{
  "export": {
    "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/4631",
    "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": "urth",
  "thread": {
    "id": 4631,
    "subject": "Secrets of the Atrium of Time",
    "messages": 1,
    "voices": 1,
    "first": "2006-05-28T13:50:18+00:00",
    "last": "2006-05-28T13:50:18+00:00"
  },
  "messages": [
    {
      "message_id": "<BAY103-F24194EECB4042B960AFEE1D79C0@phx.gbl>",
      "from": {
        "name": "b sharp",
        "address": "bsharporflat at hotmail.com"
      },
      "date": "2006-05-28T13:50:18+00:00",
      "subject": "(urth) Secrets of the Atrium of Time",
      "in_reply_to": null,
      "reply_link": null,
      "blocks": [
        {
          "kind": "text",
          "depth": 0,
          "text": "Many have thought the Atrium of Time was a place where time stands still, as \nevidenced by the symbolism of a broken sundial .  But in his two trips \nthere, Severian finds different seasons, first winter, then autumn.\n\nI think Mantis in Lexicon Urthus gets closer to the heart of the matter by \ncalling the Atrium of Time \"A time travelling structure, like the Last \nHouse, located in the heart of the Old Citadel\".  This is a good comparison, \nbecause Severian has to follow a long, twisting, confusing path to find both \nthe Atrium of Time and the Last House.  Both times he is following a path \nmarked by  guides, Triskele and Mannea.  Neither place can be found by \ntaking a short cut (up a cliff, or in a flyer).\n\nWhat I think is missed is that the Atrium of Time is an open space with many \ndoors to towers surrounding it.  The Last House is a vertical structure, \nthat structure being essential to its nature.  The higher floors of the Last \nHouse are progressively in the future and the lowest floor is in Severian's \npresent.  So it is the towers off the Atrium of Time which must be \ntime-traversing structures, not the Atrium itself.\n\nThe Last House is probably a Hiero structure, crossing thousands (maybe \nmore) of years of time.  The Atrium of Time and its towers are probably a \nFather Inire creation.  We learn in Urth that Inire's Secret House is a poor \nimitation of the secret ways found in Tzadkiel's ship.  So I think we will \nfind that the Atrium of Time towers traverse a much smaller span of time.\n\nI'd like to call the catacombs through which Severian finds the Atrium of \nTime the Underground Path.  Where else might this path lead if explored \nfurther?  After their first meeting, Rudesind (Inire?) tells Severian that \nif he follows the armiger's direction to Ultan he will only arrive in the \nReading Room. \"From there it would take you a watch to get to Ultan, if you \never did\".  This sounds  a bit like the sort of path that takes you to \nplaces like the Last House and the Atrium of Time:  long, twisting and with \nguidance needed.  Rudesind directs Severian to a shortcut- a room containing \npaintings with hidden books in them and a downward stairway.  At the bottom \nis the door to Ultan.  This suggests to me that Ultan's Library, which \nextends to the House Absolute, exists in the past.  Cyriaca's story supports \nthis.\n\nAn Underground Path suggests there is a  Ground Level Path.  Where would it \ngo?  I will suggest it stays in Severian's present and is, in fact, \nRudesind's Art Gallery which also extends all the way to the House Absolute. \n  I think the House Azure is connected in a similar way.\n\nSo, what else is suggested by all this?  I think it suggests the existence \nof a Path of Air, which also extends to the House Absolute but exists about \n60 years in the future.  More on the implications of that later.\n\nValeria notes that her tower is very old and decrepit and that she \"had \nnever gone above the lower floors\". If there are basement levels to her \ntower then she lives in the past and present.  The antique quality of her \nname, clothes and furnishings support this.  Severian notes there are other \ndecayed towers, notably, the Witches'.  So apparently it is these old places \nand not the spaceship towers which are time structures.  What are the \nscreams and colored lights coming from the top (future) of the Witches keep?\n\nWhen Severian visits the witches he climbs several stairs and a ladder made \nof saplings lashed together he finds the Cumaean, (in the future), looking \nthrough her glass table at the artificial landscape with hairless crippled \nanimals.  My \"The Wtches Function\" post offers some suggestions regarding \nthis.\n\nSeverian climbs another, similar ladder of lashed wood also associated with \ntime bending.  A long, twisting path is travelled to get there. It is at the \nJungle Hut.  Agia has never been that deeply in this garden so I think \nFather Inire, as designer, is acting as guide.  Here in the Jungle Hut we \nfind, in Robert, and Marie and an airplane, a place most similar to our own, \nthe readers', world though it seems like a movie scene, perhaps from Gene \nWolfe's youth.  Because Severian has to ascend a ladder to get there, it is \nsuggests that our Earth is in the future of Urth.\n\n-bsharp"
        }
      ]
    }
  ]
}