Ep. 430 The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho — The Stacks Book Club (Mary H. K. Choi)

Written By Traci Thomas

Today is The Stacks Book Club Day, and we’re joined by bestselling author Mary H.K. Choi (Pool House) to discuss our June pick, The Alchemist by Paolo Coelho. This allegorical novel follows Santiago, an Andalusian shepherd boy whose quest from Spain to the Egyptian desert in search of buried treasure transforms into a life-changing journey of self-discovery. We discuss the book’s legacy, how it relates to the cultural phenomena of “girl boss” and “the manosphere,” and which parts we loved and hated.

There are spoilers in this episode.

Make sure you listen to the end of the episode to find out what our July book club pick is!

LISTEN NOW

Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Google Podcasts | Overcast | Stitcher | Transcript

 
 

Everything we talk about on today’s episode can be found below in the show notes and on Bookshop.org and Amazon.

To support The Stacks and find out more from this week’s sponsors, click here.
Connect with Mary: Instagram | Threads | Substack | Website
Connect with The Stacks: Instagram | Threads | Shop | Patreon | Goodreads | Substack | Youtube | Subscribe

To contribute to The Stacks, join The Stacks Pack, and get exclusive perks, check out our Patreon page. If you prefer to support the show with a one-time contribution, go to paypal.me/thestackspod.

The Stacks participates in affiliate programs. We receive a small commission when products are purchased through links on this website.

TRANSCRIPT
*Due to the nature of podcast advertising, these timestamps are not 100% accurate and will vary.

Mary H.K. Choi 0:00

Something like this is kind of like volatile, right? It's like too dangerous, it's like too easily weaponized by like people who are like on that again manifest destiny, let me just go westward and displace a bunch of people already living there. However, I do believe in a personal legend. In thinking that I have a personal legend, it means everything I do or do not do is either in service of the personal legend or sabotaging my access to fulfilling my personal legend. I believe in this book, and I believe in what this book is saying, and I think it's ruining my life.

Traci Thomas 0:40

Welcome to the Stacks podcast about books and the people who read them. I'm your host, Traci Thomas, and today is the Stacks Book Club Day. We are joined once again by best-selling author Mary H. K. Choi, whose newest book, Pool House, is out now, and we are discussing our June book club pick, The Alchemist by Paolo Coello. This beloved and hated allegorical novel follows Santiago, a shepherd boy whose quest from Spain to the Egyptian desert in search of buried treasure transforms into a life-changing journey of self-discovery. Today, in our discussion, Mary and I talk about how this book became the juggernaut that it is today. We talk about our own personal legends and think about this book's impact on today's current political and social climate. Stay tuned for our conversation, and yes, there are spoilers. And don't forget to listen all the way to the end of today's conversation to find out what our July book club pick will be. Everything we talk about on each episode of The Stacks is linked in our show notes. If you like this podcast, if you want more bookish content and community, consider joining the Stacks pack on Patreon and subscribing to my newsletter, Unstacked on Substack. By joining each of these places, you get special perks like bonus episodes, hot takes community, and you make it possible for me to make this podcast free to all every single week. To join, head to patreon.com/the Stacks for the Stacks pack, and go to Traci Thomas dot sub stack.com for my newsletter. All right, now it is time for my conversation with Mary H K Choi about The Alchemist. All right, everybody. It is the Sex Book Club Day. It is the end of June. We are joined again by the wonderful, amazing, fantastic debut novelist, author of Pool House, Mary H.K. Choi.

Mary H.K. Choi 2:40

Did I do air horn last time? I feel like I might have. I don't think so.

Traci Thomas 2:44

Now you've covered your bases, you've done air horn, and like precious meeting strangers voice. Hi, it's me Mary.

Mary H.K. Choi 2:52

Oh, Shante. Also, pool house, the only drop that's the only drop

Traci Thomas 2:59

Well maybe we can weave Pool House into this, so it's book club. We're talking about this stunner of a book, The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho. Coelho, I don't know how to say it, but say it different every time

Mary H.K. Choi 3:11

I've heard quellio.

Traci Thomas 3:13

Oh, okay, Portuguese, go off.

Mary H.K. Choi 3:15

I mean, I have no idea, but like I like looked it up, but it was like that fake YouTube with that mouth like AI, it's like whole wildly, yo. So I don't.

Traci Thomas 3:23

I also looked it up and got like Goelo, and I was like, I don't know, I don't know, I don't know. I don't speak Portuguese, I'm not Portuguese, I'm not Brazilian, I don't know, I don't speak the language. But lucky for us, this was translated into English, so we could read it for book club. Everybody who's listening right now, we will spoil this book, so if you have not finished, we're gonna spoil it. I don't know that there really are spoilers for a book like this, because you know it is written. Also, it's

Mary H.K. Choi 3:51

like a parable. It's like, oh, you spoiled, like, I don't know, the tortoise and the hare for me.

Traci Thomas 3:59

Yeah, I do know that's why I'm like, I don't know that you can spoil this book, but you know people get mad at me for spoiling all the time, and I'm like, we say it nine times before I ever spoil anything, so just like, pause, you guys can pause.

Mary H.K. Choi 4:15

This book was published in like the 80s

Traci Thomas 4:18

yeah, it's 38 years old, so if you want to know what happens to the shepherd boy, if you're like dying to know the shepherd boy, what happens, and you don't want to be spoiled, pause. But otherwise, we're going to tell you what happens to Santiago. Here's where we always start with book club. Broadly, what did you think?

Mary H.K. Choi 4:39

So, okay, couple of prefaces, professes per feces. We agreed that we would not go into this with a cynical heart. I think that that's really important to sort of set up. I think it's also important to say that you had to buy two copies of this really funny because you left. One at home, and then you came to New York to visit me, and that was really great

Traci Thomas 5:03

and that was my personal legend, like that. I needed two copies, you know.

Mary H.K. Choi 5:08

Yeah, the universe is always going to conspire benevolently in favor of your personal legend. That's.. is that a spoiler? I don't know. So, what did I think of the book? Two fold. One, I hated it. Like, it just reminded me of, like, every single and it doesn't surprise me that it's a book that is cited alongside like Rich Dad Poor Dad Who Moved My Cheese or Seven Habits or like whatever and it's also like you know like the Four Agreement it's like a lot of like kind of like starter pack reader type thing either in like theology sobriety like spirituality, or basically manifest destiny. I feel like so much of it could be weaponized and used by, like, a founder being like, "It's okay that I'm extractive or fracking or whatever, because it's my.. I'm just.. I'm just fulfilling my personal destiny. It feels like very, like, like. like, you know, like, someone you know reads The Fountainhead once, like, as a vibe, as well. So that part I really hated. However, I'm also delighted to report that, as I was reading it, I also had a breakthrough in therapy.

Traci Thomas 6:20

Okay,

Mary H.K. Choi 6:22

and I had a big, big cry, like a sobbing big cry, that was like a calcified lump of resentment toward my partner, and like kind of a breakdown as it relates to like my book, which came out this month, and all my feelings about that. So, like, it may be I hated it while it was going down, but it also maybe worked. Question mark, how about you?

Traci Thomas 6:44

Okay, so like you said, we read this book earnestly. However, I did go into this pic. The reason that I was like, this is the book I want to do, which I rarely foist a book on my guest. Usually we work together to come up with a pic, but I was like, Mary, will you do this with me was because I want to spend time talking about how this book is how we got to this current political moment, and you sort of already touched on it, but like there is something about this book where there's a direct line between the boy and the manosphere, and I want to talk about that because I feel like every, you know, we, you know, we have like the term girl boss, we need a boy boss term, because every boy boss, this is their favorite book, and like that is meaningful to me, because I think that is like unlock something that maybe we're missing.

Mary H.K. Choi 7:35

No, totally, I had the same thing in my notes, where I was just like, manosphere, question mark, question mark, and I also said girl bossing too close to the sun, question mark, yes, in relation to Santiago's behavior at certain points,

Traci Thomas 7:47

exactly,

Mary H.K. Choi 7:48

and like, you know, we were just talking about voting in California, and you know, we were basically, it's like, it would not surprise me if Spencer Pratt thought that, like, running for office was like a fulfillment of his personal legend

Traci Thomas 8:03

and that this book is super important to him, like that people who hold this book dearly, like there is a - there's a commonality between those people and Spencer Pratt's crystals, now crystal to Mayor Pipeline, because let's not forget he is Crystal Boy, just like Santiago.

Mary H.K. Choi 8:23

Well, well, Crystal Boy, that became a crystal man, like a lot of.. so Santiago Dream. How do we talk about the plot? Like, yeah.

Traci Thomas 8:31

Okay, let me give you, let me give you my broad thing, and then we'll do a quick plot, plot run. So, so broadly, so I went in with that lens, and so I did read it with that lens of like, how come this book is this book. It was a less painful read for me than the first time I read the book, because the first time I read it, shout out to my brothers, they all were like, "You have to read it, it's amazing, like, and this was like before I went to work for Obama in 2008 I was like 22 and they were like, you have to read this book, and I, I got.. I remember getting to the end and being like, I fucking hate this book, and I hate this ending more than anything I've ever hated in my life. So, going into the book, all I remembered was that, like, he's on a journey, and the ending sucks, but I couldn't remember what the ending was. So, as I was reading it, I was like, How could this ending suck? Like, like, he's gonna get his treasure. Like, what was I so mad about at 22 And then I got to the ending and was like, i'll murder, this guy. Like, I fucking.. yeah, I was like, this ending is rage inducing for a person who likes to read books,

Mary H.K. Choi 9:37

but also the ending is so like, uh, Rosebud was the sled, or like it was all a dream, so that ending is definitely maddening. However, I will say there is something being mansplained by brothers to read this book as a sister, because the depiction of like women like in this book is so sus to me, where I'm just like, okay, cool. Well, so like the love of his life, who is like also the fulfillment of his personal treasure in some sort of ancillary indirect way, is a total non-playable character. Yes, and like she has so many other men like speaking for her, and like she's like kind of like mute, but like raven-haired, and I'm just like, this is bullshit.

Traci Thomas 10:17

Well, and the other original love of his life, the like shopkeeper's daughter, she is first of all just as he's like, I don't even know her name, I just like told her about a book I read, like she's also just like not a human being, like there's like two women who are just like truly not a human being, and he's giving big like Romeo energy because you know in Romeo and Juliet he's like in love with Rosalind, Rosalind, Rosalind, and then he's like Juliet, the love of my life, and I'm like, oh, so Fatima is Juliet, and shopkeeper girl is Rosalind, like, not very kind,

Mary H.K. Choi 10:47

yeah. Also, would die for both all the time, like, but also, like, the thing that I found resoundingly sus, and that I did also resent to your point about, like, oh, I hate, as a person who likes reading books, like, I hate this ending, his whole thing in the beginning is like I'm a shepherd, but I know how to read. Rah rah rah, I went to seminary, and he's so gassed on being able to read. And then the rest of the book, he's like just like trying to throw away books as quickly as possible, like so angry.

Traci Thomas 11:15

He's like, I can't read this book, I don't understand a word in this book. This book is nonsense. And then the other guy's like, yeah, that book's just like about the secrets of the universe. You don't have dirty bed.

Mary H.K. Choi 11:24

I was like, he's like, this book is a good pillow, but this book is heavier. Like, it was just like, so, like, I was like, I just sue fatigue. Like, I was saying,

Traci Thomas 11:34

this book is like, it's a perfect representation of right now. We've got, like, the manosphere, we've got the literacy crisis. It's like the boy knew he was leading this. Is all of our personal legends is like to see this book for what it is.

Mary H.K. Choi 11:48

It's not even that the boy knew, it's like the boy is the boy just embodies like Apollo go off everything. Just, well, and then also like, did you think it was kind of like suss that he was like Christian?

Traci Thomas 12:01

Yes, and then everyone's Muslim, but also everyone's an atheist. It was very confusing to me

Mary H.K. Choi 12:06

And that to me was like, I know it's 80s, but that feels a little algo, where you're like, okay, these are the ingredients that are going to make this sort of really, really work, like it. I just felt a little not deceived, but a little manipulated by that,

Traci Thomas 12:19

the religious, the actual like true religious aspects of this, like the Christianity, the like Muslim people, that part was very.. I really disliked that. I feel like this book would have been better if it was just like God or like a higher spirit, because then it started to, yeah, because then it started to get into like.. well, are you gonna believe, like, when you talk about, like, God this or God that, like, which God are you talking about, right? Like, is the God for all of, like, like the crystal merchant was very clearly a Muslim man, he was talking about, like, doing his pilgrimage to Mecca, and all of that stuff. And then I don't know, it just was like, well, then is Santiago gonna become Muslim, because those were a lot of the things he was following. I couldn't quite tell why we needed to have like clear, distinct religions, especially in a parable. Like, we don't, we don't need it. God could just.. God, we all believe in God here, or we don't.

Mary H.K. Choi 13:16

Legit, it's called the alchemist. Like, already we're into some woo woo territories here, so it's like the actual, like dogmatic aspects of it. I was just like, I feel like this is a giant mixed metaphor. It's like wearing like Adidas and Nike at the same time, confused old, like I was just like not here for that. But like, so the synopsis basically, though, is that you have a shepherd boy, he goes to seek his future. Well, he becomes a shepherd because he wanted to see the world and he wanted to leave home, and then I know that everybody's read it, but just in case people know

Traci Thomas 13:45

a lot of people are not going to read it, they just want to hear us talk about it.

Mary H.K. Choi 13:48

This is the meta narrative about literacy, right? But I will say, so he's traveling, blah blah blah, fulfilling his personal legend. He learns about the personal legend, he learns about how to read omens, he learns about how to sort of vibrate along to the sort of vibe of the universe, or like the universe will always conspire to allow you to fulfill your personal legend. And when you start out, you have beginner's luck, and then it gets harder and harder, and the universe will keep testing you. And then there's a part about your heart, where, like, your heart is also made of the soul of the universe, and so your heart will tell you, but your heart is also like kind of a pussy, so sometimes it will lead you,

Traci Thomas 13:48

sometimes your heart's scared, and so you don't listen to your heart, but you have to listen to your heart, because your heart doesn't want to hurt you, but also like listen to your heart,

Mary H.K. Choi 14:33

yeah, listen to your heart, but like, and so then, like, whatever, I don't think the spoiler, but yada yada yada, he fulfills his personal legend, he gets to Egypt to see the pyramids, because that was like the omen, or like the vision, or whatever, and then this feels like a spoiler, but whatever,

Traci Thomas 14:52

we are spoiling, so it's fine,

Mary H.K. Choi 14:53

we're spoiling, so at the end he gets the pyramids, he sees the pyramids in a total, he gets beaten up, and then one of his is assailants is basically like, hi, you dumb ass. I know you were like, and he's like digging for his treasure, or whatever. He's like, you dumb ass, like I did the same thing, but they said that my treasure was apparently at this other place, and of course, the other place is the place that Santiago had left, like that,

Traci Thomas 15:16

where he started. the book starts with him, like in a church with a broken roof with a tree growing, yeah, and that's where he has his recurring dream multiple times,

Mary H.K. Choi 15:26

right. So that's kind of what I was saying about Rosebud, is the sled, you know, like it's like it's all this whole mystery

Traci Thomas 15:32

I see dead people,

Mary H.K. Choi 15:34

it's giving i see dead people

Traci Thomas 15:36

It's, it's like it's like a giant twist ending, the beginning is the end, and the end is the beginning,

Mary H.K. Choi 15:43

and like, what even is time? So I have a disclosure, which is that, like, you bought two copies of this, I refused to buy a copy of it, and so when we, when we knew we were doing this book, I was like, "fuck it, I'm libbying, and so I like stationed all my Libby's, but this book has, like, an insane weight

Traci Thomas 16:01

insane weight, that's why I couldn't do it. I had Libby too before, I'm still like six weeks out on my Libby. I libid for audio and print, hoping that I would get it, and I can't get audio, so I got the audio too, but I was like, I need to take notes.

Mary H.K. Choi 16:16

Well, okay, so the audio is actually done by the actor Jeremy Irons,

Traci Thomas 16:21

I heard,

Mary H.K. Choi 16:22

so you basically got scar from The Lion King narrating the whole book, and I was just like, this is great at story time. Here's where this fucked me up, though. One, you know how, like, The Nutcracker is weirdly racist. We're like, you know how, like, dance is weirdly racist. Yes, yes, yes, yes. Oh, like, like the china tea chong, yeah, totally, and then it's like, or like the weird, like gong sound, or like, you know, here's from, you know, like, here's from southern Asia, and then it's very weird, so like, he does voices, and, and, uh, oh, is is kind of the right instinct, so, and you know, how, like, so you were just recently in New York, and we had a big gab session, and you were telling me that you read, what was te thing about reading that you

Traci Thomas 17:09

sub-vocalizing?

Mary H.K. Choi 17:10

Yes,

Traci Thomas 17:11

sub-vocalizing is like when you read where you hear the words out loud as you read them, so some people read and it's silent in their brain, you just are reading the words, and it's just happening. I don't know what that is, so I can't exactly explain what that feels like, because I've never experienced that. And then some people, like me, as I read, I'm hearing the words, like I'm sort of saying the words in my head as I'm reading. So that's called sub vocalizing, and I do that, and you do not.

Mary H.K. Choi 17:36

I do not sub vocalize, I scan, so I can read a page like, like eight times faster than Jeremy Irons is speaking, and until you told me that, and until this project, I didn't know that that was true. So then I broke down, and I actually bought a copy, like a Kindle copy, so that's problematic on so many, on so many fronts, but like, so as I was reading it, well, as Jeremy Irons was like saying it to me, it was insufferable

Traci Thomas 18:07

Just speed up the audio

Mary H.K. Choi 18:09

I tried to, but then it was just like all his, like it was too fricative, and I was just like, oh no, like here is a man, because he didn't see it, like Irons, he's got a nun,

Traci Thomas 18:18

he's got a great voice,

Mary H.K. Choi 18:20

great voice, but it was like it was like a man, like mansplaining about a dream that he once had. Yes, five hours, because it's insufferable. It's one thing if, like, you know, Patrick Radden Keefe, or Patty Radie Daddy,

Traci Thomas 18:40

Shout out

Traci Thomas 18:43

yeah,

Mary H.K. Choi 18:43

but Jeremy Irons telling you a story about fucking Maktoub, and like the Shepherd boy was too, too much, so I abandoned that,

Traci Thomas 18:53

yeah, but

Mary H.K. Choi 18:53

I was excited for 15 minutes,

Traci Thomas 18:56

I think. I do still have the audio copy from the library, I might just try to give it a quick listen, just so I can hear what you're talking about, but I knew this was not going to be an audio situation for me, and to be quite frank, I did take a lot of notes in this book. I don't know if you can see all my little folds, yeah, but there's a lot of folds, there's a lot of underlines, because I was really like grappling with what was useful to the plot, and also what was like what was the point of the book, and the point of the book is all the like aphorisms. It's like all of these like I don't know, is platitude the right word? Would you call these like

Mary H.K. Choi 19:37

I was thinking the same thing, platitude blow bromide?

Traci Thomas 19:41

yes, all of these, and like truisms, and all of these definitive things, like the universe will conspire to help you get what you want, and like, you know, then there's all the also all these like weird phraseology, like soul of the universe, or like, you know, language of the heart, and. All the stuff that I was trying to keep track of, like when he, so when our, when our boy, who's whose name is Santiago, but is mostly just called boy, the entire book, which I think is also like hilarious, like why did you give him a name if he's just gonna be the boy, nobody calls him Santiago, but when once the boy finally like gets going through the desert, he's headed to Egypt. He meets this Englishman who is a monster, just like I kept thinking, like, could you imagine being on a fucking camel with this guy who's like, oh my god, let me tell you about this alchemist, like, so they could turn, like, he was like, so hyped, he's like, oh, you need to learn about this, and you need to learn about that, and he's

Mary H.K. Choi 20:42

traveling with all of these books, all these

Traci Thomas 20:44

books, you know, he's such a jerk to everybody, like he doesn't talk to anybody else, he's such an asshole.

Mary H.K. Choi 20:50

Also, he spent his entire like family fortune, so like he was like he's established as this like sort of like sour face guy, like kind of despondent, and with all this gear, so I'm imagining like all this like Gucci goyard, like steamers, steamer cases, and like hat boxes, like a big old tower of them. And then it basically talks about how he, and they actually, the Albus does do something really interesting in POV, so it does, it stays with a boy, mostly, but it does some head hopping that I thought was really a little bit, yeah. So, like, he had spent his family had left him a fortune, so he's like, he has..

Traci Thomas 21:30

I have the paragraph right here. Let me read this to you guys.

Mary H.K. Choi 21:33

Okay,

Traci Thomas 21:34

because it's also because I remember reading this paragraph and being like, this is literally nonsense. Like, I was like, this is gibberish. Okay, sort of long. Everybody bear with me. The Englishman was sitting on a bench in a structure that smelled of animals, sweat, and dust. It was part warehouse, part corral. I never thought I'd end up in a place like this, he thought, as he leafed through some pages of chemical of a chemical journal. 10 years at the university, and here I am in a corral, but he had to move on. He believed in omens all his life, and all his studies were aimed at finding the one true language of the universe. First, he had studied Esperanto, then the world's religions, and now it was alchemy. He knew how to speak Esperanto. He understood all the major religions well, but he wasn't yet an alchemist. He had unraveled the truths behind important questions, but his studies had taken him to a point beyond which he could not seem to go. He had tried in vain to establish a relationship with an alchemist, but the alchemists were strange people who thought only about themselves and almost always refused to help him. Who knows, maybe they had failed to discover the secret of the masterwork, the philosopher's stone, and for the, and for this reason, kept their knowledge to themselves. He'd already spent much of the fortune left to him by his father, fruitlessly seeking the philosopher's stone. He had spent enormous amounts of time at the great libraries of the world and had purchased all the rarest and most important volumes on alchemy, more and more and more,

Mary H.K. Choi 22:56

but so exactly, so like, what is more exhausting than a man who, like, actively tries to learn Esperanto, like a white guy,

Traci Thomas 23:06

right? And I'm so like, I wish parts of me wish that one of us loved this book, because I'm so curious, like, what people make of him. Like, do people who love this book think he's important because he is the person who teaches the boy about the idea of alchemy, which eventually leads him to meeting the alchemist, so he is like this integral part of the story, but it, him being described as the Englishman, I instantly was like, I hate this guy.

Mary H.K. Choi 23:32

Okay, like, okay, first of all, he's probably got like a pretty decent outfit, like he's probably wearing like a turn bull and ass or a shirt or whatever, and like a double strapped monk strap shoe, like, or something, and so, like, maybe he has a very, very exciting timepiece, but, like, other than that, he sounds insufferable, and he does, like, mildly redeem himself, but, like, I, again, like, you know, I'm so happy as a turncoat, and to fulfill my personal legend of, like, not having any conviction of, like, deciding that I love this book, there is something about this book that does drill into your head, like something about a personal legend. I am also susceptible right now, because, as you know, I'm promoting a book, and so I'm like, am I fulfilled? Is my book fulfilling my personal legend? God, I hope so. You know, so that's sort of happening. Well, it's like I feel like this book is a little bit like if you were nursing heartache and reading Brene Brown.

Traci Thomas 24:29

Sure, sure.

Mary H.K. Choi 24:30

Where, where, like, if I was, if I was, as they call it in this book, a seeker, like I could see this book being important if I was like trying to decide if I was like, if COVID was my entire college experience, and I'm hitting the job market now, right? I would be fucking with this book for any indication of help, hope, or anything,

Traci Thomas 24:57

right? I mean, so okay. I, let's take a break, and then I want to talk about the other side of this book. All right, we're back. I want to talk about if you believe the truth of this book, which is that, like, the universe conspires again in your favor to help you achieve your personal legend, and if you don't achieve your personal legend, you'll be unhappy, and sort of like living not great life. All the examples of the people who aren't fulfilling their personal legend in this book are sort of like sad, melancholy people who just are like going, going along to get along, like the crystal guy. He's never gonna go to Mecca, that's his, that's his dream, but he's never gonna fulfill it. There's other people who we run into, who just like they're just like work, there's just like a baker, and he doesn't want to bake, he wanted to go out in the world, but he decided to bake, he could make more money, and like he's sort of like sad boy,

Mary H.K. Choi 25:51

I thought, like the baker thing was kind of like such a weird diss, it's this part really did feel like I'm like a founder, I'm a startup king, and I'm not like just like a baker, because, like, the baker, by and large, seemed completely fine.

Traci Thomas 26:04

Like, he took a stray for the, for like, the theory of this book. It was like, "Oh, we have to go, we have to go anti-baker, like,

Mary H.K. Choi 26:10

and high key, I felt like that was kind of like really like aggressive. That felt manosphere to be like, like there was something so, like, snide and sort of pejorative seeming, as if like baking was like, and staying closer to hearth and homestead is like, right, is like some lady shit, or it was like very, very weird, like, yes. And then they do this sort of like backhanded compliment of like, but bakers are very important to the village, so I didn't, I didn't enjoy the cherry picking perfectly upstanding jobs, yeah, in in service of like I'm gonna be like a gold prospector, right, which is essentially what Santiago is doing,

Traci Thomas 26:48

right? He's like gonna be a capitalist, but my.. but so I feel like, so I was I was reading this book in conjunction with this other non-fiction book called Unreasonable Women, which is about women who murder their abusers, and I was thinking about, as I'm reading this book, like, obviously this book is a parable, it exists in this made-up land. There are not systems of oppression, there are not people who are victimized over and over again because of, like, racism or classism, or because they're women, or whatever. And so I kept thinking, as I'm reading this other book, of like, if you believe the alchemist to be true, if you believe that your life, you are successful in your life because you are doing the thing you're supposed to be doing. What does that mean that you believe about other people who are down on their luck? Like, what does that mean that you believe about women who are on, who are raising kids with food stamps, like you know, and so I started thinking a lot about, like, you're telling me the universe is conspiring against all poor people because they're not following their personal legend, like, and I just, that's the part of this book, like, if you really take the thinking to its logical conclusion, like, if you keep going, because everybody in this book is fine, nobody's really down on their luck, and I feel like

Mary H.K. Choi 28:05

but there is a war,

Traci Thomas 28:07

but we don't meet those people, no, except for when they get in the way of Santiago's mission, and they all have to be killed, or like when they follow his dream, or whatever, but I just kept thinking about, like, if this book is super meaningful to you, and you really believe in the ideas in this book. How do you live in a world with other people and be a compassionate human?

Mary H.K. Choi 28:30

Well, I think that's the point. I mean, that's kind of goes to your earlier thesis about, like, this is how you get billionaires,

Traci Thomas 28:37

right?

Mary H.K. Choi 28:37

Like, this is how you get systems of oppression that are just so baked into like the actual fiber of like how the world turns, like this is how, but I don't know, two things, two things to your point. One, I think there's something genius about doing a book flight, like to read two books that sort of bounce off of each other, to either like

Traci Thomas 29:00

I didn't know that was what was happening. I was like, oh, I'm gonna read this book, that's great, so I can have a great time and not think about The Alchemist. And then I was like, ah, it's following me

Mary H.K. Choi 29:09

like I'm so angry. This book is stoking my flames. Yeah, no, but like, so there is that. But like, here's the thing, like, I, you know, I do, I think this is kind of when you listen to, like, I don't know, like love songs, when you're in love, where you're like, damn, it hits different, you know what I mean, where you're just like, it's, I'm really like vibrationally on this, and I do think that there is something about this book that does do that and does it well, like, I, here's, here's my question to you, like, kind of divorcing ourselves from the larger conversation of, like, well, does everybody have a personal legend? Then, and then, what's going on, but, like, you know, is your personal legend fulfilled at the cost of other people's personal legend? Because the other thing about this book that was so annoying was that they were talking about what happens if you, you know, when Santiago, at one point, is at the oasis, he's with this great love. Life, and he's just like, and the alchemist is basically like, well, the first year is chill, second year also fine, and then by year three you're like flailing, you're unhappy at everything you have, the love of your life you don't like anymore, and then the omen stops speaking to you, and then your personal legend might as well be dead, so like even the scarcity mentality of like there's a sell by date on your personal legend, I thought was kind of like a little bit scammy, but

Traci Thomas 30:25

yeah,

Mary H.K. Choi 30:25

my question to you is, do you believe that you do you believe that there's that you have a personal legend and that you are either fulfilling it or not fulfilling it?

Traci Thomas 30:36

No, I don't believe I have a personal legend. I don't believe that anything in the world universe, whatever exists solely on an individual level, and I think, you have, it is written, I think you have to believe in that to believe that you have a personal legend, like you have to believe that you are singular enough to be deserving of, like, this calling, and I mean, or maybe my personal legend is to be in community with other people, but, like, I just can't imagine. I just can't imagine that there's something telling me what I need to be doing. I think there are things, like, I think we have things we're good at. I think maybe people have a calling, but I don't think it's as specific as it's presented in this book.

Mary H.K. Choi 31:24

So, the central thrust of this book, you're not fucking with..

Traci Thomas 31:27

I don't agree with it. No, I think it's like I think it's in service to like some really dark shit, I guess is what I was kind of trying to get at before. It's like I think this book is in service to systems of oppression, I think it's in service to capitalism, I think. It's in service to like sexism and racism, and I think it's in service to like the work, work, work, work, work mentality. I don't necessarily think it created it, but I think it allowed it allows people. The reason it feels so girl bossy and boy bossy is because people who are those things, that's what they want us, the rest, the rest of the worker bees, to believe they, they want us all to believe that we have to always be working towards this one thing, and if we're not doing it, we're failing, because, like, throughout the book, the boy tells us multiple times, I'm actually really happy, I have all these sheep, I have all these sheep, I love these sheep, I get to see the world, which is what I want to do. I want to see the world. I get to do that. I get to learn from these animals. Then he's like, "No, no, you got to go. He's like, "Okay, fine, I'm going to sell the sheep immediately. He gets robbed, and then it's like, "Okay, I'm going to work with this crystal guy. And I actually love this work, and I'm making so much money, and I could just get more sheep and go back to seeing the world, and I really love that. Like, I genuinely love that. And then he's like, I meet this woman, I love this woman instantly. She's amazing. I want to be with her. And they're like, no, fuck that, bitch. You need to go get treasure. You need to go get treasure. You're never gonna be happy if you don't go get treasure. And he's like, but like, what if Fatima is my treasure? And then the guy's like, no, no, your treasure is literally at the pyramids, like it has to ultimately be there,

Mary H.K. Choi 33:03

and also he was like, "Well, what if she's my treasure? And he's like, "Can't, can't be her, she's a desert lady. Yeah, she, she knows she will lose you to the desert, yeah? Like, damn, like at that point I was like, "Definitely, I do.

Traci Thomas 33:16

Do you believe?

Mary H.K. Choi 33:17

Well, here's the thing, like, I agree with you that something like this is kind of like volatile, right? It's like too dangerous, it's like too easily weaponized by like people who are like on that again manifest destiny. Let me just go westward and displace a bunch of people already living there, like that's very much the vibe. It's very like steam rolling, it's giving like Robert Moses, it's like that's definitely the energy. However, I do believe in a personal legend, and I do also believe in the fulfillment of a personal legend, and I, and I believe in a soul agreement, and I call it my soul agreement, like

Traci Thomas 33:53

and that's like what you're meant to be doing,

Mary H.K. Choi 33:55

what that's what I'm meant to be doing on this earth, and like, so I do believe in that, but this is where it becomes really dangerous, and this is why I'm such an anxious person who is incapable of happiness, because joy registers as terror. Because in thinking that I have a personal legend, it means everything I do or do not do is either in service of the personal legend or sabotaging my access to fulfilling my personal legend, it lends a kind of import, and it lends a kind of like almost like hyper vigilant superstitiousness, and this like paralysis by analysis to all the things I'm doing, so like in some ways a book like this is just detrimental to any sort of hope I have in like surrendering and going with the flow, like I'm pretty much, I do believe in mock tube or like fate, insofar as I'm like, I do, yeah, where I'm just like, whatever's gonna happen is gonna happen, and I don't have that much control over it, and thinking and fighting, or thinking I have control over, or flailing is only going to increase my personal suffering, and so I actually think I believe in this book, and I believe in what this book is saying, and I think it's ruining my life.

Traci Thomas 35:09

Interesting, I believe. Okay, I believe that we have a calling in so much that we have things we are good at that only we are good at, or things that we can offer to the world, not only we are good at, but things that we are exceptional at that we can offer to the world. I just don't believe that it is so like exclusionary that it's either you're doing it or you're failing. I don't believe that, because I do believe in the circuitousness of life, that like something that you do 20 years ago will come back and be something that matters today, but like at the time it doesn't feel like it's part of your legend, because it wasn't actually part of your legend, it has become part of your legend, and I guess you could say that the universe is conspiring for those things, but like I just don't believe that things work in a way that like it's yes or no, I just believe like you should be doing the things that you are the best at, because that is something that you can offer to other people. I think more my thing is like what can I offer to the world, where do I, where do the, where do my skills and my passions align that I can help or be of comfort or whatever to others and to the planet, like that's sort of my philosophy,

Mary H.K. Choi 36:23

being of service, like yes, that's like something that's completely missing from this entire right, like right, there's no like any hat tip towards community like service, it's all like you know a person just flying dolo, like pro like with their own secret mission, it's a lot of striving, and like that's the, that's the part that I do think it's a little bit like, is it, is it like irresponsible to sell this book in this job market?

Traci Thomas 36:54

Well, it's also just so male, and I also think it is a product of the 1980s right, like it's late 80s, so it's they're coming off of like it's like Reagan era

Mary H.K. Choi 37:05

Trump, Trump, Trump

Traci Thomas 37:06

yeah. I mean, he's so the author's Brazilian, so who knows exactly like what, but I think like I mean it's Margaret Thatcher, like it's all it's a time, it is of a time, it is of a place where we were not doing a lot of like community stuff, we were doing a lot of solo, so slow, but the craziest thing is, so in an interview in The Guardian, he said he wrote the interviewer was like, "Oh, I heard you wrote this book in two weeks or four weeks, and he was like, "It was actually two weeks, the story was already written in my soul."

Mary H.K. Choi 37:39

Wow, so he's basically like the Emerald thing with The Alchemist, where, like, yeah, the rules are like only a couple of lines on the Emerald.

Traci Thomas 37:48

Well, also I think he was like a like sort of a jerk, like

Mary H.K. Choi 37:52

I mean that tracks, okay?

Traci Thomas 37:53

But listen to this question from the interview: your most successful book, The Alchemist, has sold 30 million copies, and he said more than that, I think it's 35 million altogether. My books have sold 150 million copies. You can add another 20% for pirated editions.

Mary H.K. Choi 38:10

You know what I do like about that, though? Like, because he has so many other books,

Traci Thomas 38:15

yeah

Mary H.K. Choi 38:16

Like, what is that like? You know what I mean? Where it's like, oh, so like that was your big hit like in 88 or whatever it was, like it must, it must also like haunt him to a certain degree, but so you know what my favorite part of the book actually was, it's on page three and it says it's basically like this is Santiago before his journey, he's just gotten some sheep and he's like if I became a monster today and decided to kill them one by one, they would become aware only after most of the flock had been slaughtered, thought the boy. They trust me and they've forgotten how to rely on their own instincts, because I lead them to nourishment. So, this is this, I thought this was like an indication of maybe not Paulo, maybe Paulo, like this is basically how we're taught to think about everyone else.

Traci Thomas 39:04

Yes, yes, any book, yes, there's so many parts of this book that are like anti-community. How about when the woman, when the woman like interprets his dream, and she's like, listen, just give me 10% of your treasure, and he's like, this bitch is trying to steal my money, and then like the king comes over, and he's like, hey, blah blah blah, and he's like, oh, this must be her husband, she must have sent her husband over here to like fleece me on my sheet, blah blah blah, I'm like, okay, bro, or or just relax, you could say hello and be kind for one moment, like his instant jump to just like hating everybody, and like just like being like it's just me out here, like

Mary H.K. Choi 39:45

he's the guy going around spouting off about his treasure, you know what I mean, like I'm, you know, so it's on him, he's like dry snitching on himself, and then feeling some type of way about like paranoia or whatever, but like yeah, like basically, but again, like. So the recognition that I foundationally believe this, and this is what is leading to my mounting anxiety about book promotion, and feeling as though I'm either jeopardizing myself or refusing to do something that will lead me to success, like it was reading this book that let me see my own belief system and be able to audit and interrogate it, and that's what led me to having a big crying fit, because my partner is out of town, like the week before my book comes out, and so, like, and then I was just like, oh, I've been too much like Santiago, when I actually do need family and friends around me constantly, and so then I had a big cry, and Facetimed him and also made him cry, so thank you to this book,

Traci Thomas 40:44

Nailing it. Well, okay, but so this does sort of, I think this is a good place to go into the manosphere, because I hear what you're saying, which is like you do fundamentally believe the central idea of this book, which is that everyone has their own unique personal legend and is on them to honor that, and to go in search of that, and to live their life, you know,

Mary H.K. Choi 41:06

and following ignoring it, and ignoring it does exactly a cost.

Traci Thomas 41:11

Yes, and ignoring it exacts a cost, and I think that if you really do believe that, to your point, it causes stress and anxiety, like it is not an easy time to live your whole life in service to this idea, or like that, it's either or, either you're doing it or you're failing,

Mary H.K. Choi 41:30

right? And also, like, where is God, you know? And I think, I mean,

Traci Thomas 41:34

great question. I think a lot of people would love to know if you figure it out,

Mary H.K. Choi 41:39

you know. Drop a pin, God, God, no, but like, I just mean that, like, you know, like, where, where is, you know, it keeps saying things like, you know, the universe will conspire, the universe will conspire to help you fulfill your personal religion, but like, where is just the part where you like trust that you're going to be okay, and then just simply do the good work that's set in front of you.

Traci Thomas 42:02

Well, see, that's like that's more my, that's also my, more my approach. More is like, you have skills, you have things you can do, and you face the world as it comes to you, and you do the best you can, and you need other people, and

Mary H.K. Choi 42:15

you need other people, and you're not the one who is going to deliver you to salvation, like, I think that that's like the biggest sort of schism between this book and, like, any other books that actually do tout like genuine spirituality, which the whole point, and I think that this either the point is in the book, but it's muddled, but like the whole point is that you're just supposed to sort of trust and surrender,

Traci Thomas 42:41

yeah,

Mary H.K. Choi 42:41

and like be in the pocket and understand when you're doing something that is vibrationally aligned with what your values are, or when you feel that sort of crunchy feeling when you're betraying yourself, and then you just have some clarity, you do no harm, you are in community, you help people where you, where you can, you receive help because that will bring you closer to the people, and like, and this is like, you know, even this book talks about love, and it's still so tinny and sort of flat.

Traci Thomas 43:09

Yes, the love stuff is so weird in this book. There's so much weird love stuff. Wait, hold on, like, without love, dreams have no meaning, because we have to, and this is like, also like some of it's like romantic love, which I thought was really weird, but the

Mary H.K. Choi 43:28

romantic love is so sus, it's classic sex, sex, and love addiction, it's like SLA, like it's so, so, like, okay, so the first time he sees Fatima, or whatever, it's like at that moment it seemed to him that time stood still. The soul of the world surged within him. When he looked into her dark eyes and saw that her lips were poised between a laugh and silence, he learned the most important part of the language that all the world spoke, the language that everyone on earth was capable of understanding in their heart. It was love, and like.. and then she basically smiled, and that was it. That was the omen he had been waiting. That's like basically he's like what the boy felt at that moment was that he was in the presence of the only woman in his life, and that with no need for words, she recognized the same thing. I was like, okay, where is consent,

Traci Thomas 44:15

right? Well, and where she says to him, she says, you've told me about your dreams, blah blah blah, and then she says, and I am a part of your dream, a part of your personal legend, as you call it, and I'm just like, oh, so your whole existence is to be in service of his personal legend. Hello, hello, that's a red flag. Like, didn't she have her own personal legend? If the point is that everybody has a personal legend, her personal legend to be part of his personal legend, like,

Mary H.K. Choi 44:43

dude,

Traci Thomas 44:43

it's a nightmare.

Mary H.K. Choi 44:45

This is from her. I have been waiting for you here at the Oasis for a long time. I've forgotten about my past, about my traditions, and the way in which men of the desert expect women to behave. Ever since I was a child, I've dreamed that the desert would bring me a wonderful present. Now my present has arrived, and it's you. Both these people are mentally ill, but like

Traci Thomas 45:05

basically her personal legend was to find a husband, like his is like to go off an adventure and be rich, and hers is like to boo up,

Mary H.K. Choi 45:14

but not even to find to be delivered,

Traci Thomas 45:16

to be delivered. And then way later in the book, towards the end, he says this is what we call love. The boy said, seeing that the wind was close to granting what he requested. When you, this is like when he's turning into to the wind, just like, so weird. They're like, this is alchemy. I'm like, no, babe, alchemy is stone into gold. Period. That's it. There's a stop fucking becoming the wind,

Mary H.K. Choi 45:42

narrow definitions, we can't have scope creep on something like alchemy. Well, that's the entire book, that is the entire book to be fair.

Traci Thomas 45:49

So then he says, when you are loved, you can do anything in creation. When you are loved, there's no need at all to understand what's happening, because everything happens within you, and even men can turn themselves into the wind, as long as the wind helps us, of course, and my thing is, like, so is that love the love that Fatima's talking about, or is this a different.. this feels like a different kind of love? It feels like you're being loved by the universe, but I don't know to use the same word, and like to talk about it in the same way. I didn't like that.

Mary H.K. Choi 46:20

You know, what I will say is kind of burying the lead, or like something about this book that I did enjoy. The alchemist sounded hot as fuck

Traci Thomas 46:29

Oh, you think I was picturing an elder

Mary H.K. Choi 46:32

No I pictured him on the horse with his face off bird, and shit. I was, I was like with his sword, and like, oh, why did you read the read The Flight of the Birds? I was just like, okay, like I was really into that.

Traci Thomas 46:45

Okay, I feel like if he was hot, and I'm open to that, I would like the book more, because I love hot people, but I was imagining sort of an old bearded, like, what's that, what's that, The Hobbit? I was like, sort of like an old, like

Mary H.K. Choi 47:00

Shire to you wizard,

Traci Thomas 47:03

yeah. It wasn't giving like it wasn't giving like no, I was,

Mary H.K. Choi 47:08

I thought like 660

Traci Thomas 47:10

my god, my horse

Mary H.K. Choi 47:12

six six on a horse catching print in his robes, shit like yeah. I thought I thought he was hot, maybe, but like I don't know, like maybe that was just my, like, my brain conflating, like, rich. overpowering. I don't know,

Traci Thomas 47:28

I love this. I mean, we haven't even talked about the Alchemist when he gets to this oasis after he's been traveling with, like, Graham, the Irishman, or the Englishman. I don't know, his name's definitely Graham, spelled crazy,

Mary H.K. Choi 47:40

like G R A E M E, yeah,

Traci Thomas 47:43

That's the Irish way. So, I don't know, but I feel like that's correct. When they get there, Graham is love that his name's Graham. Now, Graham's like, we gotta go find the alchemist. Alchemist would live where there's like an oven, obviously. The alchemist lives in like the most boring place, and he, like, Graham meets him, and he's like, yeah, Graham, go like, go make some gold, just like, go try it, you got to try it a lot of times, go do it, go do it, and then he meets the boy, and he's like, oh boy, in search of personal legend, love you, love your show, and he's like, great, let's go in the desert, like, find me life, you have to listen to your heart, and he's like, okay, you did it, congratulations, now I will take you through the desert through this war to the pyramids, for the most part, and he is just like spouting nonsense, gibberish language. This is the part of the book where I really started to be like, I gotta get out of here, because it starts to become so much like Paulo's theory, it stops being plotted, all it just starts being like word salad. but up until that point, but up until that point, we're not getting the explanation. It's sort of just like, oh, we're going here, we're going there, once the Alchemist

Mary H.K. Choi 48:59

It starts getting really recursive.

Traci Thomas 49:01

Yes, it's like, okay, this is how this works. Listen to your heart. This is when listen to your heart comes in. This is the language of the this. Then we get the whole conversation of him trying to make himself into the wind, where he's talking to the sand, and he's.. I'm like, oh my god,

Mary H.K. Choi 49:16

actually.. oh, unfortunately, unfortunately. Okay, so I love that you were like second word of wit alchemist only. I miss, oh, also it's Graham - they pronounce Graham. Oh, but like I love the whole part where the boy is talking to his heart in the desert and the heart is chatting with.. I love that part. I was really into that part. You know why? Like, it's a little bit, gives like body keeps a score, but the part about that I liked is, as a person who has had such a terrible relationship with selfhood, like I've been so dissociative my whole life, I feel that I put myself physically in compromising situations, I put myself cognitively in situations that are too exhausted for like sustained. Periods. I feel like I betray my heart and my, my body all the time, and so in that part where he's in the desert, and again, this might be a product of the fact that I'm in a promotion cycle, but I was just like, this part is really nice. They're friends, like the part where he becomes friends with his heart. I was deeply moved, actually.

Traci Thomas 50:19

Okay, look, see, you like this book way more than me.

Mary H.K. Choi 50:21

I liked this part. I was just like, oh, they're getting along, because I would love to be in cahoots with my heart and my body, like that, you know, you know, like I just.. I think that that would be like a really wonderful thing to experience. I feel, and like, when the, when the, when the heart, when his heart gets silent, and he's just doing our little ride along, and the heart has no complaints and no observations, and the heart is just chilling with the desert, like I was into that.

Traci Thomas 50:50

Well, I'm glad you liked that part, because

Mary H.K. Choi 50:54

You're like it was bullshit.

Traci Thomas 50:55

No, it just sort of lumped in for me with all the stuff with The Alchemist. I think by that point in the book I was like, get me out of it. I was just like, I'm done, I'm done, I'm done. I'm just looking at my notes. One of my notes says, Is this book a TED talk?

Mary H.K. Choi 51:12

This book is a TED talk.

Traci Thomas 51:13

This book is a TED talk, and this book is actually one of a kind, in the sense that in my mind of books that I've read, because it is self-help literature, like it is self-help, is usually nonfiction, and it is doing all the self-help things, but, like, through fiction,

Mary H.K. Choi 51:33

it reminds me of, like, that the heyday of porn, where they had, like, narrative porn, and they were like, this is starring Jenna Jameson, and it's about pirates, and so there's like real dialog, that's kind of what it reminds me of.

Traci Thomas 51:46

Sure, it's like self, self help porn dialog fiction all together.

Mary H.K. Choi 51:50

Yeah, it's just like

Traci Thomas 51:51

I would love to see the Jenna Jameson version of The Alchemist, you know.

Mary H.K. Choi 51:56

I'm sure it exists,

Traci Thomas 51:57

I'm sure she'd be a greatand I'm sure she'd be a great Fatima, you know, like, I've been waiting for you all my life.

Mary H.K. Choi 52:02

How many chili peppers would you give this out of a possible five

Traci Thomas 52:07

chili peppers, being like hot and steamy, like the porn version?

Mary H.K. Choi 52:10

no, just like, just like, like, how many stars would you give?

Traci Thomas 52:13

I give this book one star.

Mary H.K. Choi 52:15

Wow,

Traci Thomas 52:16

one star.

Mary H.K. Choi 52:16

What if you could give half points? Would you give half, or like,

Traci Thomas 52:19

I give it one and a half, I guess, but like I'm comfortable just doing one, like I don't..

Mary H.K. Choi 52:25

wow,

Traci Thomas 52:26

I, because also we didn't really talk about this, but also I think the writing is really bad, like there are sentences where it's like the boy thought, thought the boy said the boy that thought, and I was just like, if he thinks one more fucking time,

Mary H.K. Choi 52:39

if he has, if he thunks, the one thing I will say about it, it is interesting, like you were saying, like it is, it is pretty singular in that, like it predates TED Talk, and is a TED talk, and in the same way, like I feel like it's a book that feels like it was written by Claude, predating Claude, it feels like AI in every way, in a way that at this point feels almost prescient.

Traci Thomas 53:05

Yeah, I agree with that. Like, there are this book is not - it's not zero stars. Like, there are things about, like, I just, honestly, honestly, I just can't get over the fact that this book - I do blame this book, and others. You mentioned The Fountainhead for the state of the world right now. Like, I blame a book like this for Trump. I do. I blame this idea, this like Striver. I blame it for, like, a lot of the people who have gone on to be gone on from reality TV to becoming influencers who are selling me tummy tea, and I say this as a person who I know my job is influencing

Mary H.K. Choi 53:45

you took it all the way back to tummy tea.

Traci Thomas 53:47

Well, that was my heyday. I love The Bachelor, but I'm just like, I resent this book because I can see so clearly how, how a person could read this book, but choose to believe this book, and become a become a Republican

Mary H.K. Choi 54:06

like become a nightmare human being, and the shittiest citizen

Traci Thomas 54:09

the shittiest person, to my earlier kind of question point about, like, well, what does that mean for people who have had been dealt a shit hand, they're bad people because they're not in service of their personal legend, and it's okay to throw them away, because that sort of feels like what this book says about people who aren't like it's like they're less than you, they're

Mary H.K. Choi 54:27

Well it sort of assumes, well, two, like one of two things, one, the culpability is theirs, maybe they didn't listen to their personal legend, and so they're in year five, and that's why they are unhoused, or it's like it just like lacks this type of imagination that other people have this internal like knowledge and monologue it lacks the interiority of granting other people interiority,

Traci Thomas 54:49

Sure, and that we exist in systems in the world. This is a parable. People who take this parable into the world and like believe this is their life, like that they need to live their personal life. Legend for real, and ignore the fact that we live in a world with systems and power and inequality and stuff. It's like, you, I just feel like I can understand why people like hate welfare queens. It's like, yeah, you believe this, that a welfare queen is your worst nightmare, because she's just taking and she's getting in the way of your personal legend, because you have to pay taxes for this bitch, like I just.. I feel like this book makes me mad because I can just see the logic of certain people and how this book has been like weaponized in service of all the things I hate.

Mary H.K. Choi 55:34

Yeah, I mean it definitely affirms a sense of exceptionalism and like hyper, hyper, hyper privilege

Traci Thomas 55:41

and the way this book is like foisted on 18, 19, 20 year olds, when you are making your choices about how to be an adult in the world, and like this is the thing, this is a foundational text for so many people that also upsets me.

Mary H.K. Choi 55:56

It is definitely giving, like I'm hearing that you never got over the the ick like the ick was pervasive throughout.

Traci Thomas 56:03

Well, it just came right back. I went in being like, let's see, and then I was like, oh my god, oh god, everywhere.

Mary H.K. Choi 56:11

No, it definitely, it's like ick glitter. It does get on everything, and that's the point. The spillage is upsetting. I will get.. I would give it.. I'm like notoriously too generous with this. I should probably give it like three stars.

Traci Thomas 56:25

Wow, you're so generous. I'm also promoting a book, so you want other people to be generous.

Mary H.K. Choi 56:29

team books. Yeah, I just.. I just really like it. I didn't.. I did get something out of it that was just my thing.

Traci Thomas 56:38

I'm glad, I'm glad, honestly, I'm glad, because I was worried we were both going to hate it equally, and we weren't going to be able to have a conversation

Mary H.K. Choi 56:42

And then we'd be like those people who are like, then why do you come here?

Traci Thomas 56:46

Yes, if you hate it so much, why are you here?

Mary H.K. Choi 56:49

Why are you here? Why are you here? But it was fun to do this together.

Traci Thomas 56:54

It was. The last thing we have to talk about, though, briefly, is the title and the cover. There's so many covers of this book, so I feel like I don't really have to talk about the cover, but can I just show you the cover that I got at the used bookstore? Do you see that it's like a man with like a baby angel on his head?

Mary H.K. Choi 57:09

Wow

Traci Thomas 57:10

I don't understand, like it's giving deeply Christian, but who's the man and who's the baby?

Mary H.K. Choi 57:17

I don't know, and are they white, and also like if I like everything about that, like, evokes the question, like, am I dead?

Traci Thomas 57:26

It's very upsetting

Mary H.K. Choi 57:27

Yeah

Traci Thomas 57:28

there's also like the bright orange cover with like the yellow circle, yeah, and there's like the cream one that's like

Mary H.K. Choi 57:33

Or like the sort of vague sort of like, yeah, yeah, yeah, like crystal shop, yeah, yeah.

Traci Thomas 57:38

But the title, what do you make of the title, The Alchemist.

Mary H.K. Choi 57:43

I feel like it's catchy, like I cannot get branding, branding wise. I think it's great. I think it's like the fact that he has managed to SEO for Alchemist is a powerful move. I think it's emblematic of the fact that it came out in 88 like you know, like that sort of station is definitely like grandfathered from a long time ago, but I do,

Traci Thomas 58:05

yeah,

Mary H.K. Choi 58:05

the out the title is unknockable, and you know that, because like the rest of his titles for his other books are so wildly forgettable in comparison,

Traci Thomas 58:15

yeah, yeah, it's a great title, you know, and there's also like the question of like, are we talking about The Alchemist in the oasis, or are we talking about the boy

Mary H.K. Choi 58:23

understanding that it's all

Traci Thomas 58:26

He has become the student, has become the teacher, right?

Mary H.K. Choi 58:29

What if like if the book was called Synergy,

Traci Thomas 58:34

the Synergist. I feel like it also taps into sort of like the mystical elements.

Mary H.K. Choi 58:41

Oh, hell yeah

Traci Thomas 58:42

You know like it's like you pick it up and you're like, sure, like,

Mary H.K. Choi 58:45

yeah,

Traci Thomas 58:46

weird, yeah,

Mary H.K. Choi 58:48

the philosopher's stone, like the whole, yeah,

Traci Thomas 58:51

yep, exactly, okay, we did it, everybody, listen to the end of this episode to find out what our July book club pick will be, if you have not yet, you must right now go get a copy of Pool House. It is out in the world wherever you get your books. And if you've already got Pool House, and you've already read Pool House, have you read Mary's three other books? They're quote unquote YA, but don't believe that, because, like, I like them instantly, and you know, for me, ya, it's a little bit of a struggle. They are for adults who like to think about kids in a not creepy way, but you know what I mean. I feel like those are.. I mean, I know kids like them, but I'm like, these books are also for adults.

Mary H.K. Choi 59:33

Oh, totally. We were, we were once kids, but also

Traci Thomas 59:37

It's like for adults who like to watch Gossip Girl, you know? Like, that's who it's for.

Mary H.K. Choi 59:41

It's basically for 34 year olds.

Traci Thomas 59:43

That's right. And I did read them when I was like 34 That's actually spot on, Mary. I love you. I adore you. Thank you so much for saying yes to doing The Alchemist. I'm glad it brought you so much joy on your own personal legend. I do think it might have interfered with my personal legend, but that's fine.

Mary H.K. Choi 1:00:00

Maybe that was the personal legend, the interference. Who can say? See, the world conspires

Traci Thomas 1:00:07

We'll see in 20 years if I find a treasure. You're the best. I love you. Thank you. Everybody else will see you in the stacks. All right, y'all. That does it for us today. Thank you so much for listening, and thank you again to Mary HK Choi for joining the show. I'd also like to say a thank you to Kat Keeney for helping to make this episode possible. And now it's time to announce our book club pick for July. We will be reading Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Under City by Katherine Boo. This book came out in 2012 It won the National Book Award, the LA Times Book Prize, and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. It is a modern classic of narrative nonfiction, and I cannot wait to read it with all of you. We will be discussing the book on Wednesday, July 29 on this very podcast, and you can tune in next Wednesday, July 1, to find out who our guest will be. If you love the Stacks and want inside access to it, head to patreon.com/the Stacks to join the Stacks pack, and check out my newsletter at Traci Thomas dot sub stack.com Make sure you're subscribed to the Stacks wherever you listen to your podcasts, and if you're listening through Apple Podcasts or Spotify, take a moment to leave us a rating and a review. For more from the Stacks, follow us on social media at The Stacks Pod on Instagram Threads, and now YouTube, and you can check out our website at The Stacks podcast.com This episode of The Stacks was edited by Christian Duenness, with production assistance from Sahara Clement, and our theme music is from Tagira. The Stacks is created and produced by me, Traci Thomas.

Traci Thomas
Next

Ep. 429 All Journalism Has a Point of View with Justine van der Leun