Always plagiarize, always complain

ZSUZSI GARTNER

You Don't Love Me YetBy Jonathan LethemDoubleday, 225 pages, $30Last month, Harper's Magazine published an eye-opening and at times troubling apologia for plagiarism and a Kevlar vest of an argument against the corruptness of contemporary copyright and trademark laws. U.S. novelist Jonathan Lethem, author of the exhilarating Motherless Brooklyn and The Fortress of Solitude, was building on the personal essay, The Beards, from his 2005 collection, The Disappointment Artist, in which he blithely set out to sandblast widely held perceptions of his own enviable originality: "Of the writers I know, I've been the most eager to point out my influences, to spoil the illusion of originality by elucidating my fiction's resemblance to my book collection."