You Don't Love Me Yet - Jonathan Lethem

Jonathan Lethem has received never-ending praise for his novels, including Motherless Brooklyn (a detective novel featuring a man with Tourette's that I just couldn't get into), Fortress of Solitude (sitting on my shelves) and this latest one You Don't Love Me Yet. As with most up and coming brilliant writers these days, Lethem is just one that I can't quite get into. His books are filled with real people and real angst, but I just can't seem to relate. This one focuses on a band in L.A., waiting for their big break. One of the members, Lucinda, works for something called a complaint line, a performance art installation of sorts where people can call up and just have someone listen to them complain. Her maybe-ex boyfriend works at the zoo but is depressed beyond comprehension over a kangaroo who can't quite find his place. When a very strange man calls the complaint line delivering lyric-worthy images, Lucinda turns the words into songs and her band finds itself on the brink of notoriety. The book is filled with characters who are just trying to make it in one way or another - whether in show business, or just through the day. Like the complaint line, I found the concept of this novel interesting - and I did like the character of one of Lucinda's ex-boyfriend who has the idea to throw a party where everyone comes to dance, but listening to their own headphones while a band "plays" silently on stage and waiters stand around with appetizers that no one is allowed to eat. It was all so absurd it reminded me of way too many people I know. But, as a novel, I didn't feel like the story much mattered - to me or any of the characters and so it ended up just being kind of boring. But with kangaroos.

Lavinia - Ursula K. LeGuin

Even though I suppose it is a bit uncreative, I do like books that rewrite other books from the perspective of a different character - like Gregory Maguire's Wicked (The Wizard of Oz from the perspective of the Wicked Witch of the West); Jean Rhys's Wide Sargasso Sea (featuring Rochester's wife from Jane Eyre); and of course, Stoppard's Rosencranz and Guildenstern are Dead (from Hamlet), so when I read a review of Lavinia, I was intrigued. For those who remember their classics, Lavinia is Aeneas's wife, from Virgil's The Aeniad. In the poet's version, Lavinia appears only briefly and never speaks. LeGuin writes her novel from Lavinia's perspective - growing up as the daughter of the king who faces the biggest decision of her life: who will she choose to marry and what will her choice mean for the fate of her people? Throughout the book, LeGuin retells parts of both The Illiad and The Aeneid - which I found useful as a reminder, but also distracting. Through Lavinia, I realized that the trouble with books that retell stories from a different perspective is that you pretty much already know what's going to happen. This problem is compounded in Lavinia because Lavinia speaks with the poet/oracle who lays out her future in uncanny detail - then all we need to do is sit back and watch it all unfold. It makes everything so anti-climactic. LeGuin's writing, however, is beautiful - and in some ways it was nice to pretty much know the story so I could just enjoy her lyrical prose - which I also found interesting - she chose to write this book in prose, despite the fact that The Aeniad is in verse, yet her style evoked much of the same emotion. The other aspect of this book I found intriguing was Lavinia's very forward-thinking even feminist perspective on everything. Imposing this persona on Lavinia seemed too unrealistic given the period she is from, but upon further reflection I decided that if I were going to augment some of the famous women in literary history (Eve, Penelope, Ophelia as just a few examples that spring to mind), I'd give them independence and fire too. That LeGuin is able to do this while still paying tribute to Virgil's genius is a reflection of her talent as a writer and storyteller.

A Concise Chinese-English Dictionary For Lovers - Xiaolu Guo

This book is the first person musings of Z (short for Zhuang), a young Chinese woman studying English in London for a year. Guo writes her novel like a Chinese speaker trying to learn English - with all the mistakes a new student would make. This writing style reminded me of Everything is Illuminated, and I worried I would get too irritated to finish much of it. It also made me wonder how these types of books get translated into other languages. Is it possible to convey "broken English" is another language? Anyway...shortly into her stay abroad, Z meets an older man and quickly moves in with him. This new man is a bi-sexual anarchist who shuns material wealth and embraces freedom. Z, on the other hand, assumes that they are in love and must therefore want to spend all their time together and with no one else. Their relationship is filled with misunderstandings stemming from language, culture, and age. Because everything is written from Z's perspective, I often found the narrative frustrating - she is naive in many ways and I often wanted to shake her and tell her to move on from her loser boyfriend. There are a couple really funny vignettes that highlight the difference in cultures - one with the boyfriend expecting Z to pay her half of the dinner bill and Z's response being something along the lines of, "I thought we were in love. When in love man pay. Otherwise, why have man around?" As the book progresses and Z's English improves, the writing becomes much more easy to follow. Z also begins to find her own self, which gave me some hope for her future. I was thinking that this would be a great book for a book club - there are so many scenes that I found myself wanting to talk to someone about - and so many ideas about independence, family, the search for happiness, relationships, and even food (Z misses her food from home, her boyfriend is a vegetarian which she can't understand). Something about this book felt incomplete to me, but for the first time in awhile, I found myself wishing I had a highlighter so I could keep track of certain images and conversations - of course since I borrowed the book from the library, they probably wouldn't have been to happy about it. But, all that to say that this is a strange little book filled with wonderful gems.

Consider the Lobster - David Foster Wallace

David Foster Wallace is a genius. He knows it, but luckily, he seems to have a good sense of self-deprecating humor about it. Consider the Lobster is a collection of Wallace's essays about far-ranging topics from: whether lobsters feel pain when you submerge them in boiling water to an analysis of John Updike and why he's such a jerk to Senator McCain's bid for the 2000 presidency. I like reading books of essays because I feel like I come across topics I'd never otherwise read about - and if there are topics that I really don't want to read about, I can just skip them. It's even better when the essays are well-written - it's like reading a New Yorker without as much of the stigma. My favorite essays in the book were, "Authority and American Usage" about language and lexicons (this essay most prominently displays Wallace's literary superiority) and "How Tracy Austin Broke My Heart," about the popularity and banality of sport autobiographies. Like my experience thus far with Jonathan Franzen, I enjoyed Wallace's essays much better than his fiction stories in "Brief Interviews with Hideous Men." I am on the prowl for more Wallace essays, but I still have his fiction magnum opus, Infinite Jest on my shelves, so there is definitely more DFW in my future.

The House on Mango Street - Sandra Cisneros

In high school, I went through a phase of loving Mexican, Mexican-American and South American literature - I'm sure this was triggered by Allende and Garcia Lorca, but has since expanded to Borges, Saramago, Neruda, and Garcia Marquez. At the time, this one by Mexican-American Cisneros was on my never-ending list, but I never seemed to get to it. Perhaps if I'd realized it was a novella instead of an actual novel, I would have set aside an afternoon to read it. But, I did just that when I came across it in my library at work the other day. This is the story of Esperanza Cordero growing up in a Latino ghetto in Chicago. Esperanza writes as a way to escape her humiliation of living in a run-down shack on Mango street. Her lyrical vignettes about friends, family, and growing up, focus on her desire to be someone more, but ultimately realizing that she does not want to abandon the place that made her into the person she is. Each short chapter focuses on a different time or aspect of Esperanza's life. They do not necessarily connect to one another, other than the fact that they are all about her. The writing is more like poetry than prose, and I found myself reading and re-reading lines and entire chapters just to appreciate the way the words seem to sing off the page. The House on Mango Street features so much of what drew me to Latin American literature in the first place - a focus on family and brilliant language full of pain and possibilities.

Skin - Roald Dahl

Like every kid growing up, Roald Dahl was one of my favorite writers. I couldn't get enough of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, The BFG, The Witches, Fantastic Mr. Fox and all the rest...so when I heard that he wrote macabre short stories for adults, I thought I better take a look. Dahl's writing, as expected, is quite easy to get into and his characters are very likeable (in a sinister way). But, as far as short stories go, I thought the twists and shockers were too obvious. There is one story called Champion of the World that must have provided the beginning for his novel Danny, the Champion of the World about pheasant poaching - I enjoyed reliving that story. In general though, I was not quite satisfied with this collection, though I admit that one story about a gentleman with a tattoo by a famous artist on his back is so creepy I think it will haunt me for quite awhile. These are worth checking out just to see Dahl's other side, but overall, I recommend sticking to his children's classics.

Practical Demonkeeping - Christopher Moore

Last year, I enjoyed a couple fun vampire books by Christopher Moore (You Suck and A Dirty Job) - so when I was in the mood for some light-reading about creatures from the underworld, I decided to check out this one - Moore's first novel from about 15 years ago. The reviews on goodsreads.com were not that favorable - and many Moore fans reminded readers that this was his first book - and it was good to see that his writing had evolved over time. So, I came in with low expectations. I wasn't disappointed - there are an overabundance of characters in this novel, so it made it a little difficult to follow at times. But, the basic plot is that many years ago, Travis inadvertantly summoned the demon Catch from hell. Catch feeds on humans and is invisible except when attacking. As Travis searches for the incantation to send Catch back down below, a strange Arab arrives on the scene hunting down Catch with the help of the unsuspecting residents of the small town of Pine Cove, CA. Things get a little absurd, but Moore's characters are certainly colorful and his stories are a fun diversion from serious life.