Love Who Next? - A Review of You Don't Love Me Yet by Jonathan Lethem

You Don't Love Me Yet is almost always about looking for love, meaning, and importance amidst a not quite cartoonish LA rock scene of hipsters, artists, and other folks who don't work for a living. It's silly to call a work of fiction contrived, but this novel revels in its stereotypes and chance meetings, getting a lot of play on the notion that everyone in LA that's anybody knows the same cool underclass. At his best (and he pretty much is all the time here), Lethem goes just below the surface of his characters' emotional lives, exposing what they most need and desire, and usually giving it to them, at least for a little while. It sounds unbearable; the book's a minor miracle. There's barely a false note and Lethem is simply unbeatable when it comes to getting a reader to empathize with a character's emotions.

The great trick here is that the book sets the reader up for a frivolous thrill ride of a rising band, but delivers a beautiful little track of how people live and love, despite how frivolous it all is. Along the way, Lethem unpacks the overly quirky characters, who all work, who are all somehow believable, who all have "deep" moments of self-discovery and growth, and it's all authentic and glorious. Amidst the shallows of LA, Lethem pokes just below the surface (one of the many cliches that loom large in the novel) of his people, and somehow makes stupid LA people sympathetic and human and likeable. It's almost Whitmanesque in its way. So, the totally stereotypical chick bassist, who works for her art studio friend answering phone calls from some fake complaint line as part of a larger scale performance art/major jerk off art thing, who happens to meet an encyclopedic/uber interesting/sexually interesting older fellow is just terrific and immediate and believable. And her ex (the lead singer, naturally), who just kidnapped a kangaroo from the zoo, and the guitarist (the laconic, film watching, somehow sees and knows everything about humanity without any self awareness/guru/songwriter guy), and the drummer (slightly dull sex toy worker) all ring and resonate with authenticity you never believe could have been possible. The Big Lebowski is genius. And it's genius partly because it doesn't seek to be important. To a similar extent, this is true of You Don't Love Me Yet, though it tries, at times, to be important for a moment amidst a sea of fakery and posing and crap, but that works, too.

Lethem is getting to be a great writer. This book showcases what he's really excellent at. Kazuo Ishiguro wrote his first two books and (he's a strange guy) he says he didn't set out to work the unreliable narrator device he has going in those books (Pale View of Hills = first-rate; Artist of the Floating World = really good, but not as good, but just like PVH) but it just happened. So, Ishman figured he'd really give it a go in book #3, Remains of the Day, which is just about as perfect as an unambitious slender novel toward the end of the 20th century got (Sea by Banville pretty much all the same, but 21st). So, Lethem, who is a bit of a machine with a lot of books lately, has something even better here than Motherless Brooklyn, which is a book to admire. Everything that is good in that book is here too (almost) and it's all better; he builds on the tender, working, emotional moments of Mo Bro, and tries to make it all bigger here, and he does. It's not as good literary good as Mo Bro. But it's better Lethem good, and that's starting to mean something. Lethem kind of went off the track with trying too hard, with the big and ambitious Fortress of Solitude, which is really excellent if you try too hard to like overly long flawed novels with a huge heart that aren't much fun to read (I do). (That book is a lot like Mortals by Rush, except Mortals is flawed, overly long, has a huge heart, is an absolute joy to read, and is just about the best book that's come out in about ten years. )

Getting back to YDLMY, there's tons of sex. Great sex. The female lead unapologetically enjoys herself (and somewhat submissively) with a much older man she barely knows, and it's all joy, all sex positive, no recriminations or bullshit. Women have sex and enjoy themselves without hang-ups, which is more than the men from the last couple Lethem books can say. And people drink! Lots! And it's usually beer! And the whole time, I'm dying to know what beer they're drinking and Lethem never tells me. Major points off.

Until the end. And they think about drinking Corona, because the weather's nice, but they go for Sapporo instead, a great choice. But, like so many other things in this book, it's interesting. We all drink Corona, sometimes. And, if it's a hot day, and you have fresh lime, and you're on vacation, you enjoy it, even if you think Corona is pretty lousy beer. And you enjoy it mostly because Corona is one of the few beers that successfully advertises. It advertises that when you're drinking Corona, you're enjoying yourself and you're relaxed. So, that's what you are when you're drinking Corona and that's why you like drinking Corona. But take it a step further. Put yourself in a state of readiness for Corona. Order some fried food on a hot day at the beach. And then, order a Sapporo. Or a Dos Equis. Or a Pacifico. And then, enjoy. Or, do what I do. Buy one of those little Corona buckets. Set up your fantasy Corona scenario (deck, grilled food, book & beer) and just substitute the beer. It works amazingly well.

Here's the highest compliment I can pay to YDLMY: if there's someone you're kind of interested in but not involved with (yet), and they're intelligent and literary (if they aren't, get uninterested real quick) and you can get this books in their hands as a casual (or maybe even pointed) suggestion, it might tip the scales and get them in your bed. I'm not entirely joking. There's just something about this book. It's going to be tough to get a total stranger to sleep with you over Lethem. (Bouncers in the Portland area are getting really bad at fielding the reasonable request of estimating how many young women inside their establishment have read, say, a thousand or so pages of Proust.) But, and this goes for boys or girls of all directions, the book is joyous always and erotic sometimes, so it could work for you. That's my gift to you.

My gift to me, since we got into South of the border beer there for a second, is a little slice of heaven from Eisenbahn brewing from Brazil, Defumada Smoked Lager. Thanks to the bottle shop, Bier One, in Newport, for the suggestion. (Bier One is right on the stretch of shops in the harbor and is a great place with a serious selection). For newcomers to rating beer like myself, the technical term used to describe this baby is delicious. Never a fan of smoked meats, I asked about every beer in the shop after the Smoked Lager was suggested. After I decided I wasn't going to get a beer with a dog on the label or in the name, I relented, and went with the train and parrot on the Defumada.

This is just a wonderful little beer. It's a sweet amber with a nice copper color. A sniff reveals a sugary malt, kind of like a barleywine, but that's where the similarities end. The "smoked" I was a bit worried about comes in the form of a "mid-palate to finish" richness, which fades the sweet quite nicely. It's a little sweet, it's a little rich, the smell is a little sweeter than I like in an amber, but it's a terrifically drinkable beer anyone can get into. The lingering finish really makes the beer for me and it's such an enjoyable drinking experience, it will pair quite nicely with YDLMY. A great gateway drug into more serious beer. Drink some with someone you don't love yet today. (Available at the New Belmont Station & Bier One.)

Ratings:

You Don't Love Me Yet : 8 (absurdly high)

Eisenbahn Defumada Smoked Lager : 6

Sapporo : uh, a 4? Is that what I gave it below?

Corona: 3 (+/- for weather)