# XI: The Western Front, 1917 explained — The Big Time

> Chapter companion for The Big Time by Fritz Leiber.

## What happens

Lili Foster recounts her traumatic past lives and her resurrection by Suzaku, revealing her long-held love for the poet Bruce Marchant. She argues that the Door is now permanently shut, but that this closure offers everyone a chance to create a true future. Erich mocks her speech, but the group is deeply affected.

## Themes in this chapter

### Love and Connection

Lili's lifelong love for Bruce Marchant is the central emotional driver, culminating in her belief that love provides a true future.

### Survival and Resilience

Lili describes surviving three lives, including a slow death from Bright's disease, and her choice to accept resurrection despite the nightmares.

### Reality and Illusion

The narrator questions whether Lili's transformation is due to Change Winds or something more miraculous, blurring the line between real and illusory.

## Character check-ins

### Lili Foster

Delivers a passionate speech about her three lives, her love for Bruce Marchant, and the new opportunity after the Change Winds died.

### Bruce Marchant

Quarrels with Lili over her decision to speak; is visibly emotional as she recounts her love for him.

### Sidney Lessingham

Comforts the narrator by holding her hands during Lili's intense story.

### Erich von Hohenwald

Scoffs at Lili's speech, calling it a 'sewing circle' and mocking the idea of a great love affair.

### Greta Forzane

The narrator; observes the scene and reflects on her own feelings about love and Change Winds.

### Sevensee

Defends Lili against Erich's mockery, telling him to 'go fly a kite.'

### Suzaku

Appears in Lili's memory as the one who offered her resurrection in a French farmhouse.

### Ghostgirls

Mentioned as possibly having Introverted the Maintainer, causing the Change Winds to die.

## Key lines

> The barrage roars and lifts. Then, clumsily bowed / With bombs and guns and shovels and battle gear, / Men jostle and climb to meet the bristling fire.

The artillery stops, and soldiers burdened with equipment awkwardly rise from their trenches to face enemy fire.

_Opening lines from Sassoon's poem set the grim tone of World War I trench warfare._

> We girls have often cried, 'Shut the Door!' But now the Door is jolly well shut for keeps!

Lili declares that the Door to the Change World is permanently closed, a change from past wishes.

_Lili's announcement marks a turning point in the group's situation._

> I was a young girl again, seventeen, and I suppose every woman wishes to be seventeen, but I wasn't seventeen inside my head

Lili felt physically young but mentally carried the weight of her adult memories and deaths.

_Highlights the dissonance between her resurrected body and her accumulated life experiences._

> And then the Boche machine guns cut him down at Passchendaele and there couldn't ever have been bandages big enough

Bruce Marchant was killed by German machine-gun fire at Passchendaele, beyond any hope of saving.

_Reveals the tragic fate of the poet Lili loved._

> And just as she's going mad, there's a creaking and out of the shadows tiptoes a Jap with a woman's hairdo and the whitest face and the blackest eyebrows.

At her moment of despair, Suzaku appears silently, offering her a chance to live.

_Describes Lili's resurrection encounter with Suzaku._

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/the_big_time_se/chapters/xi-the-western-front-1917
- Book: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/the_big_time_se
- All chapters: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/the_big_time_se/chapters