The Cistern under the bell keep

Jeff Wilson · 12 Nov 2010, 07:49 · from 2010-November.txt.gz

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From: jwilson at io.com (Jeff Wilson)
Date: Fri, 12 Nov 2010 01:49:01 -0600
Subject: (urth) The Cistern under the bell keep
In-Reply-To: <2DD5B291-8BBB-4C81-8E4E-F440585DE7D9 at butcherbaker.org>
References: <2DD5B291-8BBB-4C81-8E4E-F440585DE7D9 at butcherbaker.org>
Message-ID: <4CDCF16D.1050309 at io.com>

On 11/10/2010 4:19 PM, Son of Witz wrote:
> Severian mentions the cistern under the Bell Keep at least 8 times in his five volumes.
> Does anyone find a particular significance to it? I haven't.  He seems to use it for comparison only, but it keeps coming up throughout the books.

Well it provides foreshadowing of the flushing of the vinculum. It also 
gives a plausible reason for a lifelong dweller in urban medieval 
squalor to be familiar with the appearance and other properties of a 
large volume of clear, fresh water, the better to analogize and 
metaphorize for the first world reader.

-- 
Jeff Wilson - jwilson at io.com
Computational Intelligence Laboratory - Texas A&M Texarkana
< http://www.tamut.edu/CIL >

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