(urth) the atmosphere on the bridge

[Ryan Dunn]

Also, if you take the lochage at his word, the hordes are likely hard to control and often met with similar discipline to what Severian nearly encountered at the bartizan. Fortunately for Sev, he was clearly no ordinary disturber of the peace, even though the guards would have been all too happy to throw him in the dungeon.

"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? The exultant Talarican, whose madness manifested itself as a consuming interest in the lowest aspects of human existence, claimed that the persons who live by devouring the garbage of others number two gross thousands. That there are ten thousand begging acrobats, of whom nearly half are women. That if a pauper were to leap from the parapet of this bridge each time we draw breath, we should live forever, because the city breeds and breaks men faster than we respire. Among such a throng, there is no alternative to peace. Disturbances cannot be tolerated, because disturbances cannot be extinguished. Do you follow me?"

...ryan


On May 17, 2011, at 1:26 PM, Son of Witz wrote:

> I saw it in similar terms as Stockhoff. Sort of a makeshift, lo-end midnight bazarre.  The waterway, if like most would be a good place to get mugged.  The bridge would probably be a decent place to score [         ] in the middle of the night, or just a place to loiter.
> ~witz
> 
> 
> 
> On May 17, 2011, at 4:32 AM, David Stockhoff <dstockhoff at verizon.net> wrote:
> 
>> I took that bridge as a shopping mall, like the Ponto Vecchio. Apparently this one is open at night.
>> 
>> On 5/17/2011 5:20 AM, Jeff Wilson wrote:
>>> On 5/17/2011 2:40 AM, Jason H wrote:
>>>> I'm confused about the atmosphere on the bridge that Severian crosses at
>>>> the very beginning of his exile (Shadow chapter XIV).
>>>> 
>>>> Previously he had been walking on the Water Way, and I get the
>>>> impression there are few people about. He says he no longer appeared a
>>>> torturer "in the eyes of the few who passed me"; also, he was able to
>>>> hear the song from a ship, carried by the wind, from a league away.
>>>> 
>>>> But when he steps on the bridge, the scene is suddenly crowded: there
>>>> are carriages, there are vendors crying out, and people "thronging" the
>>>> walkway. When he stops to talk to the guard, he is suddenly surrounded
>>>> by a hundred people. All of this in the dead of the night.
>>>> 
>>>> Does this make sense? Why would the bridge be so crowded, but the
>>>> walkway on one side of the river be practically deserted? Aren't the
>>>> throngs of people *crossing* the bridge?
>>> 
>>> Bridges are very often bottlenecks for traffic; there are generally at least three lanes of various sizes leading away from a bridge footing in a city, but the bridge is generally only as wide as it has to be due to the expense of construction and maintenance, and as a defensive measure. The spacing between bridges also factors in, there are many choices  to cross between streets on dry land but only so many bridges between the river banks.  Consider the important of the bridge at the end of SAVING PRIVATE RYAN.
>>> 
>>> 
>>> OF course, big cities like Nessus of have luxuriously broad numerous bridges, not unlike the various bridges across the Thames in London, but in times of asuterity, decadence, and/or corruption, these inevitably become considered additional real estate and become covered with stationary concerns until again there is a bottleneck only as wide as it has to be. The relatively uncluttered bridges across the Seine in Paris are a rare sign of enlightened self-interest on the part of the city government.
>>> 
>>> Or that's my impression, I'm not a civil engineer or anything.
>>> 
>> 
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