone il ritratto di una generazione in cerca di identità, ma soprattutto di amore, cercato, consumato e riciclato nelle sue forme più strane e inusuali.
È una storia in cui ciascuno dei protagonisti, a modo suo, 'reclama' qualcosa, proprio come il 'reclamante' Carl, lo strano personaggio che balza fuori in carne e ossa dall'installazione di Falmouth e che diventa elemento disturbante per Lucinda e, come un pezzo del domino che cadendo genera una reazione a catena, destabilizzante per gli altri membri della band e lo stesso artista.
Non c'è profondità senza superficie dice Lucinda sulla spiaggia di Malibu, scorgendo con gli occhi un mondo che non le era ancora mai apparso fino a quel momento, un mondo di coppie che passeggiano sulla spiaggia, di ristorantini sul mare, di focene che giocano nell'acqua; ed io ripenso all'ultima volta che sono stata da quelle parti, quando a portarmici era stato Romain Gary, nel bellissimo La promessa dell'alba, e al modo completamente diverso in cui questi due autori mi hanno fatto sedere sulla spiaggia e, guardando l'oceano, pensare alla vita; ripenso al tempo che è passato da allora, alle cose che sono successe, e mi chiedo se invece, tante volte, la profondità non nasconda solo la superficie.
Non ti amo ancora, caro Lethem, ma posso provarci, in fondo all you need is love.
Qui il booktrailer del romanzo.
December 27, 2023
the only thing worse than whiny hipsters is an entire novel about them.
December 13, 2021
CRITIQUE:
A Nameless Band in a Splayed City
I normally like to read an author's oeuvre chronologically, so that I can track their progress.
I've read this novel once before, and should have read it again before "Chronic City", but I just felt in the mood for the later, more expansive novel first.
Whereas "Chronic City" is steeped in New York, this is Lethem's L.A. novel, though we don't learn much about the city itself ("The freeway was like a saddle on the splayed city, a means both of mastering it and of shrinking from intimate contact with its surfaces").
Rather than focusing on critics, it's a rock 'n' roll novel that centres on a rock band, which at this stage still doesn't have a name. (To be honest, I'd expect that a name would be one of their first accomplishments.) Band names can really make or break a band, and some of the suggestions here would break up any group of musicians.
Flaws in the Rock Novel
Rock novels tend to have one of at least two flaws: either they concentrate too much on the mechanics of being in a band (e.g., "The sequence of songs began to feel inevitable in the manner of language or music itself, as though Bedwin were revealing to them a hidden grammar embedded in the band's motley offerings" or "Lucinda penitently lugged her own amp as the three band members filtered through the horde of the Aparty's invitees"), or they sound like reviews of an album or a performance (e.g., "This band's got something, and some of the something they've got is the allure of an enclave at odds within itself and yet impenetrable to others, its members exchanging small gestures of disaffection within their troupe that makes others crave to be included in the fond dissension"). David Mitchell's "Utopia Avenue" somehow seemed to avoid both flaws.
Hotel Rooms and Aparty
It was fortuitous to read this novel after "Chronic City", because it foreshadows aspects of "Chronic City".
There's no Perkus Tooth here, but there are teeth or at least a singular tooth. One of the suggested band names is "Idiot Tooth", although it might have been more appropriate to call them "Itchy Tooth" (so they could have a song called "Itchy Tooth Park").
The character Richard Abneg appears in both novels. Here, he's the drummer in a related band called the Rain Injuries (possibly based on the Paisley Underground band, the Rain Parade).
The band's first live gig is at a conceptual art performance ("the Aparty") produced by a famous conceptual artist, Falmouth Strand, analogous to Andy Warhol (apart from his shaven head), whose Exploding Plastic Inevitable featured the Velvet Underground and Nico. The original plan is that they are to play silently, so that the audience can't hear how good/bad they are.
The band's "tall, malnourished, obliviously handsome vegetarian" lead-singer is Matthew Plangent, who, unlike Lou Reed (as far as I know), has liberated a kangaroo from the Los Angeles Zoo (where he used to work). (1.)
Cover of "The Psychedelic Sounds of the 13th Floor Elevators"
Ingloriously Deranged Bedfriends
The bass player is the beautiful Scandinavian-sounding Lucinda Hoekke, who has previously had relationships with both Falmouth and Matthew. There are several references to "two ex-boyfriends", although both of them are replaced by "her discovery, her strange new love", Carl "the complainer", whose appeal is inexplicable.
Indeed, some of the writing about their sex deserves a bad sex in fiction award ("She needed to do something to him that would make him at least once more as gloriously deranged as he'd made her again and again in the hotel bed").
When Lucinda gets her hair cut short, Lethem draws attention to "the hoisted cleft of her breasts...not that there was any privilege he [Carl] hadn't already claimed, or she hadn't offered gladly."
The historical consent obtained by Carl seems to make any lecherous gaze acceptable. I wondered whether he was about to lick the hair clippings between her breasts. He's obviously so perspicacious and attentive to her needs:
Some things should be kept secret or restricted to the privacy of your own bedroom. Which happens anyway:
I was often tempted to search for the off switch myself.
Mid-Career Misstep
Because of the non-chronological manner in which I read these novels, I can't say I didn't love him (Lethem) yet, but rather that I used to love him, but it's [almost] all over now. This is a misstep that was more than remedied or corrected by the far superior "Chronic City". I still look forward to reading "Dissident Gardens".
FOOTNOTES:
(1.) A gangster kangaroo featured in "Gun, with Occasional Music", which makes me wonder about Lethem's affinity with things Antipodean (he mentions a compilation album, which sounds like a Flying Nun record, except that it features both New Zealand and Australian bands).
SOUNDTRACK ("HAPPY TO BE PART OF THE INDUSTRY OF HUMAN HAPPINESS"):
A Nameless Band in a Splayed City
I normally like to read an author's oeuvre chronologically, so that I can track their progress.
I've read this novel once before, and should have read it again before "Chronic City", but I just felt in the mood for the later, more expansive novel first.
Whereas "Chronic City" is steeped in New York, this is Lethem's L.A. novel, though we don't learn much about the city itself ("The freeway was like a saddle on the splayed city, a means both of mastering it and of shrinking from intimate contact with its surfaces").
Rather than focusing on critics, it's a rock 'n' roll novel that centres on a rock band, which at this stage still doesn't have a name. (To be honest, I'd expect that a name would be one of their first accomplishments.) Band names can really make or break a band, and some of the suggestions here would break up any group of musicians.
Flaws in the Rock Novel
Rock novels tend to have one of at least two flaws: either they concentrate too much on the mechanics of being in a band (e.g., "The sequence of songs began to feel inevitable in the manner of language or music itself, as though Bedwin were revealing to them a hidden grammar embedded in the band's motley offerings" or "Lucinda penitently lugged her own amp as the three band members filtered through the horde of the Aparty's invitees"), or they sound like reviews of an album or a performance (e.g., "This band's got something, and some of the something they've got is the allure of an enclave at odds within itself and yet impenetrable to others, its members exchanging small gestures of disaffection within their troupe that makes others crave to be included in the fond dissension"). David Mitchell's "Utopia Avenue" somehow seemed to avoid both flaws.
Hotel Rooms and Aparty
It was fortuitous to read this novel after "Chronic City", because it foreshadows aspects of "Chronic City".
There's no Perkus Tooth here, but there are teeth or at least a singular tooth. One of the suggested band names is "Idiot Tooth", although it might have been more appropriate to call them "Itchy Tooth" (so they could have a song called "Itchy Tooth Park").
The character Richard Abneg appears in both novels. Here, he's the drummer in a related band called the Rain Injuries (possibly based on the Paisley Underground band, the Rain Parade).
The band's first live gig is at a conceptual art performance ("the Aparty") produced by a famous conceptual artist, Falmouth Strand, analogous to Andy Warhol (apart from his shaven head), whose Exploding Plastic Inevitable featured the Velvet Underground and Nico. The original plan is that they are to play silently, so that the audience can't hear how good/bad they are.
The band's "tall, malnourished, obliviously handsome vegetarian" lead-singer is Matthew Plangent, who, unlike Lou Reed (as far as I know), has liberated a kangaroo from the Los Angeles Zoo (where he used to work). (1.)
Cover of "The Psychedelic Sounds of the 13th Floor Elevators"
Ingloriously Deranged Bedfriends
The bass player is the beautiful Scandinavian-sounding Lucinda Hoekke, who has previously had relationships with both Falmouth and Matthew. There are several references to "two ex-boyfriends", although both of them are replaced by "her discovery, her strange new love", Carl "the complainer", whose appeal is inexplicable.
Indeed, some of the writing about their sex deserves a bad sex in fiction award ("She needed to do something to him that would make him at least once more as gloriously deranged as he'd made her again and again in the hotel bed").
When Lucinda gets her hair cut short, Lethem draws attention to "the hoisted cleft of her breasts...not that there was any privilege he [Carl] hadn't already claimed, or she hadn't offered gladly."
The historical consent obtained by Carl seems to make any lecherous gaze acceptable. I wondered whether he was about to lick the hair clippings between her breasts. He's obviously so perspicacious and attentive to her needs:
"It seems you're after a hairstyle that complements the band's sound, something wild and natural, like a flock of hedgehogs."
Some things should be kept secret or restricted to the privacy of your own bedroom. Which happens anyway:
"Swimming in her desultory bed sheets Sunday morning she'd masturbated three times, the last humping the ridge of a throw pillow...like tableaux glimpsed on a television playing in the background somewhere, one no one had thought to switch off."
I was often tempted to search for the off switch myself.
Mid-Career Misstep
Because of the non-chronological manner in which I read these novels, I can't say I didn't love him (Lethem) yet, but rather that I used to love him, but it's [almost] all over now. This is a misstep that was more than remedied or corrected by the far superior "Chronic City". I still look forward to reading "Dissident Gardens".
FOOTNOTES:
(1.) A gangster kangaroo featured in "Gun, with Occasional Music", which makes me wonder about Lethem's affinity with things Antipodean (he mentions a compilation album, which sounds like a Flying Nun record, except that it features both New Zealand and Australian bands).
SOUNDTRACK ("HAPPY TO BE PART OF THE INDUSTRY OF HUMAN HAPPINESS"):
September 4, 2013
After days of marinating in the text of Women and Men, reading this short Lethem book (which is basically a L.A. based romcom) felt like hitting golf balls on the moon. I had forgotten what it was like to turn pages often enough to numb my index finger. Sweet, sweet dialogue and pages with less than 600 words.
I keed, I keed because I really like Lethem. Whatever the subject matter he can make his characters real, relatable and even fun(ny). Conversations aren't forced, discussions end properly and people don't constantly say one another's name when speaking to each other (huge personal pet peeve). And Lethem can throw-down some bon mots, just to make sure we are paying attention:
"I guess the best secrets from yourself are the ones that even if someone else tells them to you, you still don't know them."
or
"You can't be deep without a surface."
how about
"All thinking is wishful."
For those new to Lethem I wouldn't recommend this as the first book to sample (that distinction goes to The Fortress of Solitude, hands down). Maybe not even the second or third. Rating it somewhere between 3 and 4 stars, but I'm rounding down because this is my Women and Men rebound book. My written word sorbet to help me clear my literary palate.
I keed, I keed because I really like Lethem. Whatever the subject matter he can make his characters real, relatable and even fun(ny). Conversations aren't forced, discussions end properly and people don't constantly say one another's name when speaking to each other (huge personal pet peeve). And Lethem can throw-down some bon mots, just to make sure we are paying attention:
"I guess the best secrets from yourself are the ones that even if someone else tells them to you, you still don't know them."
or
"You can't be deep without a surface."
how about
"All thinking is wishful."
For those new to Lethem I wouldn't recommend this as the first book to sample (that distinction goes to The Fortress of Solitude, hands down). Maybe not even the second or third. Rating it somewhere between 3 and 4 stars, but I'm rounding down because this is my Women and Men rebound book. My written word sorbet to help me clear my literary palate.
December 8, 2023
This novel is Mr. Lethem at his most lighthearted, bawdy and sexy. Told through the point of view of Lucinda, a bass player entangled with the dramatic antics of her bandmates, Bedwin, Denise and Matthew, this is the one novel of Jonathan Lethem's that does not tackle or pay any homage to the dystopic, or the noirish works he is most known for.
Rather, this is a romp involving bandmates in a punk rock band that is centered around bass player Lucinda, and her dalliance with Carl, a mysterious fan turned lover who asks to be a part of the band itself.
I’ve read reviews of this book that criticized it to be too pretentious and annoying- yet isn’t that how it is for young hipster musicians, working odd jobs, yet completely privileged behave?
It’s all part of a performative satire that is funny, but for me captures what it means to want to find fame and love, no matter how old you are.
It's an ode to music, youth and modern screwball comedies that is perfect to read in these dark times. I read this novel back in 2009, and admittedly, had no idea what it had been about and had quite forgotten it.
This is a 2020s second read that just establishes Mr. Lethem's a master of dabbling in different genres, types of writing and like always, loves to show the reader his love of music and art.
Rather, this is a romp involving bandmates in a punk rock band that is centered around bass player Lucinda, and her dalliance with Carl, a mysterious fan turned lover who asks to be a part of the band itself.
I’ve read reviews of this book that criticized it to be too pretentious and annoying- yet isn’t that how it is for young hipster musicians, working odd jobs, yet completely privileged behave?
It’s all part of a performative satire that is funny, but for me captures what it means to want to find fame and love, no matter how old you are.
It's an ode to music, youth and modern screwball comedies that is perfect to read in these dark times. I read this novel back in 2009, and admittedly, had no idea what it had been about and had quite forgotten it.
This is a 2020s second read that just establishes Mr. Lethem's a master of dabbling in different genres, types of writing and like always, loves to show the reader his love of music and art.
September 9, 2007
I loved Motherless Brooklyn and Lethem's book of essays, The Disappointment Artist. You Don't Love Me, Yet, however, has almost ruined my faith in contemporary fiction. Because I don't want to spend more time writing about this book than I have to, I will list some of the things about it that annoyed me:
1) The Characters' Names:
Bedwin
Falmouth Strand
Vogelsong
FANCHER AUTUMNBREAST (I actually had to stop reading for a few days after that one)
2) The contrived sex that made me never want to have sex again:
Sex in a museum dollhouse
Tangentially related line that annoyed me: "She'd meant to masturbate, was pretty sure she'd failed."
3) Indie-rock love declarations:
"I love that you're skinny."
"I puked because I'm in love with you."
Lethem, in general, is a pretty inventive and interesting author, but he fails in this one by trying to write the quintessential hipster novel. It comes off as ridiculous and sad.
1) The Characters' Names:
Bedwin
Falmouth Strand
Vogelsong
FANCHER AUTUMNBREAST (I actually had to stop reading for a few days after that one)
2) The contrived sex that made me never want to have sex again:
Sex in a museum dollhouse
Tangentially related line that annoyed me: "She'd meant to masturbate, was pretty sure she'd failed."
3) Indie-rock love declarations:
"I love that you're skinny."
"I puked because I'm in love with you."
Lethem, in general, is a pretty inventive and interesting author, but he fails in this one by trying to write the quintessential hipster novel. It comes off as ridiculous and sad.
November 19, 2008
Oh my god. I’m actually shocked that a book by a respected author like Lethem could be this bad. Because it is so bad. It’s full of whiny, painfully hipstery characters with names like Fancher Autumnbreast tooling around a fake L.A. that makes no geographical sense (even less than the real L.A., I mean) and having lots of deeply unpleasant-sounding sex that made me lock my legs at the knee as I read. Fine. That’s just bad. But what launches this book into the stratosphere of shockingly, appallingly bad (or perhaps drilling it down into the hot, cramped hell thereof) is the fact that Lethem’s plot involves taking a cool, independent female bassist and making her completely subservient to an obnoxious, controlling, and—Lethem seems to take great joy in telling us—physically repellent man. Meanwhile, female friendships exist in this book apparently just so they can be tossed aside like a crumpled tissue when the right man walks into the room. I just… This is really the best you can do for me, 2008?
Despite all the things I’ve read about how wonderful Lethem’s The Fortress of Solitude and Motherless Brooklyn are, this book makes me never want to read a single word of his again.
Despite all the things I’ve read about how wonderful Lethem’s The Fortress of Solitude and Motherless Brooklyn are, this book makes me never want to read a single word of his again.
December 26, 2016
Video-review: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYcGX...
Featured in my Top 20 Books I Read in 2016: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4X6OQ...
If this book were a record, it would be a 40-minute New Wave album from the late seventies. A good one, not an excellent one (not Fear of Music, not Drums & Wires). Upbeat, imaginative, hilarious, odd in a way that makes it hard to read behind its cool. Always fun to listen, hardly anyone's favorite record.
It's not especially ambitious and it will hardly change your life, but then again, it talks masterfully about music and sex, which are both things it's pretty fucking hard to write about.
Featured in my Top 20 Books I Read in 2016: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4X6OQ...
If this book were a record, it would be a 40-minute New Wave album from the late seventies. A good one, not an excellent one (not Fear of Music, not Drums & Wires). Upbeat, imaginative, hilarious, odd in a way that makes it hard to read behind its cool. Always fun to listen, hardly anyone's favorite record.
It's not especially ambitious and it will hardly change your life, but then again, it talks masterfully about music and sex, which are both things it's pretty fucking hard to write about.
June 29, 2021
If this were a serious book, its characters (especially the protagonist, Lucinda) would be repulsive, their aimlessness rankling. The cornucopia of Lucinda's masturbation scenes, the oodles of intercourse (no limb, angle, noise, or fluid gone undescribed), the gallons of alcohol consumed and the resultant puke spilled out onto Los Angeles, are things that could perturb a gentle reader. But this is not a serious novel. It's a quirky novel and its superficially hideous premise of a gaggle of 20-something hipsters in a Los Angeles indie rock band is rescued from abhorrence by Lethem's skillful turns of phrase.
She slid her pants off too, catching her socks with her thumbs so they cocooned within her pants legs, another soft sculpture she deposited at bedside.
The silliness starts with the Vonnegutian names: Matthew Plangent, Falmouth Strand, Bedwin Greenish, Rhodes Bramlett, Dr. Marian Rorschach, Fancher Autumnbreast. It continues with Lucinda's ex and fellow bandmember Matthew, who works at a zoo and brings home a kangaroo because it seems to be "dying of ennui and nobody will admit it." The kangaroo lives in his bathroom, eats salad strewn on the floor, and shits four catcher's mitt-sized blobs daily.
Lucinda falls in love with Carl, who calls into the complaint line where she answers phones (an art gallery installation piece). Carl speaks in slogans which Lucinda feeds to Bedwin, their songwriter, who is undergoing writer's block, and new songs are born. When she finally meets Carl he is fat, hairy ("pubic all the way to his neck"), his head resembles a penis, and she finds him irresistibly charismatic. "He smiled and scratched his jaw and she was struck again by the slightly penisy glamour of his cleft chin and nose, his sculpted lips, his baggy eyes." Carl talks his way into the band. He has no talent, but lets them practice in his enormous loft.
In a scene which actually made me laugh, Lucinda goes to the zoo, which Matthew thinks has fired him, to pick up his paychecks. She meets Dr. Marian Rorschach, the zoo director with gallon-size breasts, and pretends to be a reporter for the "Echo Park Annoyance" writing a story on the zoo's missing marsupial.
"For all you know this rookie reporter might have stumbled into a very close encounter with the alleged aforementioned."
"I'm glad you say rookie," said Dr. Marian. "It saves me saying it."
"I meant eager and tireless, not gullible."
"Gullible is another excellent word I thank you for supplying."
Lucinda opted for bluntness. "Your establishment is missing a kangaroo, sir."
"Don't call me sir. We're missing nothing."
At the end of the interview "Dr. Marian gestured at the door. Lucinda found herself moving toward it." She is so impressed by Dr. Marian's raw power she invites her to be the manager of the band. Dr. Marian accepts and finds occasion to belittle Carl, who falls in love with her (it turns out he needs to be dominated).
I'd never read anything by Lethem before and my expectations, based on the premise, the awful title, and the unappealing cover, were very low. This novel is absurd, disgusting and ridiculous and I can't figure out why it has only a 2.82 overall rating.
October 29, 2008
Man, I heard this was not great, but I didn't really expect it to suck THAT much. I figured I'd give him the benefit of the doubt since he's written some things I loved, especially the . Oh well. At least it was short.
Overwrought prose, boring and/or unlikeable characters, not to mention the ever-dangerous task of writing about music and not sounding like a total douche.
Upon reading some of the other reviews I felt I should add that I don't have any problem reading about hipsters or sympathizing with them. They're not evil, they're just people. Living in LA or Brooklyn and playing in an indie rock band and cutting your own hair does not make you a bad or vapid person. This, however, is a bad novel. That stands if it's supposed to be taken as written or if the entire thing is supposed to be a great big satire on how stupid hipsters are.
Overwrought prose, boring and/or unlikeable characters, not to mention the ever-dangerous task of writing about music and not sounding like a total douche.
Upon reading some of the other reviews I felt I should add that I don't have any problem reading about hipsters or sympathizing with them. They're not evil, they're just people. Living in LA or Brooklyn and playing in an indie rock band and cutting your own hair does not make you a bad or vapid person. This, however, is a bad novel. That stands if it's supposed to be taken as written or if the entire thing is supposed to be a great big satire on how stupid hipsters are.
July 1, 2020
good. possibly boring. The characters are aimless and listless, and while the sentences/language isn't difficult its one of those books where the listlessness carries over and it becomes a very slow read - had the same experience with William Gibson's Blue Ant trilogy
April 16, 2008
I would hate if my boss always compared my successes to my failures. Luckily my boss doesn't. If he did, I would quit. What he usually says when I make a mistake is 'Ryan, you screwed up, don't do it again'. Unfortunately most of Jonathan Lethem's readers don't give him that much respect. As an author of tremendous talent, he constantly gets compared to his greatest works. A comparison that is a waste to both the author and to any critical reader.
That said, at its best YOU DON'T LOVE ME YET is like a really bad Scholastic Reader novella version of REALITY BITES that was written after the popularity of the movie to capture any risidual fondness. Y'know, it is kind of like when you were a kid and you bought Karate Kid at the book fair after already seeing the movie. Realizing that this analogy is confusing even for me, it seems that Lethem wrote the book with, even if only tongue-in-cheek, nostalgia for the art/music/art music/art music slacker scene of early 90s Los Angeles -- a nostalgia I am not sure that exists.
The characters have no depth and the story was boring, unfunny, and uninteresting. So to Lethem I wouldn't say 'This book is no FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE' because I don't want him to rewrite that book -- if I wanted to read an author that rewrites the same book, I would read Clancy or Grisham. What I would say to him is 'Lethem, you screwed up, and don't please don't do it again'.
That said, at its best YOU DON'T LOVE ME YET is like a really bad Scholastic Reader novella version of REALITY BITES that was written after the popularity of the movie to capture any risidual fondness. Y'know, it is kind of like when you were a kid and you bought Karate Kid at the book fair after already seeing the movie. Realizing that this analogy is confusing even for me, it seems that Lethem wrote the book with, even if only tongue-in-cheek, nostalgia for the art/music/art music/art music slacker scene of early 90s Los Angeles -- a nostalgia I am not sure that exists.
The characters have no depth and the story was boring, unfunny, and uninteresting. So to Lethem I wouldn't say 'This book is no FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE' because I don't want him to rewrite that book -- if I wanted to read an author that rewrites the same book, I would read Clancy or Grisham. What I would say to him is 'Lethem, you screwed up, and don't please don't do it again'.
September 30, 2024
As a passionate Lethemite, I was planning to swerve this oft-derided so-called stinker in an otherwise robust canon of genre-bending wondrousness. Curiousness prevailed. While most of the criticisms re self-indulgent hipster wankery, the loathsome neurotic bibbles that populate the pages, and the whiff of pretention in attempting to elevate a mediocre unnamed indie band’s “art” to the realm of art, are as solid as the love of a Glaswegian man, the charming weirdness of Lethem’s prose and tongue-in-cheek dialogue keep the novel from collapsing into the utter horrorshow of Lethem’s actual utter horrorshow, The Feral Detective. The verdict? Forgettable and inessential—not a horrorshow. Thanks. Love to most of you.
August 5, 2008
I saw this book and immediately knew I'd hate it as something from the pretentious "Rent" vein. But it was on my required reading list, and school begins soon, so I picked it up and read it all in a sitting, and am now ready to digest it.
If I read it all in one sitting, it couldn't have been that bad—right? Wrong. I just wanted to get it over with. The basic premise is this: a struggling band of slightly (but no more than that) misfit characters gets their big break via an inspirational (somewhat) old man named Carl. No joke. Then, predictably, Carl wants a spot in the band and winds up breaking them up. The band's songs are pretty bad, even after they get their Carlspiration(TM). Think the "Joe lies/when he cries" song from "Say Anything" and you'll arrive close to what I mean by that. That the story's set in holier-than-thou Los Angeles and has a number of artist-types (I add the –types because I couldn't possibly call them artists) whose take on art is to make every situation, no matter how ordinary, into something it's not only adds to the sort of snooty atmosphere the author builds throughout. (Who talks the way these people do? Stoners? Apparently so.) Lucinda, the unworthy and decidedly uninteresting heroine of the story, meets her inspiring Carl whilst working as a receptionist taking complaints in one of these orchestrated situations.
The band's most "inspired" song is called "Monster Eyes." Yeah. I laughed too. A lot. Then I just thought it sad. The title refers to what happens when the one flaw you see in a person mushrooms so that it becomes *everything* you see in them. The Monster Eyes amplify the flaw until they devour everything you once saw that was good about someone. Obviously, the author has never heard that the absence of a flaw in beauty is itself a flaw. Or, perhaps, he's heard of it but doesn't believe it. Whatever. There was an ideological disconnect between the story and I there—one of many, as it turns out.
It's often hard to tell when the author's trying to be funny or trying to be serious. Some people have attributed this to his "witty irony" (from the front matter), but none of it seemed very witty or ironic to me, just kind of baseless and disorganized. It didn't help that I really couldn't make myself care a rat's ass about any of the main characters. Much as I kept thinking, "What makes you think you don't have to pay rent?" all throughout "Rent," I kept thinking, "What about you as people makes you so special?" throughout this novel. And so I got caught in a vortex-like loop from which thought and time cannot escape. The insights to be gained from this book are banal; like "Girl, Interrupted," the novel pretends at profundity but only plumbs new levels of, well, pretension. Shove your book up your arse, Mr. Lethem. That is, presumably, where it came from.
All right. . .I'll admit that last bit was a little harsh. But I'm still not taking it back.
"You can't be deep without a surface." Yeah? And you can't be deep if you don't sink beneath that surface, either, and find something worthwhile there. "He touched the lowest depths to attain the highest heights," as Dante wrote—my Latin's a bit shaky, so pray forgive the translation if it's wrong. There's no depth here. Pretending to be profound is not deep.
As to the writing style: when I began the book, it interested me immensely. Certain register shifts are common, from the lofty to the bathetic to the seedy and filthy: from Shakespeare to Danielle Steele, an you will. And, as I said, it interested me for a while. But then the shifts just became jarring and erratic: decidedly very off-putting. Mr. Lethem also is fond of a sort of nitty-gritty realism in his novel, which leads to rather pointless descriptions of what Lucinda happens to be wearing at the moment and even more pointless descriptions of oral sex. Now, the book gods know I'm no prude—I'm a staunch supporter of "In the Cut," after all—but the descriptions of here were to me a little bland, mindless, and out of place. There is no reason for them: no deep psychological need is filled by the sexual relationships, nor do they drive the plot forward in any necessary sense. (Am I the only woman left in America who thinks falling in love and having sex in all of five minutes is wrong?)
I'm chalking this book up to a culture shock experience, though not in the good way of trying new things, but in the bad way of understanding why I do not try new things more often. Is it interesting? Sure, if you like this sort of thing. Is it brilliant? Not really. It's a decent example of modern fiction, I suppose. Just because I don't care for it doesn't mean other people won't. *sigh*
"Rent" and all your ilk, stay far away from me. You are making me nauseous.
If I read it all in one sitting, it couldn't have been that bad—right? Wrong. I just wanted to get it over with. The basic premise is this: a struggling band of slightly (but no more than that) misfit characters gets their big break via an inspirational (somewhat) old man named Carl. No joke. Then, predictably, Carl wants a spot in the band and winds up breaking them up. The band's songs are pretty bad, even after they get their Carlspiration(TM). Think the "Joe lies/when he cries" song from "Say Anything" and you'll arrive close to what I mean by that. That the story's set in holier-than-thou Los Angeles and has a number of artist-types (I add the –types because I couldn't possibly call them artists) whose take on art is to make every situation, no matter how ordinary, into something it's not only adds to the sort of snooty atmosphere the author builds throughout. (Who talks the way these people do? Stoners? Apparently so.) Lucinda, the unworthy and decidedly uninteresting heroine of the story, meets her inspiring Carl whilst working as a receptionist taking complaints in one of these orchestrated situations.
The band's most "inspired" song is called "Monster Eyes." Yeah. I laughed too. A lot. Then I just thought it sad. The title refers to what happens when the one flaw you see in a person mushrooms so that it becomes *everything* you see in them. The Monster Eyes amplify the flaw until they devour everything you once saw that was good about someone. Obviously, the author has never heard that the absence of a flaw in beauty is itself a flaw. Or, perhaps, he's heard of it but doesn't believe it. Whatever. There was an ideological disconnect between the story and I there—one of many, as it turns out.
It's often hard to tell when the author's trying to be funny or trying to be serious. Some people have attributed this to his "witty irony" (from the front matter), but none of it seemed very witty or ironic to me, just kind of baseless and disorganized. It didn't help that I really couldn't make myself care a rat's ass about any of the main characters. Much as I kept thinking, "What makes you think you don't have to pay rent?" all throughout "Rent," I kept thinking, "What about you as people makes you so special?" throughout this novel. And so I got caught in a vortex-like loop from which thought and time cannot escape. The insights to be gained from this book are banal; like "Girl, Interrupted," the novel pretends at profundity but only plumbs new levels of, well, pretension. Shove your book up your arse, Mr. Lethem. That is, presumably, where it came from.
All right. . .I'll admit that last bit was a little harsh. But I'm still not taking it back.
"You can't be deep without a surface." Yeah? And you can't be deep if you don't sink beneath that surface, either, and find something worthwhile there. "He touched the lowest depths to attain the highest heights," as Dante wrote—my Latin's a bit shaky, so pray forgive the translation if it's wrong. There's no depth here. Pretending to be profound is not deep.
As to the writing style: when I began the book, it interested me immensely. Certain register shifts are common, from the lofty to the bathetic to the seedy and filthy: from Shakespeare to Danielle Steele, an you will. And, as I said, it interested me for a while. But then the shifts just became jarring and erratic: decidedly very off-putting. Mr. Lethem also is fond of a sort of nitty-gritty realism in his novel, which leads to rather pointless descriptions of what Lucinda happens to be wearing at the moment and even more pointless descriptions of oral sex. Now, the book gods know I'm no prude—I'm a staunch supporter of "In the Cut," after all—but the descriptions of here were to me a little bland, mindless, and out of place. There is no reason for them: no deep psychological need is filled by the sexual relationships, nor do they drive the plot forward in any necessary sense. (Am I the only woman left in America who thinks falling in love and having sex in all of five minutes is wrong?)
I'm chalking this book up to a culture shock experience, though not in the good way of trying new things, but in the bad way of understanding why I do not try new things more often. Is it interesting? Sure, if you like this sort of thing. Is it brilliant? Not really. It's a decent example of modern fiction, I suppose. Just because I don't care for it doesn't mean other people won't. *sigh*
"Rent" and all your ilk, stay far away from me. You are making me nauseous.
May 18, 2008
I actually dont see what Lethem could have done to make people happy with this book. All the reviews here pretty much slate it but I think it was written as a conscious detachment from Motherless Brooklyn/Fortress of Solitude and offers a nice relief. A bit more of a disposable pop riff than a layered, carefully constructed piece of art like his other two most famous books. Yes the characters are hateable, and yes the plot meanders a bit but if anyone out there has actually moved in band circles such as the ones described in the book, they will recognise some pretty horrible truths in there.
For me there is nothing worse than a big serious novel trying to describe music culture and youthful energy. I dont think it can be done. I would have given it 4/5 but I'll give it 5 just to be contrary to the other mediocre reviews here.
For me there is nothing worse than a big serious novel trying to describe music culture and youthful energy. I dont think it can be done. I would have given it 4/5 but I'll give it 5 just to be contrary to the other mediocre reviews here.
November 8, 2018
I can say I have now tried this author. Parts of the book were amusing and even strangely interesting, but I don't want to enter his world of disassociated people again.
January 16, 2019
I always feel like I should connect with Jonathan Lethem more than I do. His books often tick so many of the right boxes: music, movies, graphic novels, detectives, humor, tastefully sexy sexiness. And while I've certainly liked the stuff I've read – including You Don't Love Me Yet – it just hasn't resonated. And I really couldn't tell you why.
I mean, this one should have. It explores the ineffable nature of songcraft, the need for human connection but the danger of losing yourself in someone else, and, erm, the art of kidnapping kangaroos. The characters are finely drawn, especially protagonist Lucinda, a rudderless musician in her late 20s who finds herself working at an art installation whose purpose is to simply to sit in a cubicle and listen to the complaints of anonymous callers. She becomes inexplicably obsessed with one of her callers, Carl, a lothario whose complaints revolve around his inability to connect romantically with women despite his sexual prowess.
This obsession butts up against her relationship with her band – a four-piece that includes her ex-boyfriend Michael. The band is painted as one of those that probably exists throughout Los Angeles – an undeniably talented combo that still hasn't found its voice. Led by the antisocial (and possibly agoraphobic) savant guitarist Bedwin, they still haven't captured lyrics that lead to lift-off.
Until, that is, Lucinda starts bringing Carl's quasi-philosophical bromides to Bedwin to craft songs around. Something transcendent happens. The songs come together. The band finds its musical feet. And then Carl decides he wants in.
I've probably given the impression that You Don't Love Me Yet has more narrative momentum than it actually possesses. There's certainly an arc to the story, but it's a very subtle arc, and even at just over 200 pages I still don't know that we end up anywhere that justifies its length. But still: 3 stars. It's intermittently fun, I never actively disliked it. But I wanted it to do more than it did.
I mean, this one should have. It explores the ineffable nature of songcraft, the need for human connection but the danger of losing yourself in someone else, and, erm, the art of kidnapping kangaroos. The characters are finely drawn, especially protagonist Lucinda, a rudderless musician in her late 20s who finds herself working at an art installation whose purpose is to simply to sit in a cubicle and listen to the complaints of anonymous callers. She becomes inexplicably obsessed with one of her callers, Carl, a lothario whose complaints revolve around his inability to connect romantically with women despite his sexual prowess.
This obsession butts up against her relationship with her band – a four-piece that includes her ex-boyfriend Michael. The band is painted as one of those that probably exists throughout Los Angeles – an undeniably talented combo that still hasn't found its voice. Led by the antisocial (and possibly agoraphobic) savant guitarist Bedwin, they still haven't captured lyrics that lead to lift-off.
Until, that is, Lucinda starts bringing Carl's quasi-philosophical bromides to Bedwin to craft songs around. Something transcendent happens. The songs come together. The band finds its musical feet. And then Carl decides he wants in.
I've probably given the impression that You Don't Love Me Yet has more narrative momentum than it actually possesses. There's certainly an arc to the story, but it's a very subtle arc, and even at just over 200 pages I still don't know that we end up anywhere that justifies its length. But still: 3 stars. It's intermittently fun, I never actively disliked it. But I wanted it to do more than it did.
November 29, 2018
I wrote this with Jonathan Lethem and we banged it out in a matter of weeks over AOL. Obviously I'm biased.
S.
S.
May 14, 2016
Allright, allright, Okay.
What is truly ironic is that the panting, hysterically negative reviews of this book almost half prove its premise. I guess the subjects of this book's gentle and loopy satire are truly as thin skinned as they seem. Because that is what this book is, a satire. It is no more a realistic portrayal of Los Angeles than LA Story the movie. That is, I think, its ultimate charm.
I'm not calling it a masterpiece by any means, because it isn't. But it has a genuinely understated humor and shambling whimsy that is maybe escaping more earnest readers. The story is a light fable, set among self indulgent twenty somethings. Every character is not so much one dimensional as they are skewed stereotype, a specialty of Lethems. The heroine is a sort of mewling, needy indie ingenue-her on again off again boyfriend the archetypal handsome model of disheveled indie ambivalence, the lead guitarist is an art school autistic savant, trying to plumb the depths of 'Human Desire' by Fritz Lang while forgetting to eat. Even the love interest, a mercurial fat ass Prospero, making a mysterious living through his ability to write poetic bumper stickers, works for me. He resembles those older and slightly jaded shills of semiotics, media and contemporary art that seem to magically gather livings in the Valley. Its all quite funny. Then there are the minor characters, which I found well drawn and faintly recognizable: the persnickety South Asian Britophile and art gallery owner, with his clean shaved head and tailored suits, his creepy armpit sniffing impressario/associate. They are parodies, but in case you haven't noticed, this entire novel is a parody.
Lethem also shows an uncanny ability to get into the skewed, shoe-gazery head space of indie lyricism, with songs like "Monster Eyes", "Shitty Citizen" and "Canary In a Coke Machine." And yes, Fancher Autumnbreast is a satrical name, a la Thomas Pynchon, as are most of the names in this book. Lethem's styling, as always, is undeniably elegant and suited to its purpose. And those of you who are 'grossed out' by the sex scenes? I'll leave you to sort that out with a professional.
So I'll respectfully disagree with the people who say that there is nothing to like about this book, or who attack it on the grounds of accuracy. Huh?! This is the fractured fairytale/soap-opera/daydream about how bands form. Slight, not momentous, sure as hell no Motherless Brooklyn. But it's a sweet, salty parody, slightly askew, that hits its targets squarely in the lint gathering navel. In other words, this book is much smarter than it looks. Apparently its also a quicker study than many of its critics.
What is truly ironic is that the panting, hysterically negative reviews of this book almost half prove its premise. I guess the subjects of this book's gentle and loopy satire are truly as thin skinned as they seem. Because that is what this book is, a satire. It is no more a realistic portrayal of Los Angeles than LA Story the movie. That is, I think, its ultimate charm.
I'm not calling it a masterpiece by any means, because it isn't. But it has a genuinely understated humor and shambling whimsy that is maybe escaping more earnest readers. The story is a light fable, set among self indulgent twenty somethings. Every character is not so much one dimensional as they are skewed stereotype, a specialty of Lethems. The heroine is a sort of mewling, needy indie ingenue-her on again off again boyfriend the archetypal handsome model of disheveled indie ambivalence, the lead guitarist is an art school autistic savant, trying to plumb the depths of 'Human Desire' by Fritz Lang while forgetting to eat. Even the love interest, a mercurial fat ass Prospero, making a mysterious living through his ability to write poetic bumper stickers, works for me. He resembles those older and slightly jaded shills of semiotics, media and contemporary art that seem to magically gather livings in the Valley. Its all quite funny. Then there are the minor characters, which I found well drawn and faintly recognizable: the persnickety South Asian Britophile and art gallery owner, with his clean shaved head and tailored suits, his creepy armpit sniffing impressario/associate. They are parodies, but in case you haven't noticed, this entire novel is a parody.
Lethem also shows an uncanny ability to get into the skewed, shoe-gazery head space of indie lyricism, with songs like "Monster Eyes", "Shitty Citizen" and "Canary In a Coke Machine." And yes, Fancher Autumnbreast is a satrical name, a la Thomas Pynchon, as are most of the names in this book. Lethem's styling, as always, is undeniably elegant and suited to its purpose. And those of you who are 'grossed out' by the sex scenes? I'll leave you to sort that out with a professional.
So I'll respectfully disagree with the people who say that there is nothing to like about this book, or who attack it on the grounds of accuracy. Huh?! This is the fractured fairytale/soap-opera/daydream about how bands form. Slight, not momentous, sure as hell no Motherless Brooklyn. But it's a sweet, salty parody, slightly askew, that hits its targets squarely in the lint gathering navel. In other words, this book is much smarter than it looks. Apparently its also a quicker study than many of its critics.
February 1, 2009
I adore Jonathan Lethem. Ever since Gun, with Occasional Music, he's remained one of my favorite authors. His science fiction was fascinating and stylish and, though I was tepid about it, his shift to traditional fiction kept much of the flair and panache of previous work. To me, Lethem is what happens when you take Chuck Palahniuk and add literary talent.
You Don't Love Me Yet is a clever book. Though the book's main character is the bassist for a band, the true star of the novel is the Complainer, a character who pens witty quips. Because of this, the book is filled with witty quips. The first time I ran across one, I smirked and got excited, but soon I found myself rolling my eyes as each pithy saying jumped from the page.
Unlike Motherless Brooklyn or The Fortress of Solitude, You Don't Love Me Yet lacks depth. It's a page turner filled with self-absorbed New Yorkers playing with themselves among the art-house elite. Under normal circumstances, that might be the touch of death, but the cynical and humane way in which Lethem treats the characters turns them into unwitting tragic comics.
You Don't Love Me Yet reads quickly and can be devoured over a weekend or on a long plane ride. And while it shouldn't be remembered as one of Lethem's greatest works, it's certainly worth picking up and reading if you're a fan of his.
You Don't Love Me Yet is a clever book. Though the book's main character is the bassist for a band, the true star of the novel is the Complainer, a character who pens witty quips. Because of this, the book is filled with witty quips. The first time I ran across one, I smirked and got excited, but soon I found myself rolling my eyes as each pithy saying jumped from the page.
Unlike Motherless Brooklyn or The Fortress of Solitude, You Don't Love Me Yet lacks depth. It's a page turner filled with self-absorbed New Yorkers playing with themselves among the art-house elite. Under normal circumstances, that might be the touch of death, but the cynical and humane way in which Lethem treats the characters turns them into unwitting tragic comics.
You Don't Love Me Yet reads quickly and can be devoured over a weekend or on a long plane ride. And while it shouldn't be remembered as one of Lethem's greatest works, it's certainly worth picking up and reading if you're a fan of his.
February 14, 2009
This short work seemed more like two novels to me - the first half was this charming, quirky story of a band and this woman who works for a Complaint Line that is really more of an art installation than a public service, and the second half is the story of the still unnamed band in Los Angeles as they go through the far-reaching effects of Lucinda meeting one of her callers, as well as the often unsuccessful merging of high concept art with a band.
During the first half, I was constantly reflecting on all the reasons I love Lethem, but he kind of lost me on the second half. I do love the interesting turns the conversations would take, and his analogies are always thought-provoking. The astronaut food people one will probably stick with me for a while. Part of me is still waiting to hear the band.
During the first half, I was constantly reflecting on all the reasons I love Lethem, but he kind of lost me on the second half. I do love the interesting turns the conversations would take, and his analogies are always thought-provoking. The astronaut food people one will probably stick with me for a while. Part of me is still waiting to hear the band.
August 25, 2020
He llegado a este tras la lectura de Cuando Alice se subió a la mesa, que me encantó.
Tiene momentos brillantes, como la descripción de la sinergia que alcanza el grupo cuando toca o ciertos exabruptos del hombre de las quejas. Este hombre tiene una narrativa curiosa. Pero la historia no tiene pies ni cabeza y hace hincapié en aspectos, situaciones y cosas que no me provocan sino extrañeza. Es difícil conectar con los personajes (con algunos casi ni se puede intentar) y se dan por normales comportamientos que no lo son... No encuentro ni crítica ni tema subyacente. A lo mejor lo escribió como simple divertimento: en ese caso no era el libro que me apetecía leer.
Tiene momentos brillantes, como la descripción de la sinergia que alcanza el grupo cuando toca o ciertos exabruptos del hombre de las quejas. Este hombre tiene una narrativa curiosa. Pero la historia no tiene pies ni cabeza y hace hincapié en aspectos, situaciones y cosas que no me provocan sino extrañeza. Es difícil conectar con los personajes (con algunos casi ni se puede intentar) y se dan por normales comportamientos que no lo son... No encuentro ni crítica ni tema subyacente. A lo mejor lo escribió como simple divertimento: en ese caso no era el libro que me apetecía leer.
January 23, 2012
Pretentious and ultimately extremely annoying. The names of the characters alone was enough to make me dislike this book. But ultimately I didn't like this book because other than Bedwin, who was a fairly minor character (see, what did I tell you about the names) there was not one believable character in this book. It's not just that most of the characters were unlikable - that is neither here nor there, it was just they were such empty stereotypes of music and art hipsters. Maybe this book was supposed to be a huge parody and I just didn't get it. Could be.
October 24, 2014
Did I enjoy this book?
yes.
Am I an insane Lethem completest?
yes.
If my boat was sinking would I throw this one overboard if it meant I could save Chronic City, Fortress of Solitude or Motherless Brooklyn?
most definitely.
yes.
Am I an insane Lethem completest?
yes.
If my boat was sinking would I throw this one overboard if it meant I could save Chronic City, Fortress of Solitude or Motherless Brooklyn?
most definitely.
October 29, 2011
I thought I wouldn't like this at first. A book about L.A. hipsters. But, as usual, Lethem won me over with all his terrific details. I liked the slogan writing stuff. The plot wasn't great though.
November 9, 2016
Read on train. I liked the beginning better than the end.
January 24, 2018
I mean, technically well-written, because I like Lethem's writing, but I think I prefer him at his weirdest/most speculative. This was like, just, why? Left it in the back of the airplane seat.
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