
“Life in the fast lane! Surely make you lose your mind/Life in the fast lane! Everything all the time.” (Life in the Fast Lane, the Eagles 1976 Hotel California Album) This song was a smash hit by the classic rock group the Eagles on their 1976 Hotel California album. The title came from singer and guitarist Glenn Frey when he was riding in a friend’s car. This friend was driving 90 miles per hour down the highway when Frey saw the speedometer and asked why they were travelling so fast. “Life in the fast lane, buddy.” A life on the edge. Can a whole song be a metaphor for life lived too hastily and dangerously? This song aptly describes the lifestyle of living as much as you can, as quickly as you can. This is not a good way to live. However, everyone has their own choice of how to live, but it is better not to live in the “fast lane.” In Joyas Volardores, a short story by Brian Doyle, the lifestyles of both “lanes” are compared to one another with Doyle seeming to be in favor of the “slow lane” over the “fast lane.”

Fast lane? Though Brian Doyle never uses this exact terminology in Joyas Volardores, his views and analysis of the hummingbird, tortoise, and whale and their different lifestyles point to which one of the three he is most in favor of. “It’s expensive to fly.” (Doyle 95) Here, Doyle is analyzing the hummingbird and how fast-paced and short-lived the life of a hummingbird is. Doyle lays out statistic after statistic of how fragile the hummingbird is. One of the biggest of these statistics is that “Every creature on earth has approximately two billion heartbeats to spend in a lifetime.” (Doyle 95) He immediately reflects on how these heartbeats can be spent either at an extremely fast pace for a shorter life or conserved and wisely spent for a longer life. Another statistic detailing the fragility of the hummingbird is that of the heart. Doyle explains how the heart of a hummingbird is “stripped to the skin for the war against gravity and inertia” (Doyle 95) and this is “a life closer to death.” (Doyle 95) Doyle then turns it completely around and focuses on his readers by directly addressing them and points out how dangerous it is to live so fast-paced. “You burn out. You fry the machine. You melt the engine.” (Doyle 95) In these few sentences, Doyle is both referencing an earlier statement about the heart being like a finely tuned engine and he is also calling his audience to realize how the hummingbird way of life cannot be the best way because of the high cost of living. In Joyas Volardores, Doyle’s example of a fast lane lifestyle is that of the hummingbird. Why does he focus mainly on the heart? Why? Well, the heart is the organ which keeps one alive. Yes, the brain is constantly sending the involuntary pump message to the heart all the time, but it is the heart that actually pumps the blood through the plethora of blood vessels inside each body. However, in Joyas Volardores, the heart is given both a physical and metaphorical aspect. The physical aspect has been mostly covered.

Metaphorically, the heart represents life, feelings, and memories. It needs support. Someone to take care of it because it can be built up for years and years but broken in a second. “You can brick up your heart as stout and tight and hard and cold and impregnable as you possibly can and down it comes in an instant, felled by a woman’s second glance…, your mother’s ancient papery hand…, the memory of your father’s voice early in the morning.” (Doyle 96) Again, it comes down to how someone choses to live. Fast lane or slow lane? Each can have its full share of heartache or joy. “So much held in a heart in a lifetime.” (Doyle 96) The heart needs support. “Everybody needs somebody to love.” (The Blues Brothers) Companionship is central. When driving down the road, a copilot is a wonderful thing to have. The copilot can keep the driver awake and aware as well as give directions and, most importantly, the copilot keeps the driver company. Each relies on the other for support.

The slow lane. A much longer road than the fast lane. The slow lane can be much easier than the fast lane. In the slow lane, people take regular stops and enjoys the sights. They stop to refuel and grab a bite to eat. Now, sometimes the ones in the fast lane have to stop and refuel, but only so they can get back into the fast lane and continue speeding by. The slow lane, much more often than the fast lane, is where many find the lasting companionship and support they need for life. People in the slow lane are more able to live life more fully. Doyle’s closest analogy to this in Joyas Volardores is the lifestyle of the tortoise or blue whale. Going back to Doyle’s statistic about the limited number of beats that every living being has to spend in life, Doyle seems largely in favor of the “slow lane” lifestyle. In Doyle’s opinion, living life in the slow lane is more beneficial in the long run. 

To Doyle, a “life in the fast lane” is not as good or as wise as a life in the “slow lane.” He seems to emphasize this when he says, “You can spend [your heartbeats] slowly, like a tortoise and live to be two hundred years old, or you can spend [your heartbeats] fast, like a hummingbird and live to be two years old.” (Doyle 95) His use of vastly different numbers while also sticking to the number two all point to his seeing only two main ways to live. These numbers are also pointed directly at the reader to grip their attention. Doyle deliberately uses the word “you” to speak right to his readers and make them think about what lifestyle is really better. Two years or two hundred. There is a huge gap between these numbers to make Doyle’s readers think about the prospects of a short and fast lifestyle or a long, slow lifestyle. In Joyas Volardores, Doyle uses many different tactics to display the drastic difference of the “fast lane” and “slow lane” lifestyles and presents many facts to show his preference to the slower lifestyle.