Don't Judge a Book by Its Cover

But we do, both literally and metaphorically. Sometimes it works out (usually in the literal sense), and sometimes it doesn't (in the metaphorical). I am reading You Don't Love Me Yet by Jonathan Lethem. I ran across it in the discounted book section at Bear Pond Books. The title sounded offbeat, non-conventional, and the cover (which I don't really remember right now) grabbed my attention. I started to read the beginning, which is my way of seeing if I want to read a book, and put it on my "to find at the library list." How's this for an opening sentence? "They met at the museum to end it." A book that begins with the end of a relationship has potential. Sort of like beginning with the "happily ever after."

Part of what's keeping me hooked, besides the jaded hipness of the main characters (for reading is escapism into our dream worlds, after all), is the vivid descriptions. "She caught scent of his coffee pot, dregs charring to a shrill odor." I like the use of an auditory adjective, shrill, for an olfactory sensation, odor. Especially because burned coffee is most often described as bitter. Or this one, describing a trendy rooftop bar: "The Armpit's rooftop was like a three-dimensional magazine Lucinda browsed with her whole body." I'm not even sure what it means exactly, but it gives me the feeling of being in the presence of cooler-than-thouness (the book is set in L.A.), being the only removed observer, and being overcome with stimulation, as if all around you are models who know and adore each other and are in tune with the latest styles and successes.

This is what good writing does for me. It both puts into words what I've been thinking or suspecting and also gives me a new way to consider the world.

josiah