9 quoted lines
At 09:25 PM 1/9/00 -0800, you wrote:
The chess analogy arises in "To the Seventh", a story
I found problematic in various ways. Nutria, do you
think God's shifting of focus to another part of the
board near the end will save Chance and co, diverting
Satan long enough for the pawn to queen? And: why the
comic book texture of the universe portrayed? I
thought Wolfe might be implying Chance's cosmos is an
inferior parody of reality, its "God" a demiurge...
The title indicates to me that moving to the Eighth can only happen after death (thus, resurrection, glorification, queenification). Getting to the seventh (consider the number in terms of sabbath) is all God does to people in THIS life. So, "God" turns to someone else to move forward.
For the rest, it just struck me as an allegory. If you press an allegory too far, it falls apart.
We've had the same kind of discussion here about "Westwind." If you press the allegory one way, the Ruler becomes a false god and some kind of "Christof / Christ-Off" (as in The Truman Show). But that seems to me to be rather far from what Wolfe rather obviously intends in a simple story....
Nutria