Hillary Raphael is poised to take western literature by storm with the book, I Love Lord Buddha. The book is set in late-90s Tokyo; it recounts the history of the Neo-Geisha Organization, a sex-and-death cult with an anti-consumerist, pro-hedonist, sub-Buddhist ideology. The cult is led by Hiyoko, a leggy Westerner with a penchant for Eastern philosophy and drug-fuelled sex binges. Her followers are the young women whose curiosity and perfect bodies have taken them thousands of miles from home to work in Tokyos neon-lit network of hostess bars.
Check out the official website for I Love Lord Buddha
Daniel Robert Epstein: On the back of your book it says what your influences are the classical Japanese literature of the first millennium, the AUM Shinrikyo subway-gas cult, and the esoteric texts of Buddhism. What are those things?
Hillary Raphael: The most famous classical Japanese literature of the first millennium is The Tale of Genji. The Tale of Genji is this episodic very long book written in year 1000 by Murasaki Shikibu. The main character is this shining prince; Genji, who is this unbelievably good looking playboy who goes through the classical court of Japan having these crazy affairs with the women of the court including his stepmother and many young boys. Its kind of considered the first Japanese novel with psychology in it.
The AUM Shinrikyo subway-gas cult archived fame in the mid-90s for unleashing Sarin gas in the subway. That was an important cult because their ideologies were so absurd that I found it hard to believe that they had any unironic members. Also because their leader, Shoko Asahara, was such a repulsive, repugnant and acharismatic man so I found it hard to believe anyone would follow him. When I first moved to Japan in 1996 as part of my scholarship the school gave me an apartment which turned out to be in this swanky neighborhood and one of the local subway stations was one of the ones afflicted by AUM Shinrikyo. My neighborhood despised them and they had these cool Wanted posters around. I loved it.
DRE: Obviously this is a good time for Asian culture for America, did you see it coming?
HR: Its complete coincidence. Its the opposite of destiny in that I finished writing this in the year 2000 and I envisioned it as a comment on the turn of the millennium. But reasons of the marketplace caused it to not come out until now.
DRE: To me there is a kind of a cut style reminiscent of William Burroughs.
HR: Basically the style takes its inspiration from those early Japanese literature which has no narrative stream and very non linear sense of time. Characters come and go so much that its impossible to become attached to a character as you do in western literature. That inspired me as well as Manga.
DRE: Yeah they dont make any sense.
HR: What I love about them is when you are sitting on the Tokyo subway and the guy next to you is reading Manga he flips through it at such breakneck speed and such glee that the physical reading experience of holding a book and flipping through is an adrenaline soaked experience that I thought would be fun for a novel as well. To have the graphic excitement of watching or reading a cartoon.
DRE: Its very sexy book as well. Is it supposed to turn people on?
HR: Its interesting that you mention people being turned on because to me the sex in the book is very unerotic. It wouldnt turn me on but the purpose of it was to explore the body and trying to bring a corporeal element into something as dry as the written word and page. Also again I was trying to mimic Japanese Manga in which there is incredibly graphic, violent, sadomasochistic and horrible sex acts on the page. But the guy reading it on the subway reads it with such remove that he doesnt have a hard-on, hes not masturbating because its such a diversion and a spectacle. I think that doesnt exist as much in western but in Japan there is that sense of the erotic and grotesque being perfectly acceptable humdrum entertainment without a sense of it being erotic or perverted.
DRE: So youre okay with perversion?
HR: Oh definitely. I promote it! The philosophy of the book is pro-perversion and the idea of perversion supplanting consumerism as a popular fetish.
DRE: Is the book autobiographical at all?
HR: Its autobiographical in the sense that I had the experience as a teenager of working as a hostess in a super high end hostess bar.
DRE: Whats that?
HR: Its an establishment where men go to talk to women without having sex or stripping. They pay a lot to have drinks and just chat. Because of my Japanese fluency I had to chance to work in a really elite one for three months when I was young. On some level I think I was nostalgic for those three months but I was a full time university student. I was jealous of these self serving narcissistic and nihilistic girls who had come to Japan with no other purpose other than to be hostessing. Then they have all the time in the world to establish those careers. The years I worked on writing the novel it was a respite from reality to go back into hostessing within the book.
DRE: Did you bring this book to many different publishers or did you always have Creation Books in mind?
HR: I have an agent and they usually start at the top. Each meeting I had with more mass market publishers they wanted to edit it in a way that I really think wasnt true to the book. I got to understand that lots of people wanted to publish it but they wanted there to be at least one sympathetic character or wanted the main character to be sympathetic. My dream of a novel to read and write is for there to be no sympathetic characters. To enjoy the characters by not identifying with them but through a kind of amoral voyeurism. By holding fast to that it took a while to find a publisher that was cool enough. It took a few years in fact.
DRE: Was that tough?
HR: It was great because eventually I reached a state of Zen nonattachment over having it publish. I just set it down and decided to not publish if I couldnt have it in the gem like form I wanted it.
by Daniel Robert Epstein
SG Username: AndersWolleck
Check out the official website for I Love Lord Buddha
Daniel Robert Epstein: On the back of your book it says what your influences are the classical Japanese literature of the first millennium, the AUM Shinrikyo subway-gas cult, and the esoteric texts of Buddhism. What are those things?
Hillary Raphael: The most famous classical Japanese literature of the first millennium is The Tale of Genji. The Tale of Genji is this episodic very long book written in year 1000 by Murasaki Shikibu. The main character is this shining prince; Genji, who is this unbelievably good looking playboy who goes through the classical court of Japan having these crazy affairs with the women of the court including his stepmother and many young boys. Its kind of considered the first Japanese novel with psychology in it.
The AUM Shinrikyo subway-gas cult archived fame in the mid-90s for unleashing Sarin gas in the subway. That was an important cult because their ideologies were so absurd that I found it hard to believe that they had any unironic members. Also because their leader, Shoko Asahara, was such a repulsive, repugnant and acharismatic man so I found it hard to believe anyone would follow him. When I first moved to Japan in 1996 as part of my scholarship the school gave me an apartment which turned out to be in this swanky neighborhood and one of the local subway stations was one of the ones afflicted by AUM Shinrikyo. My neighborhood despised them and they had these cool Wanted posters around. I loved it.
DRE: Obviously this is a good time for Asian culture for America, did you see it coming?
HR: Its complete coincidence. Its the opposite of destiny in that I finished writing this in the year 2000 and I envisioned it as a comment on the turn of the millennium. But reasons of the marketplace caused it to not come out until now.
DRE: To me there is a kind of a cut style reminiscent of William Burroughs.
HR: Basically the style takes its inspiration from those early Japanese literature which has no narrative stream and very non linear sense of time. Characters come and go so much that its impossible to become attached to a character as you do in western literature. That inspired me as well as Manga.
DRE: Yeah they dont make any sense.
HR: What I love about them is when you are sitting on the Tokyo subway and the guy next to you is reading Manga he flips through it at such breakneck speed and such glee that the physical reading experience of holding a book and flipping through is an adrenaline soaked experience that I thought would be fun for a novel as well. To have the graphic excitement of watching or reading a cartoon.
DRE: Its very sexy book as well. Is it supposed to turn people on?
HR: Its interesting that you mention people being turned on because to me the sex in the book is very unerotic. It wouldnt turn me on but the purpose of it was to explore the body and trying to bring a corporeal element into something as dry as the written word and page. Also again I was trying to mimic Japanese Manga in which there is incredibly graphic, violent, sadomasochistic and horrible sex acts on the page. But the guy reading it on the subway reads it with such remove that he doesnt have a hard-on, hes not masturbating because its such a diversion and a spectacle. I think that doesnt exist as much in western but in Japan there is that sense of the erotic and grotesque being perfectly acceptable humdrum entertainment without a sense of it being erotic or perverted.
DRE: So youre okay with perversion?
HR: Oh definitely. I promote it! The philosophy of the book is pro-perversion and the idea of perversion supplanting consumerism as a popular fetish.
DRE: Is the book autobiographical at all?
HR: Its autobiographical in the sense that I had the experience as a teenager of working as a hostess in a super high end hostess bar.
DRE: Whats that?
HR: Its an establishment where men go to talk to women without having sex or stripping. They pay a lot to have drinks and just chat. Because of my Japanese fluency I had to chance to work in a really elite one for three months when I was young. On some level I think I was nostalgic for those three months but I was a full time university student. I was jealous of these self serving narcissistic and nihilistic girls who had come to Japan with no other purpose other than to be hostessing. Then they have all the time in the world to establish those careers. The years I worked on writing the novel it was a respite from reality to go back into hostessing within the book.
DRE: Did you bring this book to many different publishers or did you always have Creation Books in mind?
HR: I have an agent and they usually start at the top. Each meeting I had with more mass market publishers they wanted to edit it in a way that I really think wasnt true to the book. I got to understand that lots of people wanted to publish it but they wanted there to be at least one sympathetic character or wanted the main character to be sympathetic. My dream of a novel to read and write is for there to be no sympathetic characters. To enjoy the characters by not identifying with them but through a kind of amoral voyeurism. By holding fast to that it took a while to find a publisher that was cool enough. It took a few years in fact.
DRE: Was that tough?
HR: It was great because eventually I reached a state of Zen nonattachment over having it publish. I just set it down and decided to not publish if I couldnt have it in the gem like form I wanted it.
by Daniel Robert Epstein
SG Username: AndersWolleck
VIEW 17 of 17 COMMENTS
she has a new one out called Backpacker... sounds like a sort of next-gen Alex Garland/Geoff Dyer thing. i'm intrigued, i really loved the last book.
you can read an excerpt of the new one here.