Teenage Romance Wasteland

C.S. Lewis, in his Chronicles of Narnia, omits one important character from the finale. Susan Pevensie, the oldest female child from The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, is not invited back to Narnia at the end. Why? Other characters give the reasons -- she's only interested in "lipstick and invitations" from boys. Furthermore, adds one, "Her whole idea is to race on to the silliest time of one's life as quick as she can and then stop there as long as she can." So we can expect that C.S. Lewis had a similar perspective on life: that for every age, there is a season -- childhood, independence, mating, parenthood, and old-age all have their benefits and problems, but they are all meant to come and go. Such is the nature of life.

It is significant that Susan Pevensie is the only character in the Chronicles to have anything to do with love, particularly at such a young age. There are no other amorous relationships in these books beyond marital ones between older people.

Yet it is also significant that the movie version of Prince Caspian introduces the title character as a light love interest to Susan. It shows where our culture is going -- placing an emphasis on true love, and trust, and romance, from the time that kids are able to see Disney films.

The Ask and the Answer, sequel to a book I reviewed earlier, The Knife of Never Letting Go, seeks to establish the idea of love as one that transcends the factions (controlling and self-interested) that dominate our world. Whereas its prequel was a book about running, The Ask and the Answer mainly concerns itself with peer pressure, and the terrific resolve our protagonists have in the face of it.

I admire the book for taking on such a complicated (and yet simple) issue as the dichotomy of factions, particularly in a time when the US battles guerrilla warfare in the Middle East. With a leading figure named the President and torture devices such as waterboarding used, this books strikes very close to home as a relevant status of our national hypocrisy (as well as that of other countries). While two competing groups battle, everyone else is used as pawns, including civilians and the land's original inhabitants. Both, as we eventually discover, strike back with a vengeance.

I also have to admit that the relationship between Todd and Viola, which anchors our narrators' motivations, is movingly written. Their idea of complete trust and love is even more immortal here than those ideas of the factions. The betrayals, temptations, and double-crossing leaders that block their way make it all the more rewarding when they find each other again.

But I would further argue that such an idea, of love as a thing that transcends all boundaries, even those of the stage of life we live in, is unhealthy in the way it is presented in our current day media culture. The audience for this book (young adults) is being told that when the world collapses around you, there may be only one person you can trust. They're not only told in this book, either; it's a common trope. Consider how many pieces of young adult fiction begin with characters whose parents are missing or deceased. As in the Chaos Walking trilogy (composed of The Knife of Never Letting Go, The Ask and the Answer, and Monsters of Men), this is to cut all ties of trust barring that of one significant other.

Being a teenager, I don't know much about love myself. I believe in friendship, and bonds of love that can come between people who share an experience. I believe in familial ties, bonds which come partly from care given at a young age, and partly from knowing they are part of you. But as a teenager, I have no experience with the bonds that come from loving and trusting only one other person.

So however moving the scenes of The Ask and the Answer are, I reject their relationship as an improbable event. I reject it also as a near-impossible thing for young adults to fully understand without damage to their psyche, and unrealistic expectations raised for people they fall in love with. I find myself disagreeing with much of the current media storm's philosophies. Read this book and marvel at its twists, its unending stalemate, its monster of a villain, and its elegant construction of trust between characters (both between Todd and Viola, and between them and other people). But consider the problem of asking a youth to commit him/herself to one other person for the rest of his days, and what his answer would be if you questioned him about the nature of love.