You Dont Love Me Yet (Vintage
Contemporaries) by Jonathan
Lethem
This Book Does What It Portrays
With his sixth novel, You Dont Love Me Yet, Jonathan Lethem continues to
show off his dexterity with the form, following up the coming-of-age epic
The Fortress of Solitude with a dreamlike, comic portrait of the Los
Angeles art scene. Lethem craftily sets up his ruse with a letter of
complaint from Falmouth Strand (a seemingly minor character) who warns
us that the book we are about to read completely misrepresents the truth.
Falmouth is a former installation artist who has turned from sculpting
objects to manipulating peoples despair, pensiveness, ennui. For his latest
project, he has posted signs around Los Angeles: Complaints? Call 213
291 7778. The novel centers around Lucinda (the perfect, unwitting
instrument for Falmouths manipulation), a bass player in a would-be indie
rock quartet with nearly enough good songs for a 35-minute set (if you
dont count the two they dont like anymore). Lucinda has vowed to stop

sleeping with the bands lead singer Matthew (for real, this time), launching
a search for true love as drunken and misguided as the bands search for a
decent name. She abandons her upscale barista gig to answer complaint
calls for Falmouths conceptual art piece. Before long, she finds herself
drawn to a regular whose curious words are like a pulse detected in a vast
dead carcass of daily complaints. By way of Lucinda, the genius
complainers words spark the bands next song, setting them on a shaky
upward trajectory all too familiar in the art world. Various characters want
(or dont want) to take credit for the songs apparent success, but who
deserves it? The complainer who nonchalantly rattled off the words,
Lucinda who wrote them down, the remaining band members who
collaboratively put them to music, or Falmouth himself, who passively
engineered the whole thing? Fans of Fortress and Motherless Brooklyn
may find this novels levity too drastic a shift, but even though Lethem is
having a great time here with wordplay, a motley cast, and Lucindas
sexual meanderings, You Dont Love Me Yet is anything but a simple
entertainment. He plays with our notions of art and authorship, enjoying a
bit of advanced cribbery himself as he experiments with Shakespearean
antics and inexplicable love match-ups. At every turn, Lethem seems to be
asking sticky questions: Can anyone create the consummate intersection
of dream, desire, and reality that art (and great sex) embodies? Will it last,
and should it? Can any one writer capture that moment with a few meager
words? If they did, how long would it take for it to be reduced to
meaningless slogan? --Heidi Broadhead
Personal Review: You Dont Love Me Yet (Vintage
Contemporaries) by Jonathan Lethem
What you derive from reading this book will depend on why (some might
prefer to say 'how') you read it. The plot is deceptively simple, carried as
with other of Lethem's writing by his careful description of sensible details.
Surroundings, bodies, self-sensations--all are provided so the reader easily
imagines being in the story with the characters. Lethem's careful noting of
"meaningless" details is one of the things that gives his writing an offbeat
quality, and for the most part, it is agreeable.
The main character is a 29-year-old woman in a garage band, and the plot
is largely constructed of her flickering attempts to find love/sex/closeness
with someone. The someones change several times through the course of
the story, and with varying results. There are other sub-themes, but this is
the central one flowing throughout the story.
One of the first and most important structures in the story is the call-in
Complaint center where she works for a time. Her own ambivalence and
oscillation between independence/intimacy is mirrored in the situation of
her taking calls from complete strangers, asking them questions and
making notes. This process unsurprisingly affects her, and she takes the
professionally inappropriate step of speaking in a personal way with a man
who she later meets.

None of this captures the process of the book, which I predict will affect
*you*, according to how you identify with her and with any of the other
array of characters in the book (mostly, her band mates). The book is a
processional of feeling "tests" peeling back to reveal a new, next layer, and
not always with satisfying results.
Good luck.
For More 5 Star Customer Reviews and Lowest Price:
You Dont Love Me Yet (Vintage Contemporaries) by Jonathan Lethem 5 Star Customer
Reviews and Lowest Price!