{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/sflovers/145",
    "note": "Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright in each message remains with the person who wrote it.  Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact.",
    "addresses": "obscured as 'user at host'"
  },
  "archive": "sflovers",
  "thread": {
    "id": 145,
    "subject": "Discussion Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "1997-05-17T16:53:08+00:00",
    "last": "1997-05-17T16:53:08+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<sflovers-v22-164-12@digest.sf-lovers>",
      "from": {
        "name": "Matthew Malthouse",
        "address": "matthew.malthouse at guardian.co.uk"
      },
      "date": "1997-05-17T16:53:08+00:00",
      "subject": "Re: Discussion Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "jmc at netcom.com (Jill M Charette) wrote:\nI have started to read The Shadow of the Torturer for the second time and\nI am as lost as I was the first time I read this book. I bought the book\noriginally because of praise I had read on this newsgroup and because I\nhad read some of the essays about the books in Castle of Days.  Upon\nreading Shadow and Claw, I wondered what people were talking about.  These\nbooks are very well written, but hard to understand.  It seems like these\nbooks are like onions with many fine layers of skin that you have to peel\nto get to the next one. I, however, can only peel the top few. "
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "[...]"
        },
        {
          "kind": "quote",
          "depth": 1,
          "text": "Some questions I have on the top of my head are:\n\nWhat is going on when Severian goes to the Atrium of Time? \n\nWhat is going on when Severian is in the Botanic Gardens, especially the\njungle? "
        },
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "The Atrium of Time scenes appear to have at least two purposes.  One is the\nforshadowing of events later in the quartet wich would be unfair to detail\nif you have not read them.\n\nA second is the contrast between the various women Severian comes in\ncontact.  Valeria, a couple of the Pelerines and a woman Sev. meets much\nlater are the only examples I can bring to mind of the 'gentry' or lesser\nnobility class.  At the time the direct contrasts is with the Chatelaine\nThecla.\n\nActually I've thought of a third idea, one of the pre-occupations of the\nbooks is the unimaginable ancientness of the Earth at the time the story\ntakes place - the sun has faded, continental drift has changed the shape of\nthe world etc.  The Atrium, and its current condition, reinforce these\nthemes.\n\nSomeone else has suggested that you might find it better to have read all\nfour books, greater insight may be had then or on a subsequent re-read.\nCertainly the quartet forms a single entity and despite the symmetry\nattempted between the beginning and end of each volume there really isn't a\nplace where the story can be broken off.\n\nIn my view 'The Book of the New Sun', being The Shadow of the Torturer, The\nClaw of the Conciliator, The Sword of the Lictor and The Citadel of the\nAutarch, is one of the best books in the genre that I have ever read.  I\nwas captivated by it at 18 and and a re-read every couple of years since\nhasn't dimmed my delight one whit.\n\nMatthew\nmatthew.malthouse at guardian.co.uk"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}