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Publication
Vintage (2008), 240 pages
Description
From the incomparable Jonathan Lethem, a raucous romantic farce that explores the paradoxes of love and artYou Don�t Love Me Yet is a funny and affectionate send-up of the alternative band scene, the city of Los Angeles, and the entire genre of romantic comedy, but remains unmistakably the work of the inimitable Jonathan Lethem.
User reviews
LibraryThing member maddiegreene
You Don't Love Me Yet is a short novel that demonstrates Lethem's love of music and music journalism. The mechanics of band society, first gigs, and collective songwriting were, as far as I could tell from my six-year relationship with a musician and basic experience as a human being, almost
But here's the thing-- despite my initial indifference to this book, Lethem is owning the hell out of the bad reviews. According to him, in the post-Fortress days of critical acclaim and indie adulation, he told his wife "My next book will be my worst novel ever, no matter what I write. So I'm free to write anything!" It's already clear to the reader that You Don't Love Me Yet is the author's palate cleanser. Me, I initially found this insulting. It was like my favorite band came back for an encore-- playing kazoos. But I feel much better after hearing him describe it as a freeing exercise, a deliberately light book than owns nothing and claims no mastery (in contrast to the near autobiography of Fortress, Lethem is now writing about stuff he's never done [been in a band that nearly makes it] in a place he's never lived [Los Angeles]). He also acknowledged it as a deliberate comedy. Now, I thought the book's greatest sin was veering toward comedic magical realism without letting the story go all the way. If you write your love interest as an Ignatius P. Reilly figure, you have no business shying away from complete absurdity. But my misgivings are considerably assuaged now. It's okay that it's his worst book. It could never have been anything else.
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painful in their psychological accuracy. But it isn't a gritty story of breaking into the industry. It's a light, nearly surreal love story, light years away from Fortress of Solitude's grim weight. One significant character was so like Confederacy of Dunces' Ignatius P. Reilly that I could barely read him independently of the inevitable associations. I think this was my own comparison and certainly not anything deliberate. But it highlighted areas where the story seemed to want to fall into parodic buffoonery but never quite got there. What this books needs, I think, is a good vein of magical realism. Lethem's done so much excellent genre work that I felt this would surely tip over the edge into something properly surreal, as it threatened to, but it never rose above politely ridiculous. I've read someone else's opinion that this read like an early work, and I concur. But here's the thing-- despite my initial indifference to this book, Lethem is owning the hell out of the bad reviews. According to him, in the post-Fortress days of critical acclaim and indie adulation, he told his wife "My next book will be my worst novel ever, no matter what I write. So I'm free to write anything!" It's already clear to the reader that You Don't Love Me Yet is the author's palate cleanser. Me, I initially found this insulting. It was like my favorite band came back for an encore-- playing kazoos. But I feel much better after hearing him describe it as a freeing exercise, a deliberately light book than owns nothing and claims no mastery (in contrast to the near autobiography of Fortress, Lethem is now writing about stuff he's never done [been in a band that nearly makes it] in a place he's never lived [Los Angeles]). He also acknowledged it as a deliberate comedy. Now, I thought the book's greatest sin was veering toward comedic magical realism without letting the story go all the way. If you write your love interest as an Ignatius P. Reilly figure, you have no business shying away from complete absurdity. But my misgivings are considerably assuaged now. It's okay that it's his worst book. It could never have been anything else.
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LibraryThing member TimBazzett
YOU DON'T LOVE ME YET is the third Jonathan Lethem book I've read. He's written more than a dozen by now and has a cult following, mostly because of his novel, FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, which is indeed an amazing novel. I've also read his strange book, AS SHE CLIMBED ACROSS THE TABLE.
YDLMY is the story
Its a fairly simple, yet complex, story, and kept me interested enough to read it all. There's a lot of sex, but it never seems especially obscene. Well, maybe some of it does. What I found a bit strange is that there are no back stories for any of the characters, no families mentioned, nothing of their childhoods. It's as if they have all sprung fully formed from their author's imagination, no explanations needed or offered.
I rather enjoyed the story, but probably won't remember it for long. But I do have a used copy of Lethem's other notable novel here, MOTHERLESS BROOKLYN, and will try to read that one sooner or later. This one? If you like odd characters and pop culture, liberally salted with sex, you'll probably like it.
- Tim Bazzett, author of the memoir, BOOKLOVER
YDLMY is the story
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of a struggling alt-rock band in Los Angeles. Lucinda, 29, the bass player, is the central character, supporting herself at various jobs - coffee barista, then manning a phone where she encounters Carl, an older male caller she becomes obsessed with, and enters into a heated sexual liaison with. Then there's Andrew (Lucinda's former boyfriend), the lead singer who works as an animal tech at the zoo; Denise, the drummer, who clerks in a porn store; and Bedwin, the lead guitarist and songwriter weirdo. The band has no name, but one song, "Monster Eyes," almost, but not quite, represents their big break. But Carl, who forces himself into the band, claiming authorship of the tune, ruins it for them.Its a fairly simple, yet complex, story, and kept me interested enough to read it all. There's a lot of sex, but it never seems especially obscene. Well, maybe some of it does. What I found a bit strange is that there are no back stories for any of the characters, no families mentioned, nothing of their childhoods. It's as if they have all sprung fully formed from their author's imagination, no explanations needed or offered.
I rather enjoyed the story, but probably won't remember it for long. But I do have a used copy of Lethem's other notable novel here, MOTHERLESS BROOKLYN, and will try to read that one sooner or later. This one? If you like odd characters and pop culture, liberally salted with sex, you'll probably like it.
- Tim Bazzett, author of the memoir, BOOKLOVER
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LibraryThing member cliffagogo
He's better than this. The early promise of Motherless Brooklyn and The Fortress Of Solitude, and more recently his collection of pop culture essays The Disappointment Artist meant that big things were expected of Jonathan Lethem. Instead he takes a step backwards with this lazy tale of an arthouse
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rock band in implosion. Hidden amongst a lightweight romantic comedy with kooky complainers and sick kangaroos is a deeper, more satisfying book...yet Lethem under-performs spectacularly. Don't get me wrong, hidden amongst this mess is a real gem of a book - but its as if, even as we stumble to the conclusion, his heart just isn't in it anymore. And as a reader, I felt exactly the same. Show Less
LibraryThing member ragwaine
This is probably my 5th or 6th Lethem but my least favorite. It's the first one without fantastic elements also so I'm sure that's part of it.
Lethem used to represent a kind of unknown quantity for me. It was the genius of experimentation that sometimes didn't work but when it did it REALLY did. In
You can tell that he really loves to take something that's been described a million times and attempt to describe it differently. That's good but it gets to be a bit much. It seemed that ALL of his characters were extremely clever, even while high. Unfortunately that rang very untrue for me. It just made the characters unreal puppets with the author's voice. Not to say that they weren't well developed because I think they were. It was just the ultra-deep dialogue that made them unreal.
So if you're into clever writing give this one a shot. It's short anyway.
Lethem used to represent a kind of unknown quantity for me. It was the genius of experimentation that sometimes didn't work but when it did it REALLY did. In
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this novel it seems that he has turned to a more limited but polished style. There are some ridiculous scenes in the book but nothing absolutely absurd.You can tell that he really loves to take something that's been described a million times and attempt to describe it differently. That's good but it gets to be a bit much. It seemed that ALL of his characters were extremely clever, even while high. Unfortunately that rang very untrue for me. It just made the characters unreal puppets with the author's voice. Not to say that they weren't well developed because I think they were. It was just the ultra-deep dialogue that made them unreal.
So if you're into clever writing give this one a shot. It's short anyway.
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LibraryThing member MihiellaRandt
Being a moody reader, I wanted something light and fun, You Don't Love Me Yet did not disappoint. The plot was authentic yet absurd. Authenticity was reflected in the maturity of the characters, who in their early-mid 20s don't hesitate to spend their (respective) last-dime on a pack of cigarettes,
The lead singer of a struggling alternative rock band, Lucinda earns her rent by answering calls for the Los Angeles Complaint Line, an artsy, unprofitable business venture of her college friend. There are many insightful one-liners in the book, especially from 'THE complainer' Carl, who Lucinda falls for.
[You Don’t love Me Yet] is not Lethem’s most loved, well known title (see Motherless Brooklyn and The Fortress of Solitude) for two reasons:
1) There was very little character development during the course of the novella
2) Lethem attempted to include a great quantity of casual sex, in the first-person POV, perhaps to authenticate Lucinda’s lack of age and maturity. Attempts to adequately describe such activity in the first-person may be better left to someone of the same gender.
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work in dead-end jobs, or blow-off an important project for school. Absurdity was abundant in frank descriptions of person, character and kangaroo. The lead singer of a struggling alternative rock band, Lucinda earns her rent by answering calls for the Los Angeles Complaint Line, an artsy, unprofitable business venture of her college friend. There are many insightful one-liners in the book, especially from 'THE complainer' Carl, who Lucinda falls for.
[You Don’t love Me Yet] is not Lethem’s most loved, well known title (see Motherless Brooklyn and The Fortress of Solitude) for two reasons:
1) There was very little character development during the course of the novella
2) Lethem attempted to include a great quantity of casual sex, in the first-person POV, perhaps to authenticate Lucinda’s lack of age and maturity. Attempts to adequately describe such activity in the first-person may be better left to someone of the same gender.
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LibraryThing member cdogzilla
A more fun read than his "Fortress of Solitude," but it feels much more slight. The characters aren't as interesting, their relationships not as complex ... enough for a tv dramedy, but not for a novel. But Lethem's got an agreeable style and he makes the story of the band, its brush with near
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greatness, feel like that time you saw that really cool local band you were sure were going to go places and you'd be able to say, "I saw them when they were playing 'Volcanic Action of My Soul' in grotty co-ops back in Madison" to folks when they were huge. But Trenchmouth never took off and I don't think ths novel really will either. Show Less
LibraryThing member squeakjones
Ah, Jonathan Lethem. Even when you give us lightweight confection you delight us with your clever comparisons, your wonderful dialog, and your uncanny ability to give voice to those sensations and feelings we thought could never be put into words.
Case in point: You Don't Love Me Yet.
On the surface
The admittedly brief synopsis above doesn't begin, however, to describe the experience of reading You Don't Love Me Yet, and doesn't hint at the many explorations of love and relationships, and the nature of music and how it affects not only the people listening to it, but the people making it as well. Lethem is a writer I'm proud to say I've been turned onto ever since his first novel Gun, With Occasional Music and although he's moved away from the science fiction to mainstream (if you can call it that) literative fiction and all the accolades that accompany, his biggest strength of conveying ideas and emotions directly to the reader has only gotten better with time. If you're a musician and you've ever played in front of a crowd you'll love this book - his description of what happens to a crowd during a show is spot-on, and the characterizations of the various band members are uncanny in how they at once embrace everything that's both romantic and realistic about the "struggling musician" type.
Very quick, very enjoyable. Now please get to work on something epic along the lines of your last novel The Fortress of Solitude.
Case in point: You Don't Love Me Yet.
On the surface
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it's a story about a girl in a rock band who during the day mans a "complain line" as part of an art experiment (this is Los Angeles, after all). One of her regular complainers has such a way with words that she co-opts his complaints as lyrics, which kick start the band to new levels. The catch? At their first gig the Complainer (as he's called) hears the new stuff and wants in. Wackiness ensues.The admittedly brief synopsis above doesn't begin, however, to describe the experience of reading You Don't Love Me Yet, and doesn't hint at the many explorations of love and relationships, and the nature of music and how it affects not only the people listening to it, but the people making it as well. Lethem is a writer I'm proud to say I've been turned onto ever since his first novel Gun, With Occasional Music and although he's moved away from the science fiction to mainstream (if you can call it that) literative fiction and all the accolades that accompany, his biggest strength of conveying ideas and emotions directly to the reader has only gotten better with time. If you're a musician and you've ever played in front of a crowd you'll love this book - his description of what happens to a crowd during a show is spot-on, and the characterizations of the various band members are uncanny in how they at once embrace everything that's both romantic and realistic about the "struggling musician" type.
Very quick, very enjoyable. Now please get to work on something epic along the lines of your last novel The Fortress of Solitude.
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LibraryThing member tinuola_victoria
Cool, funny, sexy book. Strong female characters (which is always a thumbs up for me.) It didn't change my life in any way but is very entertaining and I would read it again sometime soon.
LibraryThing member atom_box
Disappointing. I had often listed Lethem as one of my favorites, based on the good Motherless and the GREAT Fortress but then was baffled by This Shape We're In and now, just disappointed in this missed the zeitgeist indie rock novel. Lethem re-imagining the first Elastica gig is not compelling
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stuff. Jonathan Franzen did a better job making me recall my old Cure/Smiths mix tapes in his Strong Movement. Show Less
LibraryThing member elenchus
Lethem's You Don't Love Me Yet is a light character study set in the contemporary art world. The character study is fine, but not particularly impressive. Lucinda is a twenty-something woman, in a band, and in & out of relationships. It may be a nose-on portrayal of youth at the time (1990s?) or
The bits about being in a band, writing songs, mired in obscurity versus flirting with celebrity ... these are interesting to me. Though I suppose the same question applies: is it an accurate portrayal of popular music at the time, or today, or ever? If it were, would I rather read about an ideal type, or about an actual band?
There's a sidelight about contemporary art, specifically "art events" or installation art, and it is interesting in much the same way. There's just enough about the art world to permit ridicule of it, which I think is much the point.
All of which makes it a bit of a parody of popular hipsterism, and it's amusing in that respect. Overall not a title I'd recommend over Gun, with Occasional Music, and I do hope Fortress of Solitude and/or Motherless Brooklyn is better.
Lethem does seem to have a thing for marsupials: a gun-toting kangaroo figured in Gun and a despondent kangaroo in Love Me Yet. The viral memes devised by Carl the Complainer are also interesting, I'll have to enter choice quotes in CK.
I listened to the audio edition, read by the author, and it was done well (done well enough). Don't know about "the state of the art" in audiobooks, so I'm unclear if it's common to have incidental music. There was in this one, between chapters: instrumental rock. Is it Lethem and friends, monkeying about? Is it meant to be the sound of the fictional band, Monster Eyes? If borrowed from an otherwise pre-existing band: is Monster Eyes supposed to sound like them? And so on. But I think I like these questions more than knowing the answers, whatever they might be.
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today (a bit later), but I wouldn't know and am not really concerned to know.The bits about being in a band, writing songs, mired in obscurity versus flirting with celebrity ... these are interesting to me. Though I suppose the same question applies: is it an accurate portrayal of popular music at the time, or today, or ever? If it were, would I rather read about an ideal type, or about an actual band?
There's a sidelight about contemporary art, specifically "art events" or installation art, and it is interesting in much the same way. There's just enough about the art world to permit ridicule of it, which I think is much the point.
All of which makes it a bit of a parody of popular hipsterism, and it's amusing in that respect. Overall not a title I'd recommend over Gun, with Occasional Music, and I do hope Fortress of Solitude and/or Motherless Brooklyn is better.
Lethem does seem to have a thing for marsupials: a gun-toting kangaroo figured in Gun and a despondent kangaroo in Love Me Yet. The viral memes devised by Carl the Complainer are also interesting, I'll have to enter choice quotes in CK.
I listened to the audio edition, read by the author, and it was done well (done well enough). Don't know about "the state of the art" in audiobooks, so I'm unclear if it's common to have incidental music. There was in this one, between chapters: instrumental rock. Is it Lethem and friends, monkeying about? Is it meant to be the sound of the fictional band, Monster Eyes? If borrowed from an otherwise pre-existing band: is Monster Eyes supposed to sound like them? And so on. But I think I like these questions more than knowing the answers, whatever they might be.
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LibraryThing member ncnsstnt
My 2 star rating comes with an asterisk - I only read 75% of this book. After reading a couple of truly terrible books all the way through, I decided to make a new rule in my reading: if I am not at least moderately interested and entertained by the half-way point, I am not going to finish the
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book. My reading time is far too short to be spent on crap.And this book, my friends, is a big crap-fest. I wanted to punch all of the characters in the face repeatedly. The dialogue reads like it was penned by a 17-year old fantasizing about being in a cool band just starting out. I simply could not take anything these characters said or did seriously.That's just one part of it - the other part, where the main chick is hired to answer a fake complaint line... dear God. This might, MIGHT, have been a clever idea for a short, SHORT story, but making this a major plot point? Come on. I like to think that this was actually the very first novel Lethem ever wrote. He was in a bind, coming up on a deadline, found this in a drawer, dusted it off, and turned it in. I have to believe that. Otherwise, one of my favorite 'new' authors has taken a gigantic leap backward in his literary career. Show Less
LibraryThing member freddlerabbit
I find Lethem very irregular - some of his novels are greatly detailed, rich character-driven books; some are rather fantastical and light on the details, but pleasant, like Murukami's After Dark - and then there are a few I just can't get much out of. This is one of those. You Don't Love Me Yet is
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told from a third-person point of view focused on a single character, a band member (I don't know what she lives off of - like many in Lethem's work, she doesn't seem to do enough to earn a living) who has some foolish adventures and winds up pretty much in the same place she started, emotionally as well as practically. Whether you like this book will probably depend on whether you can care about the characters - the plot has one ridiculous element, but otherwise is very quotidian - reasonably average lives for the underemployed artist types - the focus is really on who the people are. I didn't care for the main - or any of the supporting characters - probably because they are all shallow and self-involved and don't seem capable of growth. Lethem may be making a point here, that really, that's how we all are. But even so,I just couldn't get into it. I think best for people who can enjoy a book about characters they don't like (maybe people who watched Seinfeld or enjoyed Vile Bodies?) and don't need plot complexities to be interested. Show Less
LibraryThing member sturlington
This novel about a twenty-nothing band exhibits some of Lethem’s trademark quirkiness – there’s a kangaroo kidnapping, for instance – but the characters never fully engaged me. The main character is a female bass player, barely employed by an artist to take complaint calls at a performance
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art installation, who has recently broken up with her boyfriend and becomes sexually enthralled by a man who makes his living off devising memetic phrases. The background characters – the drummer and guitar player/song writer of the band – were more real to me than the bassist-singer-older guy love triangle dynamic, but none of these kids drifting aimlessly through their lives were all that interesting to me. Show Less
LibraryThing member nmele
Interesting work from Jonathan Lethem, set in LA. The depressed kangaroo was a distraction.
LibraryThing member librarianbryan
I was intrigued by this because three of my coworkers with very different tastes than me hated it, and in the mean time I had found Chronic City to be one of my favorite novels in recent years.
For once, I agree with my coworkers. There just really isn't a lot going on here, and what is going on
For once, I agree with my coworkers. There just really isn't a lot going on here, and what is going on
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really doesn't interest me much. I genuinely don't care about the love lives of hipsters in L.A. I was rooting for Denise. Show Less
LibraryThing member mathrocks
A group of players in a struggling, unsuccessful band, with confused love lives, get a break with a hit song "Monster Eyes". Well, not quite a break yet: they play it once in a artsy setting, and get invited to play it on a radio show at 3:00am. For them, though, this is a big deal.
Overall, the
Online reviews say that Lethem's intent was that the book is about copyright law and the verbal memes of the Complainer, but this aspect is poorly explored, and plus no interesting issues are raised at all. In this setting, Carl clearly deserves credit as a secondary author of the lyrics along with Lucinda. Lucinda's claims seem a lot stronger than Carl's, however; but oddly enough, Lucinda never considers asserting any of her own rights.
Other books by Jonathan Lethem are much better: check those out instead.
Overall, the
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book, although inventive, ends up as a mishmash and never became interesting to me. One gets the feeling the author was trying out several ideas, but did not bother to develop any of them. The complaint phone line is interesting, but nothing significant happens with it. Someone kidnaps a kangaroo, but the zoo denies it exists. One character has her day job in a sex shop. There is a art party where the band is to play unheard. Complainer Carl writes verbal memes. With the exception of "You con't be deep without a surface" (which oddly enough comes off as shallow), the book's verbal memes are unconvincing. In addition, Complainer Carl makes no sense as a character. In fact, only one character, Lucinda, gets any character development at all, and she is not terribly interesting. Perhaps the main point of the book is to make fun of the modern art scene and its pointlessness. Or perhaps it is to make fun of people who think they can form a band and be successful. Online reviews say that Lethem's intent was that the book is about copyright law and the verbal memes of the Complainer, but this aspect is poorly explored, and plus no interesting issues are raised at all. In this setting, Carl clearly deserves credit as a secondary author of the lyrics along with Lucinda. Lucinda's claims seem a lot stronger than Carl's, however; but oddly enough, Lucinda never considers asserting any of her own rights.
Other books by Jonathan Lethem are much better: check those out instead.
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Awards
The Morning News Tournament of Books (Quarterfinalist — 2008)
Language
Original language
English
Original publication date
2007
Physical description
240 p.; 5.18 inches
ISBN
140007682X / 9781400076826