'Delirium' by Lauren Oliver (Book Review)

I

THE FIRST of a trilogy, Delirium, Pandemonium and Requiem which came out today, Delirium is a strong contender for the Readers' Group’s Nomination of the Year Award in December 2013.

Its plot lies in the curious phenomenon whereby the people of Portland, Maine, USA have somehow concluded that love is a disease from which they must be cured. Initially, I found that slightly off-putting and to be fair, the first 100 pages were something of a slog as we get to know the three central characters, Lena 17, Hana 17 and Alex 18.

But this book is very seriously written, and whilst at first, I intensely disliked the immaturity of Lena, her insistence that the ‘cure’ would bring her perfect happiness, wealth and contentment, the author is all the time building up a solid foundation that older readers will then realise has startling and very uncomfortable parallels with various societies within the global community, and the extremes to which those communities will push their agendas.

Girls undergo an evaluation at age 18, which sees them then paired off with the most suitable boy. I hit this part of the story on 17 February, the day on which the Mooney Sect in Seoul held their worldwide mass wedding of girls in bridal gowns and boys in tuxedos, many of them having only met a day or so beforehand, and many even not able to speak the same language.

II

And this caused me to conduct my own evaluation of Oliver’s book afresh. Suddenly, there is a stark similarity between Portland and Nazi Germany on the one hand, between the Invalids and Uncureds and Sympathisers and Resisters and the Wilds on the other.

The Jews, Gypsies, Physically and Mentally Disordered, Homosexuals, intolerant Christians and people of other faiths, those who sympathised with these groups of people, and even worse, those who violently resisted – e.g. the French Resistance and other resistance groups of Occupied Europe.

III

Portland is a warped society. People hang on to their cars but place them on blocks as status symbols, and as the pages turn, one sees an economy pushed to the limits; fuel rationing, and other restrictions not openly stated, but very carefully suggested by Oliver’s superb writing style. The realisation that the Wilds, the areas outside Portland, actually comprise cities and plains and we come to learn, even cross the oceans. 

IV

Nazi Germany was unlimited geographically to those living in Germany from 1933-1945; on the world map, it was tiny.

It did not even extend to the size of the USA. When you wish to keep a society looking within, you close its borders, seal off all outside contact, and enact laws that end at the execution stake for those who dare to consider crossing the divide. 

It reminds me of the famous image of the young East German soldier, Conrad Schumann, leaping the barbed wire in Berlin in the 1960s - his literal leap to freedom - to Oliver’s Wilds, but in reality, as Oliver shows us, open and free society.

Herr Conrad Schumann ~ Leap to Freedom ~ across the Berlin Wall into West Berlin 1961

V

There are similarities too with the rise of Communism 1917-1949 and the Cold War 1949 – 1990 and the purges, pogroms, and the isolation of all those sections of the Russian and Soviet communities who did not toe the party line.

We have a hint in this book of the books and films Boy in the Striped Pyjamas and Equilibrium.

We catch a glimpse of that peculiar real-life sect, the Amish Sect, that insists on living in 19th Century style and having nothing to do with the outside world, ‘the Wilds’, or as that sect determines, ‘English’, the term given to all outside their sect.

VI

The Crypts is a classic living hell – the death camps of Nazi Germany, the dreaded labour camps of Soviet Siberia and the Gulag.

As the book moves through the pages, so too the pace gathers and so too, did my heart rate.

Too many similarities with real-life made this a book that has to be taken seriously; a book that is a signpost for all of us:  Not this way! That way!!

VII

There is so much in this book, that this small review really does only just skim the surface. But with two parts of the Trilogy yet to be read, I do not wish to jeopardise any reader’s enjoyment of this very important work. For it is a Work.

It is not merely a novel. It is 21st Century Literature and carries with it a clear warning to all of us.

We must protect our freedoms and we must beware of those warped-minded, closed-minded people who would have us think the opposite is true.

Delirium reminds me of that other phrase first shown to me in an English Literature class in 1967, If you wish for peace, you must prepare for war.

There’s always someone who decides they know best and that their own version of peace and freedom and happiness is what the world needs. And Lauren Oliver gives us a very timely reminder not to let our guard down.

And are the characters realistic? Absolutely.

When the thoughts and aspirations of various characters and personalities in a story cause my throat to catch, then I know I am reading a very realistic and believable story.

VIII

It is fair to say that when I first read and reviewed Delirium in 2013, there was no reason to suspect that Putin would invade Ukraine, that China would abrogate its treaty with Great Britain and close down in the bluntest fashion, the democratic rights and freedoms of the Hong Kong Chinese.

There was no reason to suspect that China would brazenly attempt to close international waters, nor even boast that its invasion of Taiwan is only a matter of time.

In Britain, this month - November 2022 - we discover that China has set up so-called police stations as a means of tracking and then deporting Chinese citizens from the United Kingdom to China.

Putin will cause a great deal of harm.

But the elephant in the room is China. They seek world domination.

As for the Uighur People in China, I leave the reader with this chilling thought. China’s recent publicity drive to show how happy the Uighur people are in being forcibly re-educated. Nazi Germany did the same with a place called Theresienstadt in what was then Czechoslovakia. Presented to the world as a model of Nazi re-education and equipping people to adapt to the Nazi new world order, in reality, it was a holding camp, whose ultimate destination was a one-way ticket to the Gas Chambers.

12 November 2022
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LIVERPOOL

© Kenneth Thomas Webb 2022

First written in 2013 as one of the Central Perk Book Club titles in Hatton Gardens, Liverpool.