Death: The Time of Your Life by Neil Gaiman and Chris Bachalo and Mark Buckingham.
Title: Death: The Time of Your Life.
Author: Neil Gaiman.
Artist: Chris Bachalo and Mark Buckingham.
Genre: Fiction, graphic novel, fantasy, adventure.
Country: U.S.
Language: English.
Publication Date: 1993.
Summary: As a rising star of the music world, Foxglove, wrestles with revealing her true sexual orientation, her lover is forced to uphold her end of the bargain she had once struck with Death, and follow her into her realm. And though Death incarnate is a genuinely likeable young girl with a fondness for ankhs who truly cares about people, she has to follow rules of her own, and one must never break a deal made with Death.
My rating: 8/10.
My review: I enjoyed this much more than its prequel, because though the concept of "Death becomes human for a day" is very interesting, this is Death as she has been originally introduced to us in Sandman - in her element, doing her work. What lowered the rating of this for me is that I never liked Foxglove and Hazel too much - they don't fit well, to me, but I enjoyed everything else. I liked the conversation Hazel and Death as they walk deeper toward Death's realm, especially. There is something poignant and deep about it - especially Death's take on what matters and how she knows and loves and understands everyone. I liked the parallel between Foxglove's world of hotels and interviews and general bored disillusionment with the calm and contemplative, though painful and eye-opening journey Death undertakes with Hazel. There is a certain melancholy to the story and the narrative that I associate with Gaiman's Death that I find very appropriate.
♥ "I like girls. I've always liked girls. Since I was a little girl I liked girls. When I play with myself I think of girls. I live with a girl, although Hazel says she's a woman, not a girl, and I really shouldn't use a word like girl that demeans women, but I say that a boring word like woman takes all the fun out of being a girl..."
♥ And any way you look you know it's on the level
And I don't care how it appears.
I'm not afraid of the world, the flesh or devil
I'm just afraid of no more tears.
I never thought they'd have to teach me how to want.
I thought the pain was always clear.
I thought I'd burn and scream and never be forgotten.
I've lost my way and found my fear.
Well, you slash through the canvas and little slits of love shine through.
That's what George's tongue said.
Well you can dream if you want but the only thing to wake is you.
That's what George's tongue said.
I used to hate the way we shouted fought and bickered,
Now I'd be grateful for a fight.
You say no words as the TV blue light flickered
And tiny actors sob their lines into the night.
And any way you look you know it's on the level
And I don't care how it appears.
I'm not afraid of the world, the flesh or devil
I'm just afraid of no more tears.
That's what George's tongue said.
♥ "Probably how he would have wanted to go, just out like that. Me, I want to be squashed by a bull elephant at the moment of orgasm while sandwiched ecstatically between two or three agile greased Nubian virgins."
♥ "People don't bore me. I like people."
"Really? All of them?"
"All of them."
"Even the creepy ones?"
"Nobody's creepy from the inside, Hazel. Some of them are sad, and some of them hurt, and some of them think they're the only real thing in the whole world. But they're not creepy."
♥ "I was a roadie for The Who. That was why he called me Boris. After Boris the Spider."
"You mean it's not your name?"
"Nah."
"So what is your real name? What was your name before you were named?"
"That's a pretty bloody Zen sort of question, isn't it?"
♥ "Can I ask you a stupid question?"
"Sure. Ask away."
"It's sort of more than one question. But. Look. Um, why do we hurt? Why do we die? Why isn't life good all the time? Why isn't it fair?"
"Those aren't stupid questions, Hazel. For some people they're the only questions that matter."
"Does that mean you won't answer them?"
"Sure, I'll answer. But it's kind of a big subject, and it's got lots of answers. And the answers don't really mean anything -- they aren't stupid questions but they could just as well be "When is purple?" or "Why does Thursday?", if you see what I mean..."
"Not really."
"Well. I think some of it is probably contrasts. If you never had the bad times, how would you know you had the good times? But some of it is just: if you're going to be human, then there are a whole load of things that come with it. Eyes, a heart, days and life. It's the moments that illuminate it, though. The times you don't see when you're having them... They make the rest of it matter."
♥ "That's what you were trying to say, isn't it? I mean, I think... That mostly we're too busy living to stop and notice we're alive. But that sometimes we do. And that that makes the rest of it matter."
♥ "Go and take care of yourself, Fox love. Have a proper life. Bring up Alvie to be proud of you. All that. I don't think you were ever cut out to be a pop star. It's no fit life for a human being. And you only live once. If that."
♥ And sitting there, listening to her, it occurred to me that the whole of art -- maybe the whole of life -- is just spray-painting your name on a wall, hoping that someone will see it after you've gone. And kids are to make sure that there's someone around who'll remember you when you're not around anymore.
♥ This is my newest theory. That everything sensible, everything you could know, all the stuff that counts as real wisdom, all of that stuff, it's all stupid and obvious and kitsch. Or it seems that way, until you realize it for yourself. Take clichés, for example. I think, as I grow older, I get fonder of clichés. "Today is the first day of the rest of your life." It sets my teeth on edge. But that doesn't make it less true.