From: ROWJOSP@YaleVM.YCC.Yale.Edu
Subject: Re: Sandman -- Brief Lives 7
Organization: Yale University
Date: Wed, 27 Jan 93 23:51:17 EST

In article <1993Jan27.234814.26314@monu6.cc.monash.edu.au>
apn207s@momth3.maths.monash.edu.au (Mr A Dempster) writes:
 
>
>In article <1993Jan24.052940.29838@midway.uchicago.edu> you write:
>|> In article <1993Jan23.215000.1@fnalo.fnal.gov> morrow@fnalo.fnal.gov (Elmo the Stunt Elk) writes:
>|> >	When Death met Capax, she said "You got a lifetime.  That's all
>|> >anyone gets."
>|> >	When Dream told Delirium they were going to see Orpheus, he called
>|> >him "very young".
>|> >	Thereupon, the meaning of the title is made clear:  All lives are
>|> >brief, compared to the Endless.
>|>
>|> Yeah, I think this is right.  I had the inkling of this thought with
>|> Capax and Etain.
>
> The issue with Capax (BL#2?) virtually screamed this. The first few pages,
>with the discussion of the 'truly old' at first seemed to be at odds with the
>title of the story arc, with Gaiman going on and on and on about how *many*
>of these people there actually were (someone on the net mentioned lead
>bricks...). The next few pages show the death of one of these 'immortals',
>and his meeting with Death, who we know is *really* old (and who will also
>be around till the end of time... a loooong life). An intentional contrast, I
>guess. And these people (and gods) keep on dying throughout the entire story.
> People who've lived for ages dropping like flies all over the place, just to really rub it in. This seems to be the meaning of the title to me
>anyway...
>
>|> Everyone, even Orpheus who is of the family, is
>|> "little people" (he says whilst setting down his origami dog :).  But
>|> I'm still not clear how this relates to the arc thematically.
>|> Because, it still seems to be a tale of the Endless, even if there is
>|> a bit on how they relate to mortals. Due to the title I'd expect more
>|> emphasis on mortals than we've seen, if only to underscore their
>|> briefness and Endless' lack thereof :").  And, does he mean to say the
>|> same thing of the deities Ishtar, Faramond, and Bast?  It would seem
>|> so, I think.  Gaiman's portrayal of them is not immortal, at least not
>|> in the normal sense.
>
>  Gaiman does treat the gods as being mortal. This seems to me to be one of
>main points of this story, that even the *gods'* lives are brief when
>compared to the Endless.  To me, the bulk of the story seems to be centred
>on the lives of *mortals* (including gods, ordinary and extraordinary people,
>talking heads and (kind of dead) talking ravens...). Even the Corinthian has
>made an appearance, reminding us that even dreams have brief lives...Sure, the
>Endless have made heaps of appearances here and there but my feeling has
>been that they've been a bit of a side-salad.
>
 
Sorry if this is painfully obvious, or has been mentioned before, but did
everyone here notice the actual citation of the title in Part Two, in the
bit about the chocolate lovers:
 
"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 lives* [emphasis added] in a spasm of raspberry cream
and fear."
 
By the way, that's a wonderful phrase: "a spasm of raspberry cream and fear".
Can you imagine *any* other context in which that could be used? And one of
the other phrases there, "copulate desperately" seems to be a Gaiman favorite:
he used it way back in #5, when Dream is travelling through the dreamscape:
 
"I travel briefly by bus: in the back the dreamer *copulates desperately*
[emphasis added], not noticing his autonomous passenger. I sit at the
front and talk to the driver."
who, incidentally, we also met in #42 ... probably meaningless, but you
never know with Gaiman.
 
Yours, Si Rowe
_____________________________________________________________________
"I think twinkle is a very nice word. So's viridian. I knew a
lady once who had an imaginary fish."      -Delirium
"I'm on Aslan's side even if there isn't any Aslan to lead it.
I'm going to live as like a Narnian as I can even if there isn't any Narnia."
                                           -Puddleglum the Marsh-wiggle
                                           _The Silver Chair_ by C.S. Lewis_
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