Armilla's Thin City

Armilla is deemed a thin city, but why it is deemed so cannot be concretely seen in the text. It could be related to the lack of characteristics that contribute to a sensory picture of a city, such as the walls and floors, the rooves and windows. It’s simply the pipes, the hidden veins of cities that no one thinks about when they’re out of sight, so they seem less of the city even though they are, functionally, of deep importance to it. A different take on Armilla’s thinness could be the other side of what makes a city, the people. Armilla has a distinct lack of what Marco Polo defines at people, noting it as “abandoned before or after it was inhabited.” Throughout cities in the book, much of what defines some cities are the people in them, …show more content…
The pipes carry water, and throughout the passage much of the language associated with the pipes and the water in them is very natural and evocative of living themes. They are “a forest ending in taps, showers, spouts, overflows,” imagery that suggests the spreading of leaves at the end of a branch. He does not describe them as misfit, the wording makes the pipes seem as natural as any forest made of actual trees. There are also some liquid sounds, and a good deal sibilance in the passage, even when the words aren’t directly related to the water. He favors s sounds, which makes the sounds softer and flow together. The best example of sibilance in the passage is the last sentence of the second paragraph, wherein there is a slew of s’s, both starting and within words, moving the sentence along. His sentence structure also lengthens when discussing the pipes and the water. For example, the most part of the first sentence is a long sentence that flows to joints of colons, like the bends in pipes, that runs along smoothly. The second paragraph’s sentences also lengthen when discussing the nymphs’ interaction with the water, and the water from the pipes itself. Taken together with the nymphs, who “found it easy to enter the new aquatic realm,” it seems to suggest that the pipes themselves are full of life. Though the city is simply made of that, it is lively and natural, which seems to be related to the water they