A Few Notes on Relationships in Delirium

The Delirium trilogy, set in a society that views love as a disease in need of curing, has some interesting things to say about love.  I’ve already looked at these a bit, particularly enjoying the fact that it explores different forms of love, not just romantic connections.  However, while the series gets at some neat ideas, it also takes what I feel is a fairly easy way out in a few areas (spoilers for Delirium and Requiem.)

When I find a dystopian story that views certain facets of life through a wildly different lens than we do, I always like to look for how this change affects the story’s society in everyday ways.  A police state moving at the behest of the combined medical/religious institution, complete with resistance movements, neighborhood informers, and people being “disappeared” is all well and good, but the details interest me too, the mechanics of how life works outside of the big plot stuff.  With Delirium, one question that immediately came to mind was, in a world without love, what do government-sanctioned relationships look like?

In this case, the nuts and bolts are what you’d expect.  Prior to their cure procedure, teenagers undergo an examination that “scores” them as members of society, and they are then assigned a pair that they will eventually marry and have a designated number of children with.  Naturally, the better their examination score (which generally seems to gauge levels of conformity and looks for signs of dissent,) the better their chances of getting an advantageous pair, and socioeconomic factors come into play as well, keeping most people in their assigned “lanes.”

Lena is assigned her pair, Brian Scharff, after she’s already met and fallen for Alex, so she obviously would have been against the match no matter who it was.  It bothers me, though, that Brian is such a blatant non-catch.  He’s described as a sickly asthmatic with numerous indoor, outdoor, and food allergies – none are which are actually criticisms against him as a person, but in fiction, asthma and allergies are usually “nerd” and/or “loser” markers, and they really pile it on Brian.  Lena repeatedly notices his wheezing breaths and seems grossed out by him in general, and that’s before he starts casually insulting her appearance when he thinks she’s out of earshot.  I don’t like this, because Brian doesn’t need to be unappealing or rude for Lena not to want to be with him.  The fact that he’s not Alex should be enough; he could have been a charismatic dreamboat and it wouldn’t have mattered, because Lena would’ve already been in love with Alex and known there was no point without love.  To give Lena additional non-Alex-related “reasons” to dislike him seems to flatten this plot thread, reduces it.

Similarly, while Fred Hargrove, Hana’s pair, seems perfect on paper – gorgeous, rich, Portland’s new mayor – he’s actually a dangerous control freak who is on his second go-around after having his previous pair committed for being “difficult.”  He’s totally sinister, has ruthless political ideas, and both verbally and physically threatens Hana behind closed doors.  Again, I wish the books didn’t go so far here.  I understand that it’s dramatic, and it’s true that a government-run pairing program like this would probably trap people with dangerous partners, but I don’t think it was necessary, really.  Given Hana’s fears that her cure hasn’t taken properly, she might have been paired with a perfectly good guy but still felt that the relationship was empty, that it was missing something that Fred couldn’t provide.  As in Lena’s case, adding these extreme circumstances makes the problem less about love and more about Fred specifically.

Forms of Love in the Delirium Trilogy

Since love is at the center of the battle in the Delirium series, it’s no surprise that relationships are of the utmost importance.  In this world, love has been given a new name, amor deliria nervosa, and it’s been branded a disease, a putrefaction, a subversion.  Those who refuse the cure for the disease are driven out of society and forced to survive in brutal, spartan conditions if they’re lucky, locked away to rot or executed for dissidence if they’re not.  It stands to reason that, in order to risk so much and defy everything one has ever known, it requires a force like love urging them forward.  (Some spoilers.)

As such, we know it’s only a matter of time before Lena, who’s been obsessively counting the days until her cure, falls in love with a boy and realizes the agony and ecstasy for which the uncured throw everything away.  It’s no surprise that meeting Alex is her awakening to what life can truly be, as well as how broken and festering her society is, and she breaks faith with all she’s ever been taught in order to cast her lot with him.  However, the series doesn’t leave love as clearcut as that.  Lena’s relationship with Alex isn’t her salvation, and it’s threatened by the people who fear it.  After the first book, the story becomes about carrying on despite the loss of love, about standing for the right to love in and of itself, rather than just the right to love a specific person.  It edges toward the possibility of loving again after love lost, opening your heart to someone new even as you’re still blinded by the dazzle of that first love.  I’m not crazy about how things shake out on this front in the third book, but I still appreciate the way the series as a whole explores love in a more complex way; for a young adult series, that’s pretty laudable.

But what I really appreciate is that this fight isn’t only for romantic love.  While romance gets the most dedicated focus, other forms of love are just as forbidden, and people who find themselves struck by them will give up just as much for their right to feel it.  I like Lena’s repeated remembrances of her mother, who endured several failed procedures and was lost to Lena in childhood.  There are some great notes about how Lena’s mother is regarded suspiciously by other parents for the way she behaves with her other children.  Other mothers don’t sing, Lena realizes in retrospect, and when young Lena scrapes her knee and the sidewalk and her mother holds and comforts her, she’s practically committing a public indecency.  In this world, a woman’s love for her daughters is called a disease.  Similarly, I love the story of how young Raven winds up running away to the Wilds.  Happening upon an infant Blue, abandoned and near death, Raven gives herself over to this baby so fully and so immediately that she leaves her entire life behind her.  If that’s not love, I don’t know what is.

I’m grateful for that.  As an aromantic, I don’t experience romantic love, and if that was the only kind of love explored in the book, I would have felt pretty left out.  I mean, don’t get me wrong – romantic love is all over stories in every medium, and I’m used to seeing plenty of it.  But when the obvious thesis of the story is “love is right and healthy, and those who try to take it away are the ones who are sick and wrong,” I’d be a little uncomfortable if I felt I had more in common with the “non-love” side.  Not that I’d run around advocating the cure, but if it was only for romantic love, I wouldn’t see getting cured as any great loss for me personally.  By including more all-encompassing forms of love, like familial love and friendship, the book includes stakes that would apply to me as well, and I like that.

Requiem (2013)

The final book in the Delirium trilogy ends, I’d say, reasonably well.  As I said in my Pandemonium review, I’m not crazy about some of the relationship developments, and for me personally, I think the story here is a bit more generic YA dystopian lit than the first two books, but in general, it hits some good beats, and the split narrative works in its favor.  Spoilers ahead.

Lena’s involvement with the uncured resistance movement is thrown for a loop by some tremendous personal upheaval.  Namely, just as she’s started to open herself to Julian, the boy whose life has been turned upside down and has joined her in the Wilds, she discovers that Alex, the boy she’d given up everything and left her home for, is still alive.  Contrary to everything she’d believed to be true, Alex was captured, not killed, in their attempt to escape, and he’s now made his way back to find her a bit ambiguously with Julian.  Lena has no idea what to do or how to handle her confused feelings regarding both boys, and all the while the rebellion seems to be coming to a head; choices have to be made and stands have to be taken, but Lena’s in a tough state of mind to think clearly about how she wants to align herself.

After splitting the story in time in the second book, jumping back and forth between two points of Lena’s post-Delirium life, Requiem experiments further with the narrative.  Here, chapters alternate between Lena’s usual perspective and that of Hana, Lena’s best friend back home.  Lena was the only character physically carried over from Delirium to Pandemonium, so it’s nice to return to Portland in this book and see characters who weren’t around in the last installment.  And even better, by this point, Hana has undergone the procedure to “cure” the deliria, so we get something entirely different:  a view into the mind of one of the cured.  We see the changes in Hana from book one, the effects the procedure has on her, the bits of her old self still simmering underneath, and her fears that the cure didn’t “take” the way it should have.  Unlike the final Divergent book, where the split narrative didn’t really work for me (if you have two different first-person perspectives, their voices should be distinct enough that I don’t forget whose chapter I’m reading,) the device expands Requiem and lets it explore interesting new territory.

The whole Lena-Alex-Julian mess is less successful.  I get that opening yourself to love involves both the sublime and the painful, so it makes sense for Lena to experience the struggle of liking two boys at once, not wanting to hurt either, and feeling guilty over the whole situation, but it feels much more commonplace to me than where I’d hoped they were going, a story between Lena and Julian about learning to love again.  I’m all but allergic to love triangles anyway, and after thinking the story was going in a different direction, it’s a disappointment to see the overused story-eater rear its angsty head once more.  And it makes me sad that Lena has to go through this crap.  It’s not Hunger-Games-love-triangle unfortunate, but it’s pretty unfortunate.

As for the dystopian side of the ending itself, I think it does a decent job.  With stories like this, it’s hard, because the tendency is to want the big rebellion to culminate in sweeping change, but watching corrupt systems topple doesn’t mean instant fix, and it’s difficult to end a story with all that complication in a way that’s manageable.  Here, the story doesn’t try to wrap up this aspect too neatly; it suggests without stating, and it avoids the temptation to skip ahead and show what it’s like after the dust settles.  The book ends in flux, pointing the characters in a particular direction but not arranging them neatly or orderly.

Pandemonium (2012)

Finally continuing the Delirium trilogy.  Book two shakes up the narrative, fleshing out hitherto-unseen parts of its world and taking Lena farther into discovering herself, her feelings, and how she fits into society.  In order to give even a basic premise, I have to spoil some major events from the first book, so be warned.  Some spoilers for this one, too – it’s just that kind of story.

In my Delirium review, I mentioned that this series is less action-heavy than some other popular YA dystopian series out there.  That’s still essentially true here, even though Pandemonium ups the action quotient from book one.  Lena, having narrowly escaped the established city borders at the cost of Alex, the boy she was escaping for, makes her way into the Wilds, the home of the uncured “invalids.”  She meets a whole new cast of people who’ve fought, run, and sacrificed for the right to feel love, and through them, she takes her first steps toward larger goals.

Don’t get me wrong – being able to feel love is obviously a huge thing, and Lena gave up the only life she knew in order to keep it, but it’s also a very intimate, personal thing.  It’s about her.  Her feelings, her body, her life.  The uncureds introduce Lena to the resistance, those seeking to overthrow the destructive government that makes citizens cut out parts of themselves.  The fight against the propaganda of the deliria begins in the self, but if it stays there, it will forever occur piecemeal, person by person.  The only way for the uncureds to bring about real change is to organize and attempt to shake up the status quo.

So that’s what Lena starts to involve herself in.  The narrative is split between her arrival in the Wilds and her work with the resistance, jumping between the two every other chapter.  It’s less guns-blazing and more infiltration/information-gathering, a nuts-and-bolts underground movement which, again, makes a nice change for a story of this kind.  And even as Lena becomes stronger, harder, more physically capable, I like that she’s still not an important figure within the resistance.  She’s integral, but she’s a cog in a machine much larger than her.  She’s not a savior or a rebel leader; rather, she’s simply one person’s story of waking to love and gradually discovering that her society’s way of life cannot justly go on. 

I also find it interesting that Alex is shot at the end of the first book.  Because dissidence here is all about love, resisters are very tied to other people, and to have Lena’s love torn away from her right as she’s irrevocably breaking from society is a bold move.  Obviously, it starts her off heartbroken, but beyond that, it changes the focus from giving everything up for love to giving it up for the right to feel love, and which I like.  Even without the boy she loves, the cause is still worth fighting for, and even if it were possible for Lena to go back to her old life, she knows she couldn’t abide it.  Similarly, I’m intrigued that she starts edging toward a new romance in this book.  Julian, the poster boy for the Deliria-Free America movement who’s not as far above reproach as people think, is ripe for teen romance drama.  I mean, she’s a rebel against everything he stands for, they’re thrown together into a dangerous situation, he’s increasingly spellbound by her world?  It’s practically a dystopian Romeo and Juliet (the star-crossed lovers bit, not the mutual suicide bit.)  Furthermore, it avoids the typical “first love = soulmate” idea that’s popular with teens, and it also shows that, having loved deeply and lost brutally, it’s possible to love again.  I like that.  Unfortunately, the last word of the book makes me worry that that’s not where the story’s ultimately going with it.  Fingers crossed, but it doesn’t look great.

LGBTQ Parallels in the Delirium Trilogy

Reading the Delirium books (only the first of which I’ve reviewed so far – I’m slacking,) I can’t help being struck by the way the central premise, love as a sickness that needs to be cured, relates to some views of homosexuality.  I don’t know how intentional this was, but to me, it’s awfully pronounced.

Going into the series, I was in no way expecting it to remind me of But I’m a Cheerleader, but it did, kind of.  The entire conceit reminds me quite a bit of reparative therapy and the “ex-gay” movement, the idea that Lena and every other young person is taught from a very young age that they have something “wrong” inside of them. 

For as long as she can remember, Lena has been warned about the dangers of amor deliria nervosa.  She’s been trained to be on guard for signs of it in her own life.  It’s somehow a sin and a disease simultaneously.  She’s taught to avoid boys, to run from potential temptation, and to be ashamed and afraid of any stirrings of feelings she might have.  Her teachers, her doctors, and her religious leaders tell her to just be strong, to keep fighting the good fight against herself, until she turns 18 and can be cured of the deliria.  Then she can be whole, normal, pure.

I’m not alone, right?  Huge reparative therapy parallels!  There’s the fact that no denies that these teenagers may experience love and attraction – despite the secretive and shameful air that surrounds the deliria, there seems to be a fairly high incidence of “symptoms,” “infection,” or just on-the-D.L. experimentation.  No, no one’s saying that love doesn’t happen; instead, they fully acknowledge its existence but claim that it can be ground down and held back until the kids are old enough that it can be excised altogether.  This is much the same as supporters of reparative therapy maintaining that innate sexual orientation can be suppressed/changed through willpower, self-discipline, and/or some type of medical intervention (fortunately, there isn’t an established surgical procedure to “eliminate” same-sex attraction, but throughout history, a number of people have been seriously hurt by society’s attempt to find a medical “treatment” – chemical castration, anyone?)

Another aspect that feels familiar is the fact that the people endorsing this practice have already been through it themselves.  Like Mike on But I’m a Cheerleader, the adults in Lena’s life are passing on the legacy they were taught in their youth, to be afraid/ashamed of their own desires.  It’s a system that can only be maintained by the continued complicity of those who’ve been caught up in it, the “success stories” getting trotted out to show the “infected” youngsters that they too can do it if they stay vigilant and self-denying.  Teenagers who succumb to the deliria, or those whose procedure doesn’t take, are regarded as failures, unable or unwilling to make themselves well.

As with In the Flesh, I like that Delirium’s LGBTQ notes aren’t purely metaphorical.  It’s not nearly as pronounced here, since the two acknowledged gay characters are relatively small members of a big ensemble, and their relationship with each other is only occasionally touched on, but I appreciate the inclusion.  That said, it kind of sucks that in a society where all love is treated as a sickness, being gay is still extra stigmatized; they call it Unnaturalism.  I don’t know why, though.  If they hate and fear love in any form, why would the gender make any difference?

Delirium (2011)

I’m further expanding my knowledge of young-adult dystopian literature with Lauren Oliver’s Delirium trilogy.  Unlike its more well-known sisters The Hunger Games and Divergent, this series, so far, seems to be following more the 1984/The Giver route, by which I mean it’s less action-heavy and more about the internal journey of its protagonist.

In Delirium, the U.S. has closed its borders to the rest of the world, and the cities within it are well-regulated police states cut off from one another; between the established metro areas is the ungoverned “Wilds.”  The isolation is an attempt to lessen the spread and influence of amor deliria nervosa, the disease that’s charged with the blame for all the world’s problems.  War, greed, self-harm, irrationality, hate, and depravity are all purported to follow directly from the deliria.  In adults, the disease can be cured through a surgical procedure, but it’s unsafe to perform on minors, and Lena Haloway is only 17.  With a history of the disease in her family, she counts down the days until she can be cured.

And just what is amor deliria nervosa?  The name is a giveaway:  it’s love.  In Lena’s tiny world, healthy citizens are cured when they come of age.  They receive their future spouse from a government-approved list of compatible matches, they have their designated number of children, and they go through life free from obsession, lust, and heartbreak.  Lena has grown up indoctrinated on all fronts – school, science, and religion – about the horrors of the deliria.  Romeo and Juliet is a sobering cautionary tale (which cracks me up, because it’s so true,) the children of the deliria-stricken “unmatched” are born twisted and malformed, and if the disease is allowed to take root, the sufferer will die.  It took her mother from her when she was a child, and she avoids the illegal and unlit places where it festers.

(Gee, I wonder if she’s gonna fall in love?)  Right – no real surprises about the main thrust of this series, but the path it takes to get there is interesting.  As Lena feels her heart tugging her out of line, as she starts to crave the deliria as much as she fears it, she faces up to the lies on which her culture operates.  She begins to understand the true nature of the deliria, the strict ordinances put in place to protect her from it, and the purportedly-savage, uncured “Invalids” who live outside the borders of society. 

Like I said, while there’s some action, it’s really not a shoot-‘em-up story.  Instead, it’s about a girl discovering the truth of love and being confronted with the fact that she’s everything she’s been taught is untenable.  The book has a great undercurrent of tension, as Lena fights to resist evidence she can’t ignore, as the longing at the center of her can’t help but try to dismantle her lifetime of programming.  Lauren Oliver, who delivers some compelling prose, has clearly worked to create a world whose internal structure feels well-rendered.  The small details, the terminology, and the chapter-opening quotes (all propaganda on the deliria, from sources as varied as textbooks, religious texts, and childhood nursery rhymes) all add tremendously to the picture she draws of the trilogy’s society.

Warnings

Thematic elements, violence, swearing, drinking, and sexual references.