Chess in “Hard Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World”

In the “End of the World” chapters of the book, the author is often found playing chess with the Colonel whom he lives with.  What was really strange, though, was that I did not recognize many of the chess piece names that they were using.  Having played chess a lot with my dad when I was a little, I was surprised when I couldn’t recognize the names.  I decided to investigate!

The chess piece names are as follows:

• King
• Queen
• Knight
• Bishop
• Rook
• Pawn

Some of the chess piece names I found in the book:

• King
• Knight
• Ape
• High Priest
• Parapet
• Wall

I can’t even begin to imagine what the heck “ape” might be!  Parapet may be referring to the rook, as I looked it up to mean the raised portions of the wall of the rook.  “High priest” could be the “bishop” – both of them are related to the church.  Since the “knight” and “king” seem to the same, by process of elimination, I am guessing that “ape” must be the “pawn.”  “Ape” does have a crude connotation and would probably refer to a dispensable piece… the pawn.  Could the “wall” be the “queen”?  I remember the queen being the most powerful piece because it could move anywhere in any direction, acting as a shield for the king.  The wall could act like a shield?

Why would some of the names be different and some of them the same?  It could just be a loss in translation, since the original print was in Japanese.  I feel like there should be a deeper reason, though.  For sure, the inclusion of the “wall” piece must be important, as his little “End of the World” land is enclosed by a wall.  The speaker even spends several paragraphs on page 164 talking about how he lives in a “world completely surrounded by walls” that represented “limitations.”

Chess itself is a strange game.  Well, it’s meant to be a fun and strategic game – which is more light-hearted and meant to be enjoyable, right?  But… chess is like war.  There are two sides, and the goal is to kill each other off until one of you can kill the other’s king.  It is interesting that it is included in this story.  It could be analogous to the scientist using the speaker as an experimental subject just for scientific “funsies,” but it ends up being a tragic and life-ending conclusion.