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You Don't Love Me Yet (Vintage Contemporaries)

Jonathan Lethem

2.82 · Rating details · 4,360 ratings · 630 reviews

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 ban ...more

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Paperback, 240 pages

Published April 8th 2008 by Vintage (first published May 29th 2007)

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Jul 24, 2010 Michelle rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: novels, audio

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 brea ...more

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Jul 16, 2007 Jason Pettus rated it did not like it · review of another edition

(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 th ...more

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Sep 03, 2013 Brian rated it liked it · review of another edition

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 a ...more

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Nov 23, 2007 jeremy rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction

no, i most certainly do not, and if you keep writing like this, i never will. reads like an overreaching first attempt at fiction. the only thing worse than whiny hipsters is an entire novel about them. the only thing worse than that, is a poorly written one.

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Sep 09, 2007 Jill Golden rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Recommends it for: no one.

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 ...more

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Sep 30, 2008 Trin rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Shelves: american-lit, fiction, music

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, appallin ...more

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Oct 29, 2008 Gabriel rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Recommends it for: no.

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 ...more

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Aug 29, 2016 Mattia Ravasi rated it really liked it · review of another edition

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 chang ...more

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Jul 01, 2020 Byron 'Giggsy' Paul rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: meh, music

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 ...more

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Feb 09, 2016 Brian rated it it was ok · review of another edition

"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 stor ...more

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Apr 16, 2008 Ryan rated it did not like it

Recommends it for: people who like bad period pieces.

Recommended to Ryan by: myself

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 l ...more

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Aug 05, 2008 Jenni Lunde rated it it was ok · review of another edition

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 (somewha 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.
...more

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Aug 22, 2007 Jon rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Recommends it for: Flower Sniffin, Kitty Pettin', Baby Kissin' Corporate Rock Whores.

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 ...more

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Nov 08, 2018 Kathy rated it it was ok · review of another edition

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. ...more

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Nov 29, 2018 L. Farmer rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

I wrote this with Jonathan Lethem and we banged it out in a matter of weeks over AOL. Obviously I'm biased.

S. ...more

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Jan 27, 2009 Ben rated it liked it

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 Complain ...more

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Feb 13, 2009 Jenny (Reading Envy) rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: read09

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 reflecti ...more

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Jan 19, 2012 Cflack rated it did not like it

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 ...more

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Nov 09, 2016 Havva rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: novels

Read on train. I liked the beginning better than the end.

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Apr 24, 2018 Joe Kraus rated it really liked it · review of another edition

For most of the last 15 years or so, I have been one of Jonathan Lethem’s biggest fans. I think Chronic City has a claim on being the best novel of its decade, and I think Motherless Brooklyn is an almost perfect ironic tribute to the noir tradition. Add in the flawed but gorgeous Fortress of Solitude, the quietly beautiful Dissident Gardens, and the sci-fi comedy of Gun with Occasional Music, and he has as varied, funny, and brilliant a bibliography as anybody going.

My assessment of him as argu For most of the last 15 years or so, I have been one of Jonathan Lethem’s biggest fans. I think Chronic City has a claim on being the best novel of its decade, and I think Motherless Brooklyn is an almost perfect ironic tribute to the noir tradition. Add in the flawed but gorgeous Fortress of Solitude, the quietly beautiful Dissident Gardens, and the sci-fi comedy of Gun with Occasional Music, and he has as varied, funny, and brilliant a bibliography as anybody going.

My assessment of him as arguably the best writer of his generation has taken a couple hits in the last year, though. For one, his A Gambler’s Anatomy struck me as the first work I’d read of his that wasn’t deeply inspired. Part of the joy of reading him is that anything seems possible, that he’s always restraining one flight of fancy or another to give us the choicest pieces of his imagination. A Gambler’s Anatomy felt heavy, even contrived at times. It left me sad.

In addition, as I reflected on the disappointment of that novel and thought more about my students’ reactions to Chronic City a couple years ago, I started to understand what some of the Lethem-haters have been saying for a while: that the major chink in his armor is that he focuses too much on hipsters, on characters who live in the surface of things rather than in any substantial way. I understood – mind you, I did not agree with – that claim and began to glimpse how it might annoy some readers to hear so much about such self-satisfied characters. There was, maybe, a little bit of the supermodel complaining about how hard it is for to feel thin in the way these often-wealthy taste-making young people grasped after some meaning to their lives.

All that said, I am happy to report that I loved this novel. It doesn’t crack my top four all-time Lethems, maybe not even the top five, but that still leaves plenty of room for this to be really good. Yes, it concerns hipsters and beautiful artist types. Yes, it assumes a familiarity with pop culture that can make you feel a little like an aging Midwesterner. And, yes, it’s simply less ambitious than Chronic City or even Dissident Gardens in the way it tries to make sense of the way art defines and then confines us.

Instead, this is a novel that works from the premise that, as a number of characters repeatedly say, you can’t be deep without a surface. Lucinda seems to have it all. She’s the bass player for a band about to break. She’s got that heroin chic look. She goes from dating the band’s lead singer to falling for a strangely compelling “complainer,” and she has a network of interesting (though odd) and talented people willing to give her light employment or free housing.

But the complainer sets something off inside her with his capacity for articulating his own – and the zeitgeist’s – dissatisfaction. When she recycles his complaints into lyrics for the band, there’s real power. The premise is sound, but it would fall flat without Lethem’s deep skill. You really need someone with the power to manipulate language and to see others with “monster eyes” – someone like Lethem himself – to make it all work.

Part of the joy of the novel is that the music seems really to come through. I can hear these songs, and I like them. They do what the best rock does, which is a privileged and white version of what the blues do: take frustration (or, as Jagger and Richards said it so memorably, “no satisfaction”) and make it something you can dance to.

That would be enough, but Lethem takes it even farther. The complainer, Carl(ton), is not a real rocker. When he joins the band, he’s both a lousy musician and a lousy exemplar of what it means to rock. He simply can’t let go of his complaints, as witnessed in the band’s big break live radio performance where he wants to recast their most popular song as a dirge. If hipsters define themselves against convention, then he defines himself against hipsterdom, never accepting his good fortune, never allowing himself to dance. It’s great that [SPOILER] he winds up in love with the all-business middle-aged zoo administrator who has also foiled Matthew in his wonderfully demented effort to rescue, and perhaps fall in love with, a kangaroo. He deserves an ending where he’s held in check, where someone directs him toward what he has to do.

In the middle of all that, Lethem retains his skill at sketching characters quickly and effectively. It still seems to me that he can make a character come alive more fully in 270 pages than Jonathan Franzen can in 600 and that, as he does so, he brings into play the same “postmodern” reflections of how we can understand ourselves outside a contemporary culture that consistently tries to shape us in its own image.

I can see this feels a little dated – I’m sorry I didn’t get to it when it first came out – but it serves for me as evidence that Lethem remains one of the most distinctive and entertaining voices we have. I’ve just learned that he has another one due out in the fall, and I’m already excited for it.
...more

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Jan 14, 2019 Rob rated it liked it

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 el 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. ...more

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Feb 17, 2019 Mariya Lim rated it liked it · review of another edition

The characters feel familiar. They sound like my friends. I might as well be Lucinda, attending some art shindig, drinking straight out of the bottle, kissing the wrong people. Astronaut food? Monster eyes? it me & us af

It doesn't follow though that just because it's relatable, it's got to be good. The supposedly talented, oddly named individuals who populate this book's world aren't all that likeable, but not even in their baseness are they compelling. You Don't Love Me Yet has its moments—mos ...more

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Sep 05, 2017 Gregory rated it did not like it · review of another edition

From the wikipedia page: "You Don't Love Me Yet (2007) is a comic novel about alternative music from Jonathan Lethem, set in modern Los Angeles"

& now for my review: this book is a comic novel about alternative music in LA and that sucks. The music parts were so cringey bad to the point where one guy opens the door to his loft wearing a big star t-shirt and there is "drama" at a KEXP Seattle type interview and it is so uncomfortable. There are some endearing and charming qualities about this book ...more

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Jan 24, 2018 Halley Sutton rated it it was ok · review of another edition

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. ...more

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May 07, 2013 Bjorn rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: usa

Jonathan Lethem always wrote books in much the same way that Yo La Tengo make music; a reference here, an influence there, an irresistably charming fusion of twee pop, disco, free jazz and aggressive punk. Or in Lethem's case, some pop cultural journalism, some Austerian New York/Brooklyn, some satire, some Woody Allen sex and characters just overdone enough to be both funny and believable. All of it ever so slightly transparent so that you can see the layers underneath where he tries to work ou Jonathan Lethem always wrote books in much the same way that Yo La Tengo make music; a reference here, an influence there, an irresistably charming fusion of twee pop, disco, free jazz and aggressive punk. Or in Lethem's case, some pop cultural journalism, some Austerian New York/Brooklyn, some satire, some Woody Allen sex and characters just overdone enough to be both funny and believable. All of it ever so slightly transparent so that you can see the layers underneath where he tries to work out how society and culture work and go together... if they even do.

He did that perfectly in Fortress of Solitude and Motherless Brooklyn, two novels that simultaneously deconstructed and reconstructed the world while touching on music, art, movies and literature as reference points. Not to mention The Disappointment Artist, which starts out as a collection of essays and ends up as a frank autobiography describing growing up and his memories of his parents by kicking off from things like the films of John Cassavetes, Philip K Dick's non-SF novels, the subway station where they filmed The Warriors and others. In Lethem's books there's no high and low culture, just a world teeming with impressions.

A lot of that carries over to You Don't Love Me Yet, but this time he's taken the logical step and done what many male (and, sure, some female) authors do sooner or later: he's written an if-I-were-a-rockstar novel. You know, one of those novels where an author who's always loved music writes about what it might be like to be in a band, comes up with cool song titles with no pressure to actually turn them into songs, smart ways to handle record companies, etc. (It's a genre of mixed success; for a truly pointless recent example, check out Douglas Cowie's Owen Noone and the Marauder. Or rather, don't.)

Of course, Lethem wouldn't be Lethem if he didn’t a) make his "rockstars" a struggling indie band who have never played live, never recorded, and can't even come up with a band name that's obscure enough, and b) took it as an excuse to philosophise about some other thigs as well. You Don't Love Me Yet is a kindly satire of the American independent music scene, and our four heroes – Lucinda, Denise, Michael and Bedwin – your archetypical around-30 slightly disfunctional types you may see hovering around the Pavement section of your local "alternative" record store. At its best, it's something like a novelization of the delightful webcomic Questionable Content. But at the same time, he seems to want to say something about the debate within culture today, especially for collage artists like himself: the very concept of owning, of immaterial rights. Who can rightfully claim to own a piece of music, a person, a word, a heart... or why not a kangaroo. (Don't ask.) How we all run around trying to find that missing piece, complain to complete strangers (what's an alternative rock audience but the songwriter's personal therapists, paying for the privilege?), how we all tell ourselves that if we can just get that one thing right everything will fall into place...

"Seems", I wrote. Because unfortunately he doesn't quite manage. One scene at the beginning feels symtomatic; two of our anti-heroes go to a gallery and semi-ironically look at a large white cube titled "Chamber Containing The Volumetric Representation of the Number of Hours It Took Me to Arrive At This Idea" – the ultimate self-reference, the snake biting its own tail. They crawl inside the cube and have sex. And part of me almost thinks the book could have ended there, because far too often I find myself wondering if the correct summary of You Don't Love Me Yet should be something like "Book About What Happens Over The 224 Pages It Contains". Just like so many struggling bands, Lethem this time has all the riffs and effect pedals he can come up with but he can't quite find that hook, that chorus that makes a song more than just 3 minutes of drums and guitar. Not completely unlike the equally disappointing The Brooklyn Follies, the book ambles around amid confrontations, love scenes and film geek discussions without ever really moving. The snake bites its own tail, panta rei and at the end we've had a few laughs, a few questions and a few good song titles, but not much more. Lethem is a brilliant stylist and that gets him far, but those vertigo-inducing perspectives from both high and low that his last few books brought me never really appear. You Don't Love Me Yet is easy enough to like, but I never find myself loving it. ...more

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Apr 17, 2019 Keith Taylor rated it it was ok · review of another edition

I have loved a couple of Lethem's books, but not this one. It just felt too thin, as if it were written in a hurry. I did write one of my little reviews of this though for the local paper -- one of my less enthusiastic ones:

https://annarborobserver.com/articles... ...more

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Jun 22, 2008 Christen rated it it was ok · review of another edition

I'd give this two and a half stars if Goodreads would let me.

I chose this in a far more hurried manner than usual. I was in the airport, knew I was likely to finish my book in flight, and knew I'd need something to get me through the rest of the trip. I dashed into the mini-Powell's at the airport, ran my eyes over the Literary Fiction/Classics section, saw Lethem's name, though, "Hey, I've heard good things and been meaning to check him out," and arbitrarily picked this from among the titles of I'd give this two and a half stars if Goodreads would let me.

I chose this in a far more hurried manner than usual. I was in the airport, knew I was likely to finish my book in flight, and knew I'd need something to get me through the rest of the trip. I dashed into the mini-Powell's at the airport, ran my eyes over the Literary Fiction/Classics section, saw Lethem's name, though, "Hey, I've heard good things and been meaning to check him out," and arbitrarily picked this from among the titles offered.

Turns out people who love Lethem's other work found this a great disappointment, so I'm probably not insane. Thing is, the prose was beautiful, and Lethem's descriptions of Los Angeles (the city I happened to be traveling to) were beautiful and spot-on. All the more disappointing that such a perceptive writer should take us on such an uninteresting journey.

You know how Delillo's characters are kind of fascinating and sophisticated but also kinda flat and sometimes obnoxious and his dialogue is sometimes impossibly clipped and abstract? You know how that kind of annoys you but then the ideas just completely deliver and at the end of the day it's completely OK with you that he's far more talented as an essayist and aphorist than as a fiction writer? Except when he really doesn't deliver? Well, Lethem opens this novel with two impossibly beautiful Angelinos meeting at a gallery to break up. Except he doesn't say that and they don't say that -- the dialogue (which I'd quote if I hadn't already gotten rid of the book) is implausibly clipped and abstract. Then there's band practice, and nobody can tell if the band in question is completely shitty or really onto something. Then there's one character's absurd job taking calls at the Complaint Line, an art installation -- and she's inexplicably fascinated by a particular caller's self-possessed complaints that she pursues a relationship with him in real life. It turns out he's an honest to God aphorist -- and while a few of his lines are compelling, most of them are just annoying.

Then there's a subplot involving one character's creepy decision to abduct a kangaroo from the zoo where he works/has been fired. That made me hopeful that this whole stupid millieu would turn into some kind of madcap mystery, but no, that subplot resolves itself with disappointing tidiness. As does, for that matter, the relationship with the complainer, and pretty much everything having to do with the band.

None of this matters much, because I had pretty much nothing invested in the characters or their outcomes. And I really tried. Before their ages were revealed to me, I imagined the characters were in their early 20s and maybe-educated, maybe-not, which would explain why they do such stupid things and seem so desperate to impress. Turns out, no, they're all supposed to be on the precipice of 30, and they are all educated. Now, I'm 27, and I can scarce imagine anyone I know behaving as stupidly as the characters in this book. Maybe I give my friends too much credit, or maybe I choose them well enough to avoid this -- but seriously, any reasonably intelligent, experienced 29-year-old woman should have seen right through the complainer.

Spoiler alert -- the unnamed band disappears to the void they spend all but 20 pages inhabiting, which makes perfect sense, because apart from a few passages describing the chemistry at their first show, the only thing you know about the band's sound is their lyrics (appropriated from the complainer's aphorisms), which are so bad you assume the music has to be fantastic in order to carry them. This is, in fact, suggested at one point in the book, and it's the only explanation that makes any sense to me.

Since the two major storylines involve theft (the kangaroo and the complainer's words), I assume Lethem's Big Ideas -- you know, the ones that should make it worth our while to tolerate the stupidity and shallowness of the characters -- have something to do with, like, the transmutability of intellectual property. This is an issue he's written about quite eloquently elsewhere. It's handled with embarrassing clumsiness here. I'll give the man another shot, but I can't recommend this particular work to anyone.

...more

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Oct 02, 2012 David rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: novels

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 h 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.
...more

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Sep 25, 2018 Pulse rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Well that didn't work, did it?

I got so bored of the book halfway through that I had to stop and read Cat's Cradle. Even if you somehow manage to be a Vonnegut-hater, you'll find it way superior. It's disappointing. Motherless Brooklyn was part of my coursework in college, and I have good memories of that one, so stumbling upon another Lethem work after all these years should have been a cause for celebration.

The characters are uninteresting, nothing of importance seems to happen, and it's a slog ...more

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Jan 16, 2009 Jack rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Recommends it for: The "Hip" and "Clever"

A disappointing outing from the normally transcendent Jonathan Lethem, clever (oh is it clever!) but never actually engaging. It's about a bunch of twenty-something kids in a band that blow that one chance to make it big, probably because they're all too damn clever for their own goods.

It's not that this is a bad idea, or that Lethem doesn't demonstrate the necessary affection for his characters to make them lovable. It's that the whole book smacks of trying too hard. The characters are all "in ...more

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About Jonathan Lethem

Jonathan Lethem

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Jonathan 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 t ...more

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“I want what we all want," said Carl. "To move certain parts of the interior of myself into the exterior world, to see if they can be embraced.” — 77 likes

“Listen to me. I’m shy. I’m not stupid. I can’t meet people’s eyes. I don’t know if you understand what that’s like. There’s a whole world going on around me, I’m aware of that. It’s not because I don’t want to look at you, Lucinda. It’s that I don’t want to be seen.” — 43 likes

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