From: Jim Jordan <jbjordan@gnt.net>
Subject: (urth) To the Seventh
Date: Thu, 13 Jan 2000 11:40:25 

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


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