March 25, 2025 • 45 mins
Who doesn’t love a fresh take on a classic story? The Merchant & The Alchemists Gate, from Ted Chiang’s 2019 collection of short stories “Exhalation” is one of our favorite time travel stories.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Worrying. Today's episode contains spoilers for the Ted Chiang story
The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate, which appears in his
collection of short stories Exhalation. Be warned. Hello, my name
(00:27):
is Jason Concepcion. Hell, I'm Rosie Night, and welcome back
to x ray Vision, the podcast where we dive deep
India raved shows, movies, comics and pop culture. Coming from
my Heart podcast or or bring you three huge episodes
a week plus news.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
In today's episode, it's book club again. We're back. We're
back in the bookshop. We're back in the x ray
Vision book Club already and I love it because I'm
a book lover. And this week we are talking about
a really fantastic story that I was so excited to
see was already a fave with many people in our discord,
The March and the alchemist Gate by Ted Chang. So
(01:02):
let's talk about it.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
Let's do a quick recap of the Wonderful Merchant in
the Alchemist Gate. First, this story was first published in
two thousand and eight, when it won the Hugo and
the Nebula for Best just casually casually, as Ted often
seems to do, and it concerns a gentleman named Fuad
(01:31):
given a boss and it is told from his first
person perspective. He is informing the governor of the region
about this interesting and mysterious shop owner who he has
encountered over the years. Now this shop owner and then
(01:53):
tells about the kind of interesting and seemingly random circumstances
by which he was He just kind of wanders into
this gentleman's shop. He's looking for a gift and he's
looking around, and then he comes to this new shopkeeper
who is in the bazaar, who has these incredible.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
Colectic and strange objects.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
Eclectic like machine fountains.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
And nightingale and nightingale.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
Yeah, clockwork nightingales and things like that. And he asks
the gentleman, like, where do the stuff come from? He's like, oh,
I made it. Either I made it or my assistant
made it under my direction. And you want to see
something really cool, check this out. And he shows him
a small ring that he puts his hand through it
the merchant and then nothing happens, but there appears to
(02:42):
be nothing. There's nothing comes out the other side, Like
he just puts his arm through the hoop, but it
doesn't appear on the other side, and so even is thinking, oh,
what a wonderful magic trick, and then he pulls his
arm out, and then like twenty seconds later, the merchant's
hand appears now out of the other side, even though
his arm is not extended through the hoop. This is
(03:05):
very strange, and the shopkeeper explains this is the gate
of seconds. Through some process that he has mastered, he
is able to like allow time to like pool on
one side of this hoop and flow swiftly through the
other side, so that when you put your arm through
on the left side, it doesn't appear out of the
(03:27):
right side until twenty seconds later. And the guy's Ebben's like,
oh my god, you know, like, okay, still incredible magic trick. Wow,
that's so fake amazing. Yeah, yeah, he right. He grasps
his arm like all of that stuff. He touches it,
but it's weird. And then he's like, you want to
see something really really amazing. Check this out, and he
(03:48):
takes him to the back and he shows him a
bigger version of that through which on one side you're
able to go back much further, like if you stick
your arm through or you go through, you go back
in time to as in a loop, right, as if
in a loop, and Aban is like, I don't believe you,
(04:11):
and he's like, well, let me.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
Tell you you really understand either. He's sort of like, okay, and.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
We don't understand either, right, And then the shopkeeper then
proceeds to tell him three different kind of tales about
people whose experience is going through this gate of years
and the things that they were able to learn about
themselves or accomplish. And so he's like, well, if you
want to go back through the gate of years, you can,
(04:38):
and he's like, well, let me think about it, and
then eventually he does, and he goes back for a
very specific reason, which is that he wants to He
was in love with a woman years ago, twenty years ago,
and they had an argument when he was like leaving
for business, and while he was away, she died in
(05:00):
the collapse of a mosque, and all he's been able
to think about in the years since is how how
hurt she was by his words, which were unfair, and
how now she died not thinking that he didn't care
for her anymore, and then he loved her. So he's
desperate to go back and tell her that that's not
(05:21):
the truth. He doesn't manage to get there, but he
does learn the messenger who arrives at his younger self's
home that her last thoughts were of him.
Speaker 2 (05:35):
Yeah, and that she loved him and kind of forgave him.
And yeah, it's really really really really sad.
Speaker 1 (05:44):
Way, Yes, and I just love this story. What were
your thoughts upon reading the story?
Speaker 2 (05:50):
I absolutely love this story. I love a short story,
saying I think Ted Chang's one of the best to
do a short story. This specific story is very special
to me because it reminds me and invokes the feeling
of reading Grim's fairy tales when I was a kid.
I feel, I think quite specific to England. A book
(06:12):
that most of the kids I knew read that was
called A Necklace of rain Drops by Joan Akin, and
that story is about a girl who has given a
necklace of rain drops, each one on a chain by
her godfather, who is the North Wind. And that story
captured my imagination so much as a kid and made
me love stories. And this gives me that same feeling.
(06:33):
This story feels timeless. If someone told you this story
was from, you know, two hundred years ago, you'd believe
them and you'd think, wow, this person invented the concept
of time travel. It just blew me away doing another
deep read on it, and I was so I've always
just loved this story because it feels like a fantastical
kind of fairy tale. But what I loved that I
(06:54):
did not expect was our discord was so inspired by
reading this story to about different forms of time travel
and how time travel happens, and different fictional versions of
time travel. And I just thought that was so interesting
because this story always kind of sweeps me away, so
I don't really think about the mechanics. It's very much
like a vibess thing, like yeah, sure, the Gate of
(07:16):
seconds and the Gate of years, of course. But I
loved how kind of granular it made people get in
the discord about their preferred versions of like multiverses and
realities and time travel. And I think that the fact
that this story can do both that can inspire kind
of a granular scientific conversation that's also about genre and
about tropes, but also still make you feel like you're
(07:37):
a little kid reading a story before bedtime. That's a
really powerful kind of duality that Ted puts across it.
In this book, I mean in the story.
Speaker 1 (07:47):
I completely agree with you, and I feel I had
the same response the first time I read this story
years ago, which is that it made me feel like
that kind of wonderful feeling when you read something like
in when you're in school, when you're in English class
and you read something that you're like, wow, this is
this is good. It had it does have that. In
(08:08):
the way that it's written in first person. It evoked
in me feelings of reading you know, like Gatsby for
the first time, or Huck Finn or these kind of
classic English class books that you would read, or you know,
an incident in al Creek, these like strange stories written
in the first person. And it's having read a lot
(08:31):
of Ted's work, it's also very unlike a lot of
it's unique within his within his oove.
Speaker 2 (08:39):
Like it feels to me almost like you could believe
that Ted had had this experience himself and it inspired
him to write a completely different style of story because
it is really unique. And as we will when we
get into use of questions, a lot of people were
interested in why we particularly picked this story, and I
thought that was really cool too, because I like it
(09:00):
when we can do something that's a little bit unexpected.
But I do think this is I love reading this book.
I don't even really like reading out loud, but I
like reading this story out loud because it has such
a lyrical quality to it, and it has so many
fantastic lines. I mean, the last line of the story
is so wonderful and so kind of heartbreaking and so
(09:24):
true after this story that has been absolutely fantastical, and
I think to be able to do that is the
greatest trick of a writer. Can you sweep someone up
in a story that makes them feel like they're in
another world, but at the end put a truth that
is so real that it immediately brings them back to
(09:45):
their life. I think that is like such a talent.
And I really loved revisiting the story.
Speaker 1 (09:52):
Yeah, I was going to say that. I think part
of what I really respond to is it's structured. It
It is structured like a classic fairy tale in that
it feels as if there is a lesson somewhere in there,
even though I'm unsure of what that lesson might be.
When the merchant is telling him in the Three Different
(10:12):
Tales about the three different approaches to using the gate
like one. You know, there's a gentleman who wants to know,
you know, what they're going to be able to accomplish
in the future. Will they be successful? They desperately want
to be successful, and he's able to do that, but
only through this kind of generous humility. And then there's
another person who goes back, who does it a little
(10:34):
bit more selfishly, but learns something about the kind of
cost of selfishness and how it can you know, poison
love and happiness in a relationship. And then you have
this third story that's a very interesting one in which
three versions of the same woman conspire to save the
(10:58):
woman's husband, Ben's life, essentially, and it feels like each
of them. You know, that feels like very Grim's fairy
tale in that it feels like there's a parable there,
even though I am I. Part of what's so fun
about this story is the mysteriousness of it. I don't
know what the lesson is, and I'm not sure how
(11:20):
the time travel works, but thinking about it and trying
to piece together what the lesson might be is part
of the fun of it. You mentioned the time travel aspect.
Part of what is so fascinating about this story is
This is a time travel story in which you can
(11:40):
go back in time. You can meet yourself either in
the future or in the past, depending on which way
you go through the thing. But you can't change anything,
even if apparently you tried to. Everything will be as
it was. There's a h and Ibn is very confused
(12:02):
about this, and he asks, you know, the merchant like,
so wait, wait when we At one point, he's like
figuring out that the merchant must have known who he
was when he seemingly wandered into his shop for what
he believes is the first time, because after having gone
through the gates, he realizes that the merchant knows a
version of him like knows and must have known that
(12:24):
he would come here. And the merchant says, coincidence and
intention are two sides of a tapestry. You may find
one like more agreeable to look at, but you can't
say that one is true and the other is false.
And Ebn keeps trying to ask, well, like, so if
I go twenty years in the future and I see
that I'm alive, then could I theoretically enter like every
(12:46):
battle that happens between now and then, knowing that I
won't die and like, and the merchant never answers, but
they never really answers, but it certainly appears by all
the by the way these stories kind of play out
that kind of yes, although also it's also heavily implied
that someone who thought like that would not wander into
(13:11):
the merchant's story anyway exactly. So it's got that wonderful,
mysterious feeling where everything's very clear. It's not like this
is an ambiguous story. It's played out in this prose,
this fairy tale, very simple, very very clear prose, but
there's a mystery to it that rises from the story
(13:32):
that is just wonderful to think about.
Speaker 2 (13:35):
Yeah, I totally agree. And I also love In the
Times of the Grims fairy tales, and this could definitely
be a coincidence, but I doubt it because I feel
like Ted Schang is a student of stories as well
as a great writer of them. But I love the
I think part of the reason that it feels so
Grim's fairy Tales is the three stories, because in Grim's
(13:57):
fairy Tales, so many of the story are in threes.
The three little Men in the Wood, the three Spinners,
the Wishing Table, the gold ass and the cudgel in
the sack three, the three brothers, one of the rare
ones with like a happy ending, the three feathers, like
there is something about the number three, and of course
the idea of like our brains remember things in tryads,
which is like something that has been kind of thought
(14:19):
for a long time. The will like it's so interesting,
and I think that's really what makes it feel like
it's that classic fairy tale story. Is it's the stories
within a story, and also the fact that there's three
of them at each person there's a different lesson, And Yeah,
I just thought this was so wonderful and I was
really stoked to see that it was just as kind
(14:42):
of inspiring and interesting to people as it was when
we covered dead ever one again. And I think that's
really really cool.
Speaker 1 (14:51):
Let's take a quick break and then we will jump
to our discussion of some of the themes and questions
from our discus. Okay, we're back. Let's think about the questions.
(15:16):
Let's let's let's answer some questions. Jos Wick one in
our discord, do you prefer multiversal time travel stories or
do you prefer a more deterministic approach? Is presented here.
Do you think our current media favors one or the other?
I think this is this is a great question because
I think the thing that really tickled me about this
version is that it is obviously heavily suggestive of fate
(15:40):
and destiny, which I think is something that is, you know,
obviously a topic that is will forever be fascinating to people.
But the way that it does it suggests that even
though the past and the future determined, there are so
many mysteries to be discovered in the way that things
(16:02):
intersect with the set out path of a person's life,
that the mysteries are still boundless. And I think about
that as particularly in the Tail, where the three different
versions of the of the Man's lover helped to save
him from the bandits who want to rob him of
his necklace, like and then he was completely unaware of this,
(16:25):
like when about his life and didn't understand that this
had happened, And it makes you think, you know, it's
very chicken in the egg, like okay, so then how
did it start? Like who was the first? It's just
it's so fun to think about, and so I think
I prefer this, but I think it's harder to do.
I think this is much more difficult to do it
(16:46):
this way.
Speaker 2 (16:47):
Yeah, we This like really inspired a great conversation. Xalaton
actually responded in discord and said, I don't personally have
a preference. I think they can both be great storytelling vehicles,
but I absolutely think that currently the non deterministic kind
favorite Ingredia and I agree. Also, I think Aboo brought
up a great point when helping us with this planning doc,
(17:07):
which was does going through the Alchemist's Gate lock you
into events? Like? Does your life have more potential paths
before you walk through the gate, Because once you walk
through the gate, then you know what's going to happen.
So does that mean that you have kind of complied
with fate or been complicit with fate to then choose
a path by going through the gate? I think that's
(17:29):
really interesting. And I also think personally the way that
they handle the gate here and don't explain it away
really reminded me of that very famous line on from
Loopah Yes, like starring Bruce Willis where they get don't
worry about it doesn't make sense, like they basically just
like they're trying to explain it and then they're like,
it doesn't really make sense, like don't think about it,
(17:50):
you can't explain it. And I love a story like
this that actually gives the audience enough trust to just say, hey,
just jump into this story with us. This is like
Aladdin's Lamp. You don't ask how did the genie get
in the lamp or how did the lamp get made.
You just find the lamp, you rub it, and a
genie comes out. And I think this has that same power. Hilariously,
(18:10):
I am obviously a multiverse lover, but I think it's
very interesting and I would love to know and explore
why multiverses became so popular so quickly and also died
in the kind of public favor so quickly too, because
in storytelling, multiverses have been around for decades and have
been a beloved kind of way of telling stories, especially
(18:31):
in comic books. But when it came to putting them
on screen, I think that the studio version of it
is not as mysterious and entangled and interesting and strange,
and it doesn't necessarily open up the same opportunities that
reading a story like this does, or thinking about a
multiverse in a comic book does, so I think maybe
that was it. But yeah, it's very interesting, and I
(18:53):
love that this story, which to me is very much
in that fairy tale reign, really inspired that kind of
discussion in the discord.
Speaker 1 (19:02):
Thinking about what is the deterministic or the more open
ended version of time travel. I do think that this
way is it's harder to execute this type of story
because it is more puzzle boxy, right, the pieces must fit.
But I think that one of the things that really
is so wonderful about this story is even though after
(19:25):
having read this story many times, I'm not sure how
time travel here really works, despite that, the merchant explains
it like he gives you three stories and shows you
like puts the arm through and like grab my hand
on the other side, like it does all these things
to show to show you how it works. And then
he gives this explanation where he basically says, and this
(19:49):
is recounted. Ibbin is recounting this now secondhand to the governor,
and he's basically saying that he searched for tiny pores
in the skin of reality, like the whole that worms
bore and wood, and how upon finding one, he was
able to expand it and stretch it in a way
that a glass blower turns a dollop of molten glass
into a long neck pipe, and how he then allowed
(20:11):
time to flow like water at one mouth, while causing
it to thicken like syrup at the other. And then
it been continues. I confess, I don't really understand what
he's talking. And you know, here's the thing about humans,
Like we're incredible tool builders. We've built these incredible machines
and computers. We don't know what the implications of the
(20:35):
things that we create are or how they work. And
I think there's something magical in the way that this
story presents this merchant as having created this thing but
also not really being able to explain it. Yeah, that
feels very human to me, Like I created this magical thing.
(20:56):
I don't really.
Speaker 2 (20:57):
Fully know how human because if you think about things
like how science is essentially all theoretical until it is,
you know, proven, so so much of what humans do
is they create immense telescopes to look into the sky
to study things that they don't understand, black holes, you know,
dark matter, stuff like that. And I love the way
(21:18):
that here, this time machine is essentially the same like, yes,
someone created it, but they kind of didn't really know.
This gate creates seconds. This gate delays you by twenty years.
You know. I like the mystery and I think it leans.
It's the reason we're still talking about this story like
almost you know, twenty years later, is because there is
a mystery to it, and it was a really big
(21:38):
talking point. And I would love to ask you, Jason,
because you gave a great answer in the discord. But
Tony Stark of winter Fell, in the Discord wrote, I
love both of Chang's collections of short stories. I just
reread with this one, and it's not my favorite of
his stories, but it is the one I remember best
from exhalations, I think I most appreciate this sort of
grounded approach to time travel, and that there's no folk
(22:00):
given to how the dooy was created. And then he asks,
which was a resigning question in the Discord, why I'm
curious why you will chose this story of his So, Jason,
you gave a great answer. What was the incentive for
us choosing this one?
Speaker 1 (22:15):
For me? Again, I think it's unique amongst his work,
which you know, I love Ted's work, but it's unique
in the sense that it's the one that feels the
most timeless to me. You mentioned like it feels like
it could have been written in the eighteen hundreds, and
I think that's true. There's nothing in it, the use
of language, the themes that don't feel like something that
(22:39):
people won't be interested in years from now, and certainly
we're not interested in you know, we're clearly interested in
years ago. And it has always made me feel in
a way that his other stories, which I also find wonderful,
have have not really the way I felt when I
read a really good story when I was a kid,
(23:00):
Like when I first read you know, A Wrinkle in
Time and was like, oh my god, this is like
what is this is mysterious and weird, like what is happening?
And it's told so simply without any kind of flourishes
or the kind of like postmodern literary flourishes frank, you know,
fragmented narrative, any of that stuffs told in a very
(23:23):
very straightforward way. And yet every time I've read it,
I feel like I picked something else out that I'm like, oh, okay,
here's another thing to think about about how this how
this time travel mechanic might work. And I also think
there is a note of because it's about fate and
destiny and predestination and living your life in a and
(23:45):
suggesting that there is great value to live your life
in the most generous way possible. It feels more hopeful
than a lot of his other stories, and those are
the things I respond to. Yeah, what about you? You know,
why do you respond to this?
Speaker 2 (24:05):
I was going to say, like I do. I love
that all the points you grow up, and I totally
agree with you. I think it's essentially our best example
of a modern fairy tale that doesn't try to be
a fairy tale and instead uses the language and lyrical
nature of storytelling to put you in that feeling. But
I think the coolest thing and the reason that we
picked this book is you know, you suggested it. We
(24:26):
were coming up with books for post Ed Ever Born Again,
which was our debut book club, and I went, oh,
I love that story, and we went, oh, I love
that story, and we were like, Okay, I guess this
is the next book. And I think that's one of
the most fun things is Yeah, there are deep reasons
that we love this story that kind of guided us
to it, but also it was just a collective love
(24:49):
of this story and the impact it had on us
the same way that we wanted we pick anything that
we cover. So yeah, I thought that was a really
cool discussion point, and I was glad you were able
to kind of surprise people, because yeah, there are going
to be comic books, but there are going to be stories,
and as we move forward, you know, keep letting us
know what you like, because we are hoping to do
(25:10):
kind of longer books and maybe multiple episodes about the
same book as we kind of read through it altogether.
But yeah, I think this was such a cool, unexpected
choice and I love it. And as our last question
from the discord, because I really thought this was a
fun question. First of far said, you know, I really
enjoyed the framing of being presented to the king and
(25:30):
the gradual reveal of the meaning behind the device, very
well executed. I also liked that this story had traveled
to the future in the past. I feel like future
time travel is usually used by characters looking to learn
something that improves their fortunes, while the past is usually
visited to right or wrong and fix the present. What
are your favorite examples or exceptions to those time travel motivations.
(25:53):
Which do you prefer And do you think this story
leans into those tropes or subverts them?
Speaker 1 (25:58):
Wow, I think it. I think it leans into it
pretty significantly. And I think it does it in the
most the most kind of human way, and in the
way that like a like a like a Genie story,
a Jin story would do that because there are you know,
certain sometimes very base like motivations and wishes that people
(26:19):
have in their heart, and I think this story really
delves into it. Like I want to be rich. That's
a very common ambition, Like will I be rich? Will
I be rich in scuccess?
Speaker 2 (26:32):
Well, that's what I've been told my whole life that
I'm supposed to do. Will it come true for me?
Speaker 1 (26:37):
And will it come true? And how do I do it?
And and and there's also that wish fulfillment of wanting
a mentor you know, I think like part of moving
through life is having to figure so many things out yourself.
And you know, I know, I know lots of times
I've been like, God, I wish there was I wish
(26:57):
I knew someone who could help me with this, and
having that person be yourself is really interesting. And also
having like there's a great moment in the first story
within a story where the future version of this guy
who went back does not warn his younger self that
(27:18):
he's going to get mugged. He doesn't warn him that
he's going to have his purse stolen. And when the
younger version comes back and says, why did you warn
me about that, and he says, but you enjoyed it,
didn't you, Because he chased the He chased the kid
down and then managed to get a hold of him,
and then the kid was so sorry and regretful of
(27:40):
what happened, and then he took mercy on him. He
let him go, and when the guard showed up, he's like,
don't worry about it, and his heart was beating really fast,
and he felt really alive at having like, you know,
had this like small adventure. And so when his future
self says, well, you enjoyed it, didn't you, And you
felt alive and excited by it, didn't you like thought
(28:01):
about it, and he's like, yeah, I did. And so
there's this idea that you know, sometimes you just have
to go through things also, like you can just have.
Speaker 2 (28:10):
To experience them, and it's not about avoiding things that
you might think were bad. Yeah, I love that and
I also I love a time travel story. Like I
think time travel is really complex and strange and such
an interesting device. And it's funny because when everyone started
bringing up the time travel and the discord, I was
kind of like, oh, I didn't even really think of
it that way. I think of it more as like
(28:31):
a portal story. Yeah, I do. I love a time
travel story. I think a lot about time travel movies
that I love. I think one of the first one obviously,
You've got your classics, like You're Back to the Future,
which definitely fits into those tropes as first for laid out.
But I think I like a time travel story that's
(28:52):
kind of like an accidental series of unfortunate events type situation,
like I think a lot about. There's a two thousand
and evan Spanish movie called Time Crimes that was also
called Chrono Crimes, and it's about a guy who accidentally
gets in a time machine and travels back an hour,
but then sets off this awful series of events where
like he's constantly seeing different versions of himself and it
(29:15):
creates like new timelines and he's trying to deal with it.
I like stuff like that where time travel is something
to be solved or escaped rather than a tool to
be used. I think that's a really interesting take on
time travel. I also like your classic time travel. I
think the Guy Piss time Machine movie with a British
(29:36):
pop star Samantha Mumba is actually a really fun, engaging movie.
I personally enjoyed the Recent and this is very much
going back in the past to fix something in the present.
Movie Totally Killer. I thought that was really fun on Amazon.
I enjoyed that one a lot. Fun kind of I
(29:57):
like a time travel movie as well, like a Like
Your Name or The Lake House, where two different people
in two different timelines are communicating with each other and
they sort of don't really know that they're not in
the same timeline. I think those kind of stories are
really really fun. And I also, yeah, I just love
fairy tales, so for me, this is a trope that
(30:18):
I love and also a kind of framing and tone
that was hugely important to me. I have this one
of the few things I have from when I was
a kid is a collection of Grim's fairy tales. I
got from the bookshop and it's still the same collection.
Still this game scary cover illustration and I managed to
get that from England a few years ago, and I
(30:41):
have it in my house now, in my bedroom, and
I just I've always loved fairy tales, and I think
with this story, Ted, like we kind of started the
beginning of this podcast by saying, really takes you back
to that childhood wonder of what a story can be
and how immersed you can become in a tale and
in the law and wanting to be and thinking about
what you would do if you could go back with
(31:03):
the gate. So yeah, and obviously a very important time
travel movie I did not include, which is Bill and
Ted like a very formative, very formative movie in my life,
Like I have a Bill and Ted tao. I watched
those movies. They came out, The first one came out
a year after I was born, so I watched them
kind of throughout my childhood, and I think they established
(31:25):
a lot the same way that for me, a lot
of vampire law is established by Lost Boys Rules, a
lot of time travel to me is established by Bill
and Ted, which is very much go back in time
to fix the future, though of course they do it
in a completely wild and totally excellent way.
Speaker 1 (31:42):
I think first of them makes good points, and I
think that the you know, the standard reasons that characters
go back or forward in time, I think are heavily
tied to the way we think about our life, which
is obviously the future is an undiscovered country that we
puzz about and wonder what might occur a while. When
we look back, we think about mostly our regrets and
(32:05):
things that we regret happening. It's just why people want
to go back and fix things. I think that my
favorite examples of these kinds of stories, and part of
the reason why I really like The Merchant and they
Alchemists Gates so much, is like the first stories that
I that resonated with me that were like this were like,
you know, a Christmas Carol that Charles Dickens is, I
think a classic time travel story, a looking back time
(32:28):
travel story in which a great Ebenezer Scrooge is shown
how many is it's uh, three lives versions, three different
versions right of his life, not even versions, but.
Speaker 2 (32:40):
The present, the past, the future, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (32:42):
Scenes from his life, and you know, he goes backwards
and forwards. He sees that he's going to die. He
sees these moments in the past when he became you know,
when he became more selfish, turned away from people, and
decided that success in business was all that he cared about,
pushed away people he loved, and then he finally looks
into the future and discovers that he's going to die
(33:04):
alone and decides to change his life.
Speaker 2 (33:06):
Now. Yeah, and you know, I.
Speaker 1 (33:08):
Think it's fucking like published when like eighteen forty something.
I think that's as it perfect.
Speaker 2 (33:14):
Yeah, you actually make a fantastic point because that is
time travel.
Speaker 1 (33:18):
I think that's as good a story as it gets.
Like a time travel story, that's as good as it gets.
Speaker 2 (33:24):
There's a reason too, why you know Muppet's Christmas Carol,
Mickey's Christmas Carol, like this story is retold again and
again and it resonates with people. A because you know,
we can all relate to having a boss who won't
give you proper time off or pay and you want
him to change his ways. But b because we all
wonder what it will be like when we're not here,
(33:44):
Like will people miss us, will we have made an impact,
will we still be loved? You know? And also those
moments in your youth that you look back on and
you think, like, would my life have gone differently? You know,
kind of as we say, sliding doors logic another really interesting,
kind of different than a time travel movie, but kind
of a different roots that your life could take if
(34:05):
something happens, So in its own way, a multiverse movie.
But I love that you called out Christmas Carol because
it is a time travel movie. It's just not well,
I mean, it's a time travel story. That's just not
how Charles Dickens would have told you that it was,
because it's like in this version, it's kind of more
like these ghosts that take you there, but you are
traveling back to see Scrooge and you are traveling to
(34:26):
the future.
Speaker 1 (34:28):
Similarly, there's Mark Twain has a connecticu Yankey? Did anybody
even read a Connecticut Yankee? And King Arthur's Court. It's
about this guy in contemporary like nineteenth century America who
gets concussed and then has a fantasy question Mark. Then
(34:50):
he is back in like King Arthur's time, and he
uses his knowledge of history and stuff to make himself
extremely powerful. This isn't This is a story that feels
like a parable about power and the end about you know,
(35:11):
growing monarchical tendencies in American life. But that also comes
off as like a fairy tale. And these are the
stories that, like I've these are the time travel stories that,
like first really take over my imagination. I think, you know,
there are lots of others you mentioned them back to
the Future class that's like Fantastic Terminator obviously, Yeah, but
(35:36):
there's something about these kind of simple early time travel stories.
It's a wonderful life, you know. For obvious I think
is you know, a play Christmas Caroling, but also clearly
a time travel story about a gentleman who is losing
his business and doesn't think he's accomplished anything in his life,
(35:58):
is ready to end it all, and then is transported
to different scenes from his life where he realizes how
many people he's actually touched. I think that there's something
wonderful about that that, like, you are so trapped in
your own perspective that if you can only step out
of it and see yourself from other perspectives, you realize
one that everybody's worried about the same things, and two
(36:21):
you're a lot more impactful than you think. Yeah, I
think to tell to have that woven through a time
travel story, those are my favorite kinds of time travel stories.
Let's go to a quick break and then come back
and talk about some of our favorite passages and moments.
Speaker 2 (36:35):
From this book. And we're back.
Speaker 1 (36:51):
Rosie, what are some of your favorite passages from Merchant
and the Alchemist Gate.
Speaker 2 (36:56):
I love the moments where they are talking about the gay.
I think that is really really cool. But for me,
the moment is the last line where he kind of
tells him what he learned, and that for him, if
he was going to tell the king that the most
(37:16):
pressed you know, what is the most precious knowledge that
I possess? He says, nothing eraises the past. There is repentance,
there is atonement, and there is forgiveness. That is all.
But that is enough. I think that is like such
a fantastic final line, and I love the idea that
really the message is, yeah, you can go back in
(37:39):
time and you can do things, and you can try
and you know, change your fate or change your past.
But really, if you can be a better person, if
you can repent for the mistakes you made, if those
mistakes are you know, forgiven, and you can forgive those
(38:00):
who have harmed you, then that really is all the
change that you need. I think it is so beautiful,
and I think it's also very much in line with
the kind of notion of the generosity that is at
the heart of this book, and how living generously is
its own payment.
Speaker 1 (38:17):
I don't know that I could pull a particular passage
out because.
Speaker 2 (38:21):
There's so much gorgeous thoff.
Speaker 1 (38:23):
One of the things that I love about a short story,
and a really good one is that it's just absolutely
lean and self container. A good short story has.
Speaker 2 (38:32):
No fat on the bones.
Speaker 1 (38:33):
Yeah, it just runs right through. But I will say
that on first reading, the part where I started to
really lean forward my seat while reading this is when
so Ibn has come to the decision about how he's
going to what he's going to do, and he learns
that because the gate where he is in Damascus is
(38:55):
kind of more recently built, and so therefore to go
back in time, you could only go back like a
week or something since he had constructed this new gate,
or a shorter period of time, not like his previous
Gate of years, which would allow you to go back decades.
And so the shopkeeper tells him, Okay, well, I've still
(39:16):
the Gate of Years is still active in Cairo, and
my original shop you can go there and my son
runs that shop. So he travels there and he goes through,
and when he goes through, there's some things that happen
where he realizes that the shopkeeper must have met, must
(39:37):
have known who he was. And it's such a magical moment.
Let me see he goes. So he's now telling the
king this. He's telling the story of how he went
to the to the other gate and met the son
and then went through then and he says, quote, your
majesty befits this chronicle of my shortcomings. I must confess
that so immersed was I in my own woes during
(40:00):
my journey from Baghdad. Excuse me, Bagdad, not Damascus. During
my journey from Baghdad, I had not previously realized that
Basharat had likely recognized me the moment I stepped into
his shop, even as I was admiring as water clock
and brass songbird. He had known that I would travel
to Cairo and likely knew whether I had achieved my
(40:20):
goal or not. And even now I'm like God, that
is so interesting to think about, when you start trying
to uncover the mechanics of how this might work, to
think that it's almost as if the people around you
in your life, and even the people that you might
run into this on the street in this world are
(40:44):
conspiring to get you to your destiny in some way,
like you're going to get there by your own luck
and skill and agency, but also because people who have
met you in different versions of yourself want to help
you get there for their own reasons.
Speaker 2 (41:05):
But I love that read.
Speaker 1 (41:06):
And there's something like really cool about that that even
now I'm like, Wow, that's so interesting. And then and
then the shopkeeper just had to be like pretend that
he didn't know who this guy was because that's very
important for what's to come. And it just makes you
wonder how this all began.
Speaker 2 (41:24):
It inspires your imagination and.
Speaker 1 (41:26):
That that's one of my favorite parts of the stories
when these different lines, these different character courses start to
overlap in these really wonderful, magical ways. Our next X
Ray Vision Book Club, do you want to tell folks
what we're doing for I'll do the drummer we are
doing as we get ready for the Thunderbolts movie. On
(41:50):
Free Comic Book Day in May, we are going to
do Thunderbolts Number one, nineteen ninety seven's Thunderbolts number one
by Kurt Busik, penciled by the the incredibly prolific legendary
Mark Bagley. And this is man I remember when this
(42:14):
was released.
Speaker 2 (42:15):
This was a game change.
Speaker 1 (42:17):
This caused a stir. I cannot there must have been
other like mystery box ish, who is this character ish
type of things that happened in comics previously.
Speaker 2 (42:29):
Like Saga was maybe the one, but this was a
whole different vibe.
Speaker 1 (42:34):
This was baked in the promotion of it, like who
are these heroes? Where did they come from? Who are
the Thunderbolts? And and it's a it's just like a
wonderful one. Tell us about this issue.
Speaker 2 (42:49):
This is an incredible issue. It's very, very seminole for
those of us who were in comic bookshops at the time,
who read and spoke to our friends about stuff, who've
discovered it later and also kind of understood the magnitude
of what was happening. This is a great book. You're
going to really enjoy it. It's just a single issue,
(43:10):
so if you want, you can try and track it down.
I know we have a lot of comic book collectors
in our community, or you can try out Marvel Unlimited
for free. And read it on there for free, and
it's just the first issue. Of course, you can read
more if you like, but we're going to be discussing
that first issue, discussing its impact, discussing the context, discussing
how it's going to impact what we see on screen,
(43:33):
because as you will learn when you read this book,
like many things in the MCU, that this is a
very different version of the team and it's going to
be so fun and I cannot wait to read along
to the discussion and reactions that you guys are going
to have to this one. So this is going to
be really fun. And it's just a single issue, so
(43:54):
it'll be a lightlift, probably twenty two pages. If you
want to get involved and read this super fun book.
Speaker 1 (44:02):
Should we tell people about there's okay. So here's the
different ways you can read this. You read it for
free on Marvel Unlimited. You could try and track down
a copy somewhere. You could probably get a copy. You
might be able to get a copy from your library.
Speaker 2 (44:18):
Yeah. Volume one Thunderbolts you could probably get from your library.
Speaker 1 (44:21):
Support your local comic shops, support your creators if you can.
That's it for this episode. Thanks for listening.
Speaker 2 (44:28):
Thanks guys.
Speaker 1 (44:30):
X ray Vision is hosted by Jason steps Young and
Rosie Night and is a production of iHeart Podcasts.
Speaker 2 (44:35):
Our executive producers are Joel Monique and Aaron Kaufman.
Speaker 1 (44:39):
Our supervising producer is Abu Zafart.
Speaker 2 (44:41):
Our producers are Common, Laurent Dean Jonathan and Bay Wack.
Speaker 1 (44:45):
A theme song is by Brian Vasquez, with alternate theme
songs by Aaron Kaufman.
Speaker 2 (44:49):
Special thanks to Soul Rubin, Chris Lord, Kenny Goodman and Heidi.
Our discord moderate Thom
Worrying. Today's episode contains spoilers for the Ted Chiang story
The Merchant and the Alchemist's Gate, which appears in his
collection of short stories Exhalation. Be warned. Hello, my name
(00:27):
is Jason Concepcion. Hell, I'm Rosie Night, and welcome back
to x ray Vision, the podcast where we dive deep
India raved shows, movies, comics and pop culture. Coming from
my Heart podcast or or bring you three huge episodes
a week plus news.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
In today's episode, it's book club again. We're back. We're
back in the bookshop. We're back in the x ray
Vision book Club already and I love it because I'm
a book lover. And this week we are talking about
a really fantastic story that I was so excited to
see was already a fave with many people in our discord,
The March and the alchemist Gate by Ted Chang. So
(01:02):
let's talk about it.
Speaker 1 (01:04):
Let's do a quick recap of the Wonderful Merchant in
the Alchemist Gate. First, this story was first published in
two thousand and eight, when it won the Hugo and
the Nebula for Best just casually casually, as Ted often
seems to do, and it concerns a gentleman named Fuad
(01:31):
given a boss and it is told from his first
person perspective. He is informing the governor of the region
about this interesting and mysterious shop owner who he has
encountered over the years. Now this shop owner and then
(01:53):
tells about the kind of interesting and seemingly random circumstances
by which he was He just kind of wanders into
this gentleman's shop. He's looking for a gift and he's
looking around, and then he comes to this new shopkeeper
who is in the bazaar, who has these incredible.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
Colectic and strange objects.
Speaker 1 (02:14):
Eclectic like machine fountains.
Speaker 2 (02:18):
And nightingale and nightingale.
Speaker 1 (02:20):
Yeah, clockwork nightingales and things like that. And he asks
the gentleman, like, where do the stuff come from? He's like, oh,
I made it. Either I made it or my assistant
made it under my direction. And you want to see
something really cool, check this out. And he shows him
a small ring that he puts his hand through it
the merchant and then nothing happens, but there appears to
(02:42):
be nothing. There's nothing comes out the other side, Like
he just puts his arm through the hoop, but it
doesn't appear on the other side, and so even is thinking, oh,
what a wonderful magic trick, and then he pulls his
arm out, and then like twenty seconds later, the merchant's
hand appears now out of the other side, even though
his arm is not extended through the hoop. This is
(03:05):
very strange, and the shopkeeper explains this is the gate
of seconds. Through some process that he has mastered, he
is able to like allow time to like pool on
one side of this hoop and flow swiftly through the
other side, so that when you put your arm through
on the left side, it doesn't appear out of the
(03:27):
right side until twenty seconds later. And the guy's Ebben's like,
oh my god, you know, like, okay, still incredible magic trick. Wow,
that's so fake amazing. Yeah, yeah, he right. He grasps
his arm like all of that stuff. He touches it,
but it's weird. And then he's like, you want to
see something really really amazing. Check this out, and he
(03:48):
takes him to the back and he shows him a
bigger version of that through which on one side you're
able to go back much further, like if you stick
your arm through or you go through, you go back
in time to as in a loop, right, as if
in a loop, and Aban is like, I don't believe you,
(04:11):
and he's like, well, let me.
Speaker 2 (04:11):
Tell you you really understand either. He's sort of like, okay, and.
Speaker 1 (04:15):
We don't understand either, right, And then the shopkeeper then
proceeds to tell him three different kind of tales about
people whose experience is going through this gate of years
and the things that they were able to learn about
themselves or accomplish. And so he's like, well, if you
want to go back through the gate of years, you can,
(04:38):
and he's like, well, let me think about it, and
then eventually he does, and he goes back for a
very specific reason, which is that he wants to He
was in love with a woman years ago, twenty years ago,
and they had an argument when he was like leaving
for business, and while he was away, she died in
(05:00):
the collapse of a mosque, and all he's been able
to think about in the years since is how how
hurt she was by his words, which were unfair, and
how now she died not thinking that he didn't care
for her anymore, and then he loved her. So he's
desperate to go back and tell her that that's not
(05:21):
the truth. He doesn't manage to get there, but he
does learn the messenger who arrives at his younger self's
home that her last thoughts were of him.
Speaker 2 (05:35):
Yeah, and that she loved him and kind of forgave him.
And yeah, it's really really really really sad.
Speaker 1 (05:44):
Way, Yes, and I just love this story. What were
your thoughts upon reading the story?
Speaker 2 (05:50):
I absolutely love this story. I love a short story,
saying I think Ted Chang's one of the best to
do a short story. This specific story is very special
to me because it reminds me and invokes the feeling
of reading Grim's fairy tales when I was a kid.
I feel, I think quite specific to England. A book
(06:12):
that most of the kids I knew read that was
called A Necklace of rain Drops by Joan Akin, and
that story is about a girl who has given a
necklace of rain drops, each one on a chain by
her godfather, who is the North Wind. And that story
captured my imagination so much as a kid and made
me love stories. And this gives me that same feeling.
(06:33):
This story feels timeless. If someone told you this story
was from, you know, two hundred years ago, you'd believe
them and you'd think, wow, this person invented the concept
of time travel. It just blew me away doing another
deep read on it, and I was so I've always
just loved this story because it feels like a fantastical
kind of fairy tale. But what I loved that I
(06:54):
did not expect was our discord was so inspired by
reading this story to about different forms of time travel
and how time travel happens, and different fictional versions of
time travel. And I just thought that was so interesting
because this story always kind of sweeps me away, so
I don't really think about the mechanics. It's very much
like a vibess thing, like yeah, sure, the Gate of
(07:16):
seconds and the Gate of years, of course. But I
loved how kind of granular it made people get in
the discord about their preferred versions of like multiverses and
realities and time travel. And I think that the fact
that this story can do both that can inspire kind
of a granular scientific conversation that's also about genre and
about tropes, but also still make you feel like you're
(07:37):
a little kid reading a story before bedtime. That's a
really powerful kind of duality that Ted puts across it.
In this book, I mean in the story.
Speaker 1 (07:47):
I completely agree with you, and I feel I had
the same response the first time I read this story
years ago, which is that it made me feel like
that kind of wonderful feeling when you read something like
in when you're in school, when you're in English class
and you read something that you're like, wow, this is
this is good. It had it does have that. In
(08:08):
the way that it's written in first person. It evoked
in me feelings of reading you know, like Gatsby for
the first time, or Huck Finn or these kind of
classic English class books that you would read, or you know,
an incident in al Creek, these like strange stories written
in the first person. And it's having read a lot
(08:31):
of Ted's work, it's also very unlike a lot of
it's unique within his within his oove.
Speaker 2 (08:39):
Like it feels to me almost like you could believe
that Ted had had this experience himself and it inspired
him to write a completely different style of story because
it is really unique. And as we will when we
get into use of questions, a lot of people were
interested in why we particularly picked this story, and I
thought that was really cool too, because I like it
(09:00):
when we can do something that's a little bit unexpected.
But I do think this is I love reading this book.
I don't even really like reading out loud, but I
like reading this story out loud because it has such
a lyrical quality to it, and it has so many
fantastic lines. I mean, the last line of the story
is so wonderful and so kind of heartbreaking and so
(09:24):
true after this story that has been absolutely fantastical, and
I think to be able to do that is the
greatest trick of a writer. Can you sweep someone up
in a story that makes them feel like they're in
another world, but at the end put a truth that
is so real that it immediately brings them back to
(09:45):
their life. I think that is like such a talent.
And I really loved revisiting the story.
Speaker 1 (09:52):
Yeah, I was going to say that. I think part
of what I really respond to is it's structured. It
It is structured like a classic fairy tale in that
it feels as if there is a lesson somewhere in there,
even though I'm unsure of what that lesson might be.
When the merchant is telling him in the Three Different
(10:12):
Tales about the three different approaches to using the gate
like one. You know, there's a gentleman who wants to know,
you know, what they're going to be able to accomplish
in the future. Will they be successful? They desperately want
to be successful, and he's able to do that, but
only through this kind of generous humility. And then there's
another person who goes back, who does it a little
(10:34):
bit more selfishly, but learns something about the kind of
cost of selfishness and how it can you know, poison
love and happiness in a relationship. And then you have
this third story that's a very interesting one in which
three versions of the same woman conspire to save the
(10:58):
woman's husband, Ben's life, essentially, and it feels like each
of them. You know, that feels like very Grim's fairy
tale in that it feels like there's a parable there,
even though I am I. Part of what's so fun
about this story is the mysteriousness of it. I don't
know what the lesson is, and I'm not sure how
(11:20):
the time travel works, but thinking about it and trying
to piece together what the lesson might be is part
of the fun of it. You mentioned the time travel aspect.
Part of what is so fascinating about this story is
This is a time travel story in which you can
(11:40):
go back in time. You can meet yourself either in
the future or in the past, depending on which way
you go through the thing. But you can't change anything,
even if apparently you tried to. Everything will be as
it was. There's a h and Ibn is very confused
(12:02):
about this, and he asks, you know, the merchant like,
so wait, wait when we At one point, he's like
figuring out that the merchant must have known who he
was when he seemingly wandered into his shop for what
he believes is the first time, because after having gone
through the gates, he realizes that the merchant knows a
version of him like knows and must have known that
(12:24):
he would come here. And the merchant says, coincidence and
intention are two sides of a tapestry. You may find
one like more agreeable to look at, but you can't
say that one is true and the other is false.
And Ebn keeps trying to ask, well, like, so if
I go twenty years in the future and I see
that I'm alive, then could I theoretically enter like every
(12:46):
battle that happens between now and then, knowing that I
won't die and like, and the merchant never answers, but
they never really answers, but it certainly appears by all
the by the way these stories kind of play out
that kind of yes, although also it's also heavily implied
that someone who thought like that would not wander into
(13:11):
the merchant's story anyway exactly. So it's got that wonderful,
mysterious feeling where everything's very clear. It's not like this
is an ambiguous story. It's played out in this prose,
this fairy tale, very simple, very very clear prose, but
there's a mystery to it that rises from the story
(13:32):
that is just wonderful to think about.
Speaker 2 (13:35):
Yeah, I totally agree. And I also love In the
Times of the Grims fairy tales, and this could definitely
be a coincidence, but I doubt it because I feel
like Ted Schang is a student of stories as well
as a great writer of them. But I love the
I think part of the reason that it feels so
Grim's fairy Tales is the three stories, because in Grim's
(13:57):
fairy Tales, so many of the story are in threes.
The three little Men in the Wood, the three Spinners,
the Wishing Table, the gold ass and the cudgel in
the sack three, the three brothers, one of the rare
ones with like a happy ending, the three feathers, like
there is something about the number three, and of course
the idea of like our brains remember things in tryads,
which is like something that has been kind of thought
(14:19):
for a long time. The will like it's so interesting,
and I think that's really what makes it feel like
it's that classic fairy tale story. Is it's the stories
within a story, and also the fact that there's three
of them at each person there's a different lesson, And Yeah,
I just thought this was so wonderful and I was
really stoked to see that it was just as kind
(14:42):
of inspiring and interesting to people as it was when
we covered dead ever one again. And I think that's
really really cool.
Speaker 1 (14:51):
Let's take a quick break and then we will jump
to our discussion of some of the themes and questions
from our discus. Okay, we're back. Let's think about the questions.
(15:16):
Let's let's let's answer some questions. Jos Wick one in
our discord, do you prefer multiversal time travel stories or
do you prefer a more deterministic approach? Is presented here.
Do you think our current media favors one or the other?
I think this is this is a great question because
I think the thing that really tickled me about this
version is that it is obviously heavily suggestive of fate
(15:40):
and destiny, which I think is something that is, you know,
obviously a topic that is will forever be fascinating to people.
But the way that it does it suggests that even
though the past and the future determined, there are so
many mysteries to be discovered in the way that things
(16:02):
intersect with the set out path of a person's life,
that the mysteries are still boundless. And I think about
that as particularly in the Tail, where the three different
versions of the of the Man's lover helped to save
him from the bandits who want to rob him of
his necklace, like and then he was completely unaware of this,
(16:25):
like when about his life and didn't understand that this
had happened, And it makes you think, you know, it's
very chicken in the egg, like okay, so then how
did it start? Like who was the first? It's just
it's so fun to think about, and so I think
I prefer this, but I think it's harder to do.
I think this is much more difficult to do it
(16:46):
this way.
Speaker 2 (16:47):
Yeah, we This like really inspired a great conversation. Xalaton
actually responded in discord and said, I don't personally have
a preference. I think they can both be great storytelling vehicles,
but I absolutely think that currently the non deterministic kind
favorite Ingredia and I agree. Also, I think Aboo brought
up a great point when helping us with this planning doc,
(17:07):
which was does going through the Alchemist's Gate lock you
into events? Like? Does your life have more potential paths
before you walk through the gate, Because once you walk
through the gate, then you know what's going to happen.
So does that mean that you have kind of complied
with fate or been complicit with fate to then choose
a path by going through the gate? I think that's
(17:29):
really interesting. And I also think personally the way that
they handle the gate here and don't explain it away
really reminded me of that very famous line on from
Loopah Yes, like starring Bruce Willis where they get don't
worry about it doesn't make sense, like they basically just
like they're trying to explain it and then they're like,
it doesn't really make sense, like don't think about it,
(17:50):
you can't explain it. And I love a story like
this that actually gives the audience enough trust to just say, hey,
just jump into this story with us. This is like
Aladdin's Lamp. You don't ask how did the genie get
in the lamp or how did the lamp get made.
You just find the lamp, you rub it, and a
genie comes out. And I think this has that same power. Hilariously,
(18:10):
I am obviously a multiverse lover, but I think it's
very interesting and I would love to know and explore
why multiverses became so popular so quickly and also died
in the kind of public favor so quickly too, because
in storytelling, multiverses have been around for decades and have
been a beloved kind of way of telling stories, especially
(18:31):
in comic books. But when it came to putting them
on screen, I think that the studio version of it
is not as mysterious and entangled and interesting and strange,
and it doesn't necessarily open up the same opportunities that
reading a story like this does, or thinking about a
multiverse in a comic book does, so I think maybe
that was it. But yeah, it's very interesting, and I
(18:53):
love that this story, which to me is very much
in that fairy tale reign, really inspired that kind of
discussion in the discord.
Speaker 1 (19:02):
Thinking about what is the deterministic or the more open
ended version of time travel. I do think that this
way is it's harder to execute this type of story
because it is more puzzle boxy, right, the pieces must fit.
But I think that one of the things that really
is so wonderful about this story is even though after
(19:25):
having read this story many times, I'm not sure how
time travel here really works, despite that, the merchant explains
it like he gives you three stories and shows you
like puts the arm through and like grab my hand
on the other side, like it does all these things
to show to show you how it works. And then
he gives this explanation where he basically says, and this
(19:49):
is recounted. Ibbin is recounting this now secondhand to the governor,
and he's basically saying that he searched for tiny pores
in the skin of reality, like the whole that worms
bore and wood, and how upon finding one, he was
able to expand it and stretch it in a way
that a glass blower turns a dollop of molten glass
into a long neck pipe, and how he then allowed
(20:11):
time to flow like water at one mouth, while causing
it to thicken like syrup at the other. And then
it been continues. I confess, I don't really understand what
he's talking. And you know, here's the thing about humans,
Like we're incredible tool builders. We've built these incredible machines
and computers. We don't know what the implications of the
(20:35):
things that we create are or how they work. And
I think there's something magical in the way that this
story presents this merchant as having created this thing but
also not really being able to explain it. Yeah, that
feels very human to me, Like I created this magical thing.
(20:56):
I don't really.
Speaker 2 (20:57):
Fully know how human because if you think about things
like how science is essentially all theoretical until it is,
you know, proven, so so much of what humans do
is they create immense telescopes to look into the sky
to study things that they don't understand, black holes, you know,
dark matter, stuff like that. And I love the way
(21:18):
that here, this time machine is essentially the same like, yes,
someone created it, but they kind of didn't really know.
This gate creates seconds. This gate delays you by twenty years.
You know. I like the mystery and I think it leans.
It's the reason we're still talking about this story like
almost you know, twenty years later, is because there is
a mystery to it, and it was a really big
(21:38):
talking point. And I would love to ask you, Jason,
because you gave a great answer in the discord. But
Tony Stark of winter Fell, in the Discord wrote, I
love both of Chang's collections of short stories. I just
reread with this one, and it's not my favorite of
his stories, but it is the one I remember best
from exhalations, I think I most appreciate this sort of
grounded approach to time travel, and that there's no folk
(22:00):
given to how the dooy was created. And then he asks,
which was a resigning question in the Discord, why I'm
curious why you will chose this story of his So, Jason,
you gave a great answer. What was the incentive for
us choosing this one?
Speaker 1 (22:15):
For me? Again, I think it's unique amongst his work,
which you know, I love Ted's work, but it's unique
in the sense that it's the one that feels the
most timeless to me. You mentioned like it feels like
it could have been written in the eighteen hundreds, and
I think that's true. There's nothing in it, the use
of language, the themes that don't feel like something that
(22:39):
people won't be interested in years from now, and certainly
we're not interested in you know, we're clearly interested in
years ago. And it has always made me feel in
a way that his other stories, which I also find wonderful,
have have not really the way I felt when I
read a really good story when I was a kid,
(23:00):
Like when I first read you know, A Wrinkle in
Time and was like, oh my god, this is like
what is this is mysterious and weird, like what is happening?
And it's told so simply without any kind of flourishes
or the kind of like postmodern literary flourishes frank, you know,
fragmented narrative, any of that stuffs told in a very
(23:23):
very straightforward way. And yet every time I've read it,
I feel like I picked something else out that I'm like, oh, okay,
here's another thing to think about about how this how
this time travel mechanic might work. And I also think
there is a note of because it's about fate and
destiny and predestination and living your life in a and
(23:45):
suggesting that there is great value to live your life
in the most generous way possible. It feels more hopeful
than a lot of his other stories, and those are
the things I respond to. Yeah, what about you? You know,
why do you respond to this?
Speaker 2 (24:05):
I was going to say, like I do. I love
that all the points you grow up, and I totally
agree with you. I think it's essentially our best example
of a modern fairy tale that doesn't try to be
a fairy tale and instead uses the language and lyrical
nature of storytelling to put you in that feeling. But
I think the coolest thing and the reason that we
picked this book is you know, you suggested it. We
(24:26):
were coming up with books for post Ed Ever Born Again,
which was our debut book club, and I went, oh,
I love that story, and we went, oh, I love
that story, and we were like, Okay, I guess this
is the next book. And I think that's one of
the most fun things is Yeah, there are deep reasons
that we love this story that kind of guided us
to it, but also it was just a collective love
(24:49):
of this story and the impact it had on us
the same way that we wanted we pick anything that
we cover. So yeah, I thought that was a really
cool discussion point, and I was glad you were able
to kind of surprise people, because yeah, there are going
to be comic books, but there are going to be stories,
and as we move forward, you know, keep letting us
know what you like, because we are hoping to do
(25:10):
kind of longer books and maybe multiple episodes about the
same book as we kind of read through it altogether.
But yeah, I think this was such a cool, unexpected
choice and I love it. And as our last question
from the discord, because I really thought this was a
fun question. First of far said, you know, I really
enjoyed the framing of being presented to the king and
(25:30):
the gradual reveal of the meaning behind the device, very
well executed. I also liked that this story had traveled
to the future in the past. I feel like future
time travel is usually used by characters looking to learn
something that improves their fortunes, while the past is usually
visited to right or wrong and fix the present. What
are your favorite examples or exceptions to those time travel motivations.
(25:53):
Which do you prefer And do you think this story
leans into those tropes or subverts them?
Speaker 1 (25:58):
Wow, I think it. I think it leans into it
pretty significantly. And I think it does it in the
most the most kind of human way, and in the
way that like a like a like a Genie story,
a Jin story would do that because there are you know,
certain sometimes very base like motivations and wishes that people
(26:19):
have in their heart, and I think this story really
delves into it. Like I want to be rich. That's
a very common ambition, Like will I be rich? Will
I be rich in scuccess?
Speaker 2 (26:32):
Well, that's what I've been told my whole life that
I'm supposed to do. Will it come true for me?
Speaker 1 (26:37):
And will it come true? And how do I do it?
And and and there's also that wish fulfillment of wanting
a mentor you know, I think like part of moving
through life is having to figure so many things out yourself.
And you know, I know, I know lots of times
I've been like, God, I wish there was I wish
(26:57):
I knew someone who could help me with this, and
having that person be yourself is really interesting. And also
having like there's a great moment in the first story
within a story where the future version of this guy
who went back does not warn his younger self that
(27:18):
he's going to get mugged. He doesn't warn him that
he's going to have his purse stolen. And when the
younger version comes back and says, why did you warn
me about that, and he says, but you enjoyed it,
didn't you, Because he chased the He chased the kid
down and then managed to get a hold of him,
and then the kid was so sorry and regretful of
(27:40):
what happened, and then he took mercy on him. He
let him go, and when the guard showed up, he's like,
don't worry about it, and his heart was beating really fast,
and he felt really alive at having like, you know,
had this like small adventure. And so when his future
self says, well, you enjoyed it, didn't you, And you
felt alive and excited by it, didn't you like thought
(28:01):
about it, and he's like, yeah, I did. And so
there's this idea that you know, sometimes you just have
to go through things also, like you can just have.
Speaker 2 (28:10):
To experience them, and it's not about avoiding things that
you might think were bad. Yeah, I love that and
I also I love a time travel story. Like I
think time travel is really complex and strange and such
an interesting device. And it's funny because when everyone started
bringing up the time travel and the discord, I was
kind of like, oh, I didn't even really think of
it that way. I think of it more as like
(28:31):
a portal story. Yeah, I do. I love a time
travel story. I think a lot about time travel movies
that I love. I think one of the first one obviously,
You've got your classics, like You're Back to the Future,
which definitely fits into those tropes as first for laid out.
But I think I like a time travel story that's
(28:52):
kind of like an accidental series of unfortunate events type situation,
like I think a lot about. There's a two thousand
and evan Spanish movie called Time Crimes that was also
called Chrono Crimes, and it's about a guy who accidentally
gets in a time machine and travels back an hour,
but then sets off this awful series of events where
like he's constantly seeing different versions of himself and it
(29:15):
creates like new timelines and he's trying to deal with it.
I like stuff like that where time travel is something
to be solved or escaped rather than a tool to
be used. I think that's a really interesting take on
time travel. I also like your classic time travel. I
think the Guy Piss time Machine movie with a British
(29:36):
pop star Samantha Mumba is actually a really fun, engaging movie.
I personally enjoyed the Recent and this is very much
going back in the past to fix something in the present.
Movie Totally Killer. I thought that was really fun on Amazon.
I enjoyed that one a lot. Fun kind of I
(29:57):
like a time travel movie as well, like a Like
Your Name or The Lake House, where two different people
in two different timelines are communicating with each other and
they sort of don't really know that they're not in
the same timeline. I think those kind of stories are
really really fun. And I also, yeah, I just love
fairy tales, so for me, this is a trope that
(30:18):
I love and also a kind of framing and tone
that was hugely important to me. I have this one
of the few things I have from when I was
a kid is a collection of Grim's fairy tales. I
got from the bookshop and it's still the same collection.
Still this game scary cover illustration and I managed to
get that from England a few years ago, and I
(30:41):
have it in my house now, in my bedroom, and
I just I've always loved fairy tales, and I think
with this story, Ted, like we kind of started the
beginning of this podcast by saying, really takes you back
to that childhood wonder of what a story can be
and how immersed you can become in a tale and
in the law and wanting to be and thinking about
what you would do if you could go back with
(31:03):
the gate. So yeah, and obviously a very important time
travel movie I did not include, which is Bill and
Ted like a very formative, very formative movie in my life,
Like I have a Bill and Ted tao. I watched
those movies. They came out, The first one came out
a year after I was born, so I watched them
kind of throughout my childhood, and I think they established
(31:25):
a lot the same way that for me, a lot
of vampire law is established by Lost Boys Rules, a
lot of time travel to me is established by Bill
and Ted, which is very much go back in time
to fix the future, though of course they do it
in a completely wild and totally excellent way.
Speaker 1 (31:42):
I think first of them makes good points, and I
think that the you know, the standard reasons that characters
go back or forward in time, I think are heavily
tied to the way we think about our life, which
is obviously the future is an undiscovered country that we
puzz about and wonder what might occur a while. When
we look back, we think about mostly our regrets and
(32:05):
things that we regret happening. It's just why people want
to go back and fix things. I think that my
favorite examples of these kinds of stories, and part of
the reason why I really like The Merchant and they
Alchemists Gates so much, is like the first stories that
I that resonated with me that were like this were like,
you know, a Christmas Carol that Charles Dickens is, I
think a classic time travel story, a looking back time
(32:28):
travel story in which a great Ebenezer Scrooge is shown
how many is it's uh, three lives versions, three different
versions right of his life, not even versions, but.
Speaker 2 (32:40):
The present, the past, the future, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (32:42):
Scenes from his life, and you know, he goes backwards
and forwards. He sees that he's going to die. He
sees these moments in the past when he became you know,
when he became more selfish, turned away from people, and
decided that success in business was all that he cared about,
pushed away people he loved, and then he finally looks
into the future and discovers that he's going to die
(33:04):
alone and decides to change his life.
Speaker 2 (33:06):
Now. Yeah, and you know, I.
Speaker 1 (33:08):
Think it's fucking like published when like eighteen forty something.
I think that's as it perfect.
Speaker 2 (33:14):
Yeah, you actually make a fantastic point because that is
time travel.
Speaker 1 (33:18):
I think that's as good a story as it gets.
Like a time travel story, that's as good as it gets.
Speaker 2 (33:24):
There's a reason too, why you know Muppet's Christmas Carol,
Mickey's Christmas Carol, like this story is retold again and
again and it resonates with people. A because you know,
we can all relate to having a boss who won't
give you proper time off or pay and you want
him to change his ways. But b because we all
wonder what it will be like when we're not here,
(33:44):
Like will people miss us, will we have made an impact,
will we still be loved? You know? And also those
moments in your youth that you look back on and
you think, like, would my life have gone differently? You know,
kind of as we say, sliding doors logic another really interesting,
kind of different than a time travel movie, but kind
of a different roots that your life could take if
(34:05):
something happens, So in its own way, a multiverse movie.
But I love that you called out Christmas Carol because
it is a time travel movie. It's just not well,
I mean, it's a time travel story. That's just not
how Charles Dickens would have told you that it was,
because it's like in this version, it's kind of more
like these ghosts that take you there, but you are
traveling back to see Scrooge and you are traveling to
(34:26):
the future.
Speaker 1 (34:28):
Similarly, there's Mark Twain has a connecticu Yankey? Did anybody
even read a Connecticut Yankee? And King Arthur's Court. It's
about this guy in contemporary like nineteenth century America who
gets concussed and then has a fantasy question Mark. Then
(34:50):
he is back in like King Arthur's time, and he
uses his knowledge of history and stuff to make himself
extremely powerful. This isn't This is a story that feels
like a parable about power and the end about you know,
(35:11):
growing monarchical tendencies in American life. But that also comes
off as like a fairy tale. And these are the
stories that, like I've these are the time travel stories that,
like first really take over my imagination. I think, you know,
there are lots of others you mentioned them back to
the Future class that's like Fantastic Terminator obviously, Yeah, but
(35:36):
there's something about these kind of simple early time travel stories.
It's a wonderful life, you know. For obvious I think
is you know, a play Christmas Caroling, but also clearly
a time travel story about a gentleman who is losing
his business and doesn't think he's accomplished anything in his life,
(35:58):
is ready to end it all, and then is transported
to different scenes from his life where he realizes how
many people he's actually touched. I think that there's something
wonderful about that that, like, you are so trapped in
your own perspective that if you can only step out
of it and see yourself from other perspectives, you realize
one that everybody's worried about the same things, and two
(36:21):
you're a lot more impactful than you think. Yeah, I
think to tell to have that woven through a time
travel story, those are my favorite kinds of time travel stories.
Let's go to a quick break and then come back
and talk about some of our favorite passages and moments.
Speaker 2 (36:35):
From this book. And we're back.
Speaker 1 (36:51):
Rosie, what are some of your favorite passages from Merchant
and the Alchemist Gate.
Speaker 2 (36:56):
I love the moments where they are talking about the gay.
I think that is really really cool. But for me,
the moment is the last line where he kind of
tells him what he learned, and that for him, if
he was going to tell the king that the most
(37:16):
pressed you know, what is the most precious knowledge that
I possess? He says, nothing eraises the past. There is repentance,
there is atonement, and there is forgiveness. That is all.
But that is enough. I think that is like such
a fantastic final line, and I love the idea that
really the message is, yeah, you can go back in
(37:39):
time and you can do things, and you can try
and you know, change your fate or change your past.
But really, if you can be a better person, if
you can repent for the mistakes you made, if those
mistakes are you know, forgiven, and you can forgive those
(38:00):
who have harmed you, then that really is all the
change that you need. I think it is so beautiful,
and I think it's also very much in line with
the kind of notion of the generosity that is at
the heart of this book, and how living generously is
its own payment.
Speaker 1 (38:17):
I don't know that I could pull a particular passage
out because.
Speaker 2 (38:21):
There's so much gorgeous thoff.
Speaker 1 (38:23):
One of the things that I love about a short story,
and a really good one is that it's just absolutely
lean and self container. A good short story has.
Speaker 2 (38:32):
No fat on the bones.
Speaker 1 (38:33):
Yeah, it just runs right through. But I will say
that on first reading, the part where I started to
really lean forward my seat while reading this is when
so Ibn has come to the decision about how he's
going to what he's going to do, and he learns
that because the gate where he is in Damascus is
(38:55):
kind of more recently built, and so therefore to go
back in time, you could only go back like a
week or something since he had constructed this new gate,
or a shorter period of time, not like his previous
Gate of years, which would allow you to go back decades.
And so the shopkeeper tells him, Okay, well, I've still
(39:16):
the Gate of Years is still active in Cairo, and
my original shop you can go there and my son
runs that shop. So he travels there and he goes through,
and when he goes through, there's some things that happen
where he realizes that the shopkeeper must have met, must
(39:37):
have known who he was. And it's such a magical moment.
Let me see he goes. So he's now telling the
king this. He's telling the story of how he went
to the to the other gate and met the son
and then went through then and he says, quote, your
majesty befits this chronicle of my shortcomings. I must confess
that so immersed was I in my own woes during
(40:00):
my journey from Baghdad. Excuse me, Bagdad, not Damascus. During
my journey from Baghdad, I had not previously realized that
Basharat had likely recognized me the moment I stepped into
his shop, even as I was admiring as water clock
and brass songbird. He had known that I would travel
to Cairo and likely knew whether I had achieved my
(40:20):
goal or not. And even now I'm like God, that
is so interesting to think about, when you start trying
to uncover the mechanics of how this might work, to
think that it's almost as if the people around you
in your life, and even the people that you might
run into this on the street in this world are
(40:44):
conspiring to get you to your destiny in some way,
like you're going to get there by your own luck
and skill and agency, but also because people who have
met you in different versions of yourself want to help
you get there for their own reasons.
Speaker 2 (41:05):
But I love that read.
Speaker 1 (41:06):
And there's something like really cool about that that even
now I'm like, Wow, that's so interesting. And then and
then the shopkeeper just had to be like pretend that
he didn't know who this guy was because that's very
important for what's to come. And it just makes you
wonder how this all began.
Speaker 2 (41:24):
It inspires your imagination and.
Speaker 1 (41:26):
That that's one of my favorite parts of the stories
when these different lines, these different character courses start to
overlap in these really wonderful, magical ways. Our next X
Ray Vision Book Club, do you want to tell folks
what we're doing for I'll do the drummer we are
doing as we get ready for the Thunderbolts movie. On
(41:50):
Free Comic Book Day in May, we are going to
do Thunderbolts Number one, nineteen ninety seven's Thunderbolts number one
by Kurt Busik, penciled by the the incredibly prolific legendary
Mark Bagley. And this is man I remember when this
(42:14):
was released.
Speaker 2 (42:15):
This was a game change.
Speaker 1 (42:17):
This caused a stir. I cannot there must have been
other like mystery box ish, who is this character ish
type of things that happened in comics previously.
Speaker 2 (42:29):
Like Saga was maybe the one, but this was a
whole different vibe.
Speaker 1 (42:34):
This was baked in the promotion of it, like who
are these heroes? Where did they come from? Who are
the Thunderbolts? And and it's a it's just like a
wonderful one. Tell us about this issue.
Speaker 2 (42:49):
This is an incredible issue. It's very, very seminole for
those of us who were in comic bookshops at the time,
who read and spoke to our friends about stuff, who've
discovered it later and also kind of understood the magnitude
of what was happening. This is a great book. You're
going to really enjoy it. It's just a single issue,
(43:10):
so if you want, you can try and track it down.
I know we have a lot of comic book collectors
in our community, or you can try out Marvel Unlimited
for free. And read it on there for free, and
it's just the first issue. Of course, you can read
more if you like, but we're going to be discussing
that first issue, discussing its impact, discussing the context, discussing
how it's going to impact what we see on screen,
(43:33):
because as you will learn when you read this book,
like many things in the MCU, that this is a
very different version of the team and it's going to
be so fun and I cannot wait to read along
to the discussion and reactions that you guys are going
to have to this one. So this is going to
be really fun. And it's just a single issue, so
(43:54):
it'll be a lightlift, probably twenty two pages. If you
want to get involved and read this super fun book.
Speaker 1 (44:02):
Should we tell people about there's okay. So here's the
different ways you can read this. You read it for
free on Marvel Unlimited. You could try and track down
a copy somewhere. You could probably get a copy. You
might be able to get a copy from your library.
Speaker 2 (44:18):
Yeah. Volume one Thunderbolts you could probably get from your library.
Speaker 1 (44:21):
Support your local comic shops, support your creators if you can.
That's it for this episode. Thanks for listening.
Speaker 2 (44:28):
Thanks guys.
Speaker 1 (44:30):
X ray Vision is hosted by Jason steps Young and
Rosie Night and is a production of iHeart Podcasts.
Speaker 2 (44:35):
Our executive producers are Joel Monique and Aaron Kaufman.
Speaker 1 (44:39):
Our supervising producer is Abu Zafart.
Speaker 2 (44:41):
Our producers are Common, Laurent Dean Jonathan and Bay Wack.
Speaker 1 (44:45):
A theme song is by Brian Vasquez, with alternate theme
songs by Aaron Kaufman.
Speaker 2 (44:49):
Special thanks to Soul Rubin, Chris Lord, Kenny Goodman and Heidi.
Our discord moderate Thom
Hosts And Creators
Jason Concepcion
Rosie Knight
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Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Special Summer Offer: Exclusively on Apple Podcasts, try our Dateline Premium subscription completely free for one month! With Dateline Premium, you get every episode ad-free plus exclusive bonus content.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!