Delirium by Laura Restrepo

• Born: 1950
• Birthplace: Bogotá, Colombia

First published: Delirio, 2004 (English translation, 2007)

Type of work: Novel

Type of plot: Psychological realism

Time of plot: 1983

Locale: Bogotá, Colombia; Sasaima, Colombia

Principal Characters

Agustina Londoño, a woman from an affluent but troubled family

Aguilar, her husband

Aunt Sofi, her aunt

Midas McAlister, her former lover

Carlos Vicente Londoño, her father

Carlos Vicente "Bichi" Londoño Jr., her younger brother

Eugenia Londoño, her mother

The Story

After a business trip, Aguilar, a former literature professor turned Purina dog food salesman, returns home but cannot find his wife, Agustina Londoño. A message on his answering machine informs him that his wife is at a hotel in Bogotá, Colombia, where he finds her staring out of a window. She has had a mental breakdown that has resulted in delirium and memory loss.

Aside from premonitions Agustina sometimes claims to have, Aguilar cannot recall Agustina exhibiting any out-of-the-ordinary behavior before he left for his trip. He brings her home, but when he asks what happened, she turns hostile. Despite Agustina’s adverse attitude toward Aguilar’s inquiry, he continues attempting to piece together how she came to be in a state of delirium. Throughout the investigation, he remains strongly devoted to her.

Agustina begins performing purification rituals around their house. These rituals include placing cups of water throughout the house and washing rugs and other items she believes smell strange. She frequently lashes out at Aguilar in fits of rage.

Agustina’s aunt Sofi moves in to help Aguilar take care of Agustina. She has been living in Mexico for several years and has not had any contact with the family. When Aguilar asks her how she knew about Agustina’s breakdown, Sofi states that she has always known. Much to Aguilar’s chagrin, Sofi aids Agustina in her water rituals, which reach such a degree that he cannot move around the house without knocking into a bowl or cup of water. Agustina’s loss of reasoning begins to disturb Aguilar greatly. He is relieved, however, that Sofi is able to persuade Agustina to eat again, since she has been refusing his meals.

Sofi begins to help Aguilar unravel the roots of Agustina’s madness. She explains how the Londoños were an affluent family but repressed many painful experiences, such as abuse and infidelity. Agustina exhibited signs of mental instability as a youth, which some in her family believed she inherited from her grandfather Nicholas Portulinus. He was a talented composer who walked off one night and drowned in a river.

As a child, Agustina believed she possessed abilities to foretell the future. Her father, Carlos Londoño, often physically and mentally abused her younger brother, Carlos Vicente "Bichi" Londoño Jr., because of his feminine demeanor. In an attempt to console Bichi, Agustina would perform rituals that included chanting and wearing robes. She believed that her powers came from photographs she hid away and would use in the rituals. These photographs were of a nude Sofi taken by the elder Carlos, who was having an affair with her. The photographs became the catalyst for the Londoño family’s disintegration.

Eventually, Sofi tells Aguilar about the affair. She states that Agustina’s mother, her sister Eugenia, would travel to Disney World in Florida once a year, during which time Sofi and Carlos would be together with no worry of being caught. This is when Carlos took the photographs of her. When Eugenia learned of the affair, she repressed her feelings and kept it a secret so that the family could maintain its image among the upper class in Colombia. Repression fueled Agustina’s mental instability.

One of Agustina’s former lovers, Midas McAlister, was a money launderer for Colombian drug lord Pablo Escobar. He too witnessed Agustina’s fall into delirium, and although he was also part of the problem, he understood the root causes of her condition. The Londoño family gained a lot of wealth from Midas’s money laundering, though they held him and other drug dealers in contempt. Because of this hypocrisy, Midas loathed the wealthy of Colombia.

On a high-stakes bet, Midas attempted to orchestrate a sexual encounter for his impotent and paraplegic cohort, Spider Salazar, who had lost the use of his lower body after drunkenly falling off a horse. Joined by other drug dealers, including Agustina’s older brother Joaquín "Joaco" Londoño, who also works for Escobar, Midas hired a prostitute to have sex with Spider at a fitness club. The prostitute accidentally died during the sex act.

The day of the bet, one of Escobar’s men visited Midas and told him the boss wants $200 million the following day. This demand, coupled with the dead prostitute, led Midas to accept Joaco’s invitation to spend some time at his family’s estate. By this time, Agustina’s father had died, but Midas still witnessed much of the Londoño’s turmoil, particularly Agustina’s fragile condition. He saw through the family’s lies and decided to take Agustina away from them. However, he impregnated and subsequently abandoned her. Agustina had an abortion, driving her further into delirium.

Aguilar’s guilt becomes heavy, since he feels that he should have asked about his wife’s past earlier. He admits that he never inquired about her family because they treated him like a peon, so he did not care about them. He only cared about the Agustina who was living with him in the present, not her past. Despite all of her husband’s remorse, in the end, Agustina recovers from her delirium.

Bibliography

Carvalho, Susan. Contemporary Spanish Novels by Women: Mapping the Narrative. Rochester: Tamesis, 2007. Print.

Davies, Lloyd Hughes. "The Politics of Pretense: Woman and Nation in Laura Restrepo’s Delirio." Culture and History Digital Journal 2.1 (2013): e015. PDF file.

Neath, Glen. "Battling Madness." New Statesman. New Statesman, 23 Aug. 2007. Web. 23 Apr. 2014.

Rafferty, Terrence. "My Wife Is Mad." New York Times. New York Times, 15 Apr. 2007. Web. 23 Apr. 2014.