From: atwright@sophia.smith.edu (Aubrey Wright)
Subject: Brief Lives: musings
Organization: Smith College
Date: Sun, 15 Nov 1992 16:58:39 GMT

I don't think there are any Spoilers in here (more like questions and
no answers) but I do quote from Brief Lives so if you haven't read
it yet you may want to skip this post. I would do ^L but don't know
how (anyone who can tell me how with a Ultrix V4.2 system send me e-mail
and I'll be grateful, oh yes I use a vi editor) so I will put some 
blank space here. What follows is an informal listing of anything that
has to do with a brief life (or a long life for that matter) since I
haven't seen anyone discuss that here (no flames if someone has! :-)). 






















References to brief lives and long lives within Brief Lives: 

Brief Lives 1
Page 1: "[Andros] is the oldest, now." "He's getting old." 
Pg 4: "The song. In his soul he feels young again." 
Pg 6: "It's a shame, when it's the kids. I figure, us OLD folks, well,
we've had a good innings. But kids. Tch." "It's not fair, when the 
young ones die before the old ones. I mean, they're all we've got to 
look forward to." 
Pg 11: "Kids. No respect for the scene." 
Pg 17: "Today he's sitting in their family room, realizing that his 
life is over, wondering if he has the courage physically to end it.
He doesn't. Isn't it beautiful?"
Pg 23: Despair: "Some things are changeless. People love, and die, they
dream, destroy, despair, go mad. They fulfill their destinies, live
out the course of their lives. WE fulfill OUR function, as THEY fulfill
THEIRS...that will not change." Destruction: "You think not? Ahhh. Aye
well, perhaps you are right, after all. We will see." (this one probably
should not be included)  


Brief Lives 2
Pg 15: Touched by her fingers, the two surviving chocolate people 
copulate desperately, losing themselves in a melting frenzy of lust,
spending the last of their brief borrowed lives in a spasm of
raspberry cream and fear.
Pg 20: The moment she realized what was happening, that the universe
was changing, that she was growing older... (Delight) 

Brief Lives 3
Pg 1: There are not many of them, all things considered: the truly old.
[a pagefull of stuff about really old people is not included]
Pg 5: Bernie: I mean I got, what, fifteen thousand years. That's pretty
good. Isn't it? I lived a pretty long time." Death: "You lived what 
anybody gets, Bernie. You got a lifetime. No more. No less. You got a
lifetime."

Brief Lives 4
There were no written mentions of brief lives in this one, simply 
that Ruby had a brief life, obviously, since she only lived 29 years.
One strange interchange I noticed was when Dream asks the fireman if
he has any idea how the fire started and the fireman replies "You
people. You people are just gonna kill me, you know that?" (Pg 23)
I don't know, just sounded weird to me.

Anyhow, off the subject, has anyone noticed that sometimes things are
not what they SEEm to be in this storyline? For example:

In #1: The old lady thinks Delirium's young, but she's not.
In the club Del thinks Lisa is her sister but she's not.
The people at the table think Del's a kid but she's not.

In #3  Pharamond's receptionist thinks Delirium is a person, she's not.
Pharamond is not what he seems to be - he is a god. 

In #4  The Alderman's shadow is not the Alderman. 
Danny Capax's dad is not what he seemed to be to his son.

There obviously has to be a connection in all of this. The length of
a life, eyes, viewing, seeing, not seeing, things not being what they
seem. Sort of like Destiny: he is Endless, he is blind, yet he sees 
everything...but we know he's not in on this, right?
 
Well, this was sort of informal and probably meaningless, but then 
again maybe not.... 

aubrey (who REALLY should apologize for this post!)
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