(urth) The Lochage's Rant...

[Gwern Branwen]

On Mon, Aug 30, 2010 at 10:31 PM, Ryan Dunn <ryan at liftingfaces.com> wrote:
> Hello All,
>
> I have had a hard time with a passage from Shadow... the rant the lochage gives to Severian in the bartizan. He is telling Severian how vast Nessus is, how all attempts to count them have failed, and so forth.
>
> But he describes the city in this passage, as follows:
>
> "The city grows and changes every night, like writing chalked on a wall. Houses are built in the streets by clever people who take up the cobbles in the dark and claim the ground - did you know that?"
>
> I think I understand the second part. I'm not sure what taking up the cobbles in the dark means exactly, but this has something to do with clever people claiming land as their own by stealing it in the dark? Anyhow...

He's referring to the practice of extending houses out into the street
(just plop your timbers on top of the cobblestones, or remove the
stones first, and build upwards), or just brazenly building an entire
house in the street. Once the building is *there*, who's going to
object? He's being pretty literal there.

-- 
gwern