Lian Hearn interview

posted in: Interviews | 14
What is your background? How does it impact on your writing?

I was born in England and [have since] emigrated to Australia. I think the main influences on my writing were my rather disturbed teenage years (I won’t go into details) and studying modern languages (French and Spanish) at Oxford. I love languages and words: to learn a foreign language is to enter into a love affair with a country and its culture. It is to become a different person and begin to think in a different way.

Coming to Australia brought me closer to Japan, a country I had been interested in for many years. Australia has many links with Japan, and is in the same time zone, though a different hemisphere. Being an Australian means being between West and East and living in a society that has formed itself out of many different and contradictory elements. I identify with this.

What drove you to become a writer?

For as long as I can remember I have been a story teller, making up stories to entertain or console myself. I’ve always loved reading and wanted to write books that would enthrall the reader in the same way I have been enthralled.

What kind of research did you do for the series?

I started to learn Japanese first . . . I can speak a little and read quite a lot. I received a fellowship from Asialink, the Australian foundation which encourages artistic and cultural exchanges between Australia and Asian countries, to spend three months in Japan in 1999 and 2000. During these periods, I spent some time in Western Honshu which provides the landscape for the series. I have made many other trips to Japan as well in the last ten years, since I first had the idea of the story and characters. I went to museums, old temples and other buildings, watched many movies and read many books, including Japanese literature and poetry. And walked endlessly through rural Japan reflecting on its history and character. My way of gathering material is very intuitive: I steep myself in it and then forget the research while I write the stories, using details to bring the world to life.

The Tales of the Otori series appears to be an Arthurian type story set in a medieval Japan. What inspired you to create this world and series? Why did you pick a Japanese-like location?

It’s interesting that people see it as Arthurian as that was not a conscious choice of myth: many of the elements that seem to be Arthurian (the sword, the lost son, the blind woman) are also part of Japanese legends. Of course, I am a Westerner and the myths that I internalized as a child are Anglo-Celtic. But I did not pick a Japanese location as such: it was more a question of being in the location and knowing a little about the history, and the characters and the story coming to me and grabbing me. In fact, it was rather a terrifying idea: I did not think I was in any way qualified to write from another culture and I was filled with doubts and misgivings about attempting it. I tried to deal with this by setting the story in a fantasy world, but when I was writing one of my main concerns was to be true to the culture that had inspired the fantasy and not to allow the characters to act in ways that they might not have done historically. I think this gives certain realism to the fantasy.

The Tales of the Otori series has themes of love, betrayal, familial honor and honor as a warrior, death, and revenge. These seem to be prevalent in Japanese literature. Why did you decide to focus on these issues?

These are themes that recur in kabuki drama and in the many Japanese monogatari. As I was writing, these were the ideas that my characters seemed to be concerned with. I was writing about a feudal society with all its codes and restrictions. My characters are forced into types of behavior by the society they are in: their reaction to this coercion drives the plot. But I did not want to write about “good” and “evil” and the struggle between them. The struggle in Tales of the Otori is between human individuals who seek power. I think the character of Arai is a good example of this. Arai starts out as a hero and champion of Kaede, but his ideas for her future end up being quite different from what she wants. And his drive for power leads him quite naturally to betray Takeo (or outwit him to use a less loaded term). And even the “good” characters are driven to perform shameful acts which they bitterly regret.

One issue never resolved in the series is whether peace can be attained and maintained without violence. What are your thoughts on this issue?

This is one of the key themes of the books. Takeo, who has been brought up with the belief that it is wrong to kill another human being, finds himself adopted into the warrior class whose sole purpose is fighting and killing, and then taken into a secret society of assassins. He can join them or die himself. He always chooses to live, at great cost to his own emotions and soul. At the end of Brilliance of the Moon he takes upon himself the responsibility all states take: to control violence for the sake of all their people. The book I am writing now looks at how successful he is in this.

Takeo is such a strong, heroic figure. Was he based on anyone specific? How did you decide to create the mystery of his heritage with the Otori, Hidden, and Kikuta?

He is not based on anyone specific, though he may have elements of some historical figures. I am interested in flawed, gifted people with divided and vulnerable natures: his character just seemed to develop from that. I was also interested in the balance between compassion and ruthlessness that a feudal leader must need, and also in the way Japanese tradition combines the artist and the warrior.

In Grass for His Pillow, Takeo has a sexual relationship with one of his closest male friends. Why did you decide to add this to the story?

Like most young men Takeo has a strong sex drive and is susceptible. And, like most humans, grief sets desire alight in him. One reviewer wrote about the “matter-of-fact eroticism” of the series being true to the spirit of mediaeval Japan. Again this was where I was trying to let my characters live in a historical world. Strong attachments between young men of the warrior class were very common: their sexual nature was not an important issue. Fidelity in marriage was also not expected of men, though women’s jealousy was recognized and validated in many plays and stories, and I felt this gave a plausible basis for Shigeru’s pledge to Lady Maruyama.

The Tribe seems to be a ninja type of group. Is this intentional?

The words “samurai” and “ninja” have become somewhat cliched in western ideas of Japan. I wanted to avoid using these words and also to avoid romanticizing either of them. So the Tribe has skills that are all based on ninjutsu, but they are also money-lenders and merchants, extremely pragmatic and cynical.

The Hidden have aspects of early Christianity in their actions and religious practices. Why did you make them outcasts? Are the Hidden an early form of Christianity?

The Hidden come from two separate strands of Japanese history. One is the “hidden Christians” of the 17th and 18th century who were severely persecuted but who emerged in Meiji Japan (only to be imprisoned again) with vestiges of their faith intact. My story is set just before the first Westerners arrive in the Three Countries, and my Hidden are the remnants of a Nestorian type of Christianity which might have come from China hundreds of years before. The Hidden are not outcasts as such, but many outcasts are Hidden, because of the appeal of a belief that holds all people are equal in the eyes of their Creator.

Kaede is another amazing creation. She is both strong and feminine at the same time. She can be impetuous, and yet she loves her family and Takeo with her entire being. What was the inspiration for her character?

Kaede is my tribute to all the Japanese women who are nameless in Japanese history, who figure in samurai family trees simply as “onna”: woman. And to my Japanese women friends who have little resemblance to the fragile Madame Butterfly type. But for all Kaede’s strengths I wanted to show her realistically, constrained by a feudal, patriarchic society. She thinks she is riding into battle in Brilliance, but, even though she is armed, when it comes to fighting her physical strength is no match for a man’s. The books contain a lot of unspoken references to the yin-yang nature of the universe, the balance between the masculine and the feminine. Kaede has to be strong according to her female nature. The love between her and Takeo is the balancing force that will bring peace to the Three Countries. Their marriage is a matter not only of romantic love but also of metaphysics, as well as, more mundanely, good strategy in war.

At the conclusion of Brilliance of the Moon, Kaede is horribly scarred on her neck and back. I thought this was an interesting place for scarring as in Japanese culture, the nape of the neck of a Geisha is considered a very erotic notion. Was this intentional?

Yes, the scarring of the nape of the neck is intentional: it is such an erotic part of the body in Japanese culture.

What inspires you to write?

It’s the way I understand the world, as well as an addictive pleasure, to create a whole world and people who have not existed before and to discover their stories.

Do you attend any writing groups? If so, how did your participation enhance your writing?

I am a very secretive and isolated writer and never show my work to anyone or even talk about it when it is in progress. It’s both strength and a weakness, I think. The strength is that the voice emerges strong and original; the weakness is in being cut off from other writers and what is going on in one’s field. But then I don’t really feel as if I have a field.

What made you a science fiction, fantasy, and horror fan? What are your favorites and why?

I can’t really describe myself as a science fiction or fantasy fan. I hardly read anything in these genres. I’m a great admirer of Diana Wynne Jones, but I haven’t read her latest books. I like J.G. Ballard too. And another favorite author is Haruki Murakami.

What do you enjoy doing when not writing?

I like being outside, doing physical things. Walking, swimming, kayaking, bird watching.

Any movies you particularly enjoyed?

I think my all-time favorite movie is Kaneto Shindo’s The Black Cats from the Grove — Yabu no naka no kuroneko: It’s a stylized ghost story, very moving and sad. The moment when the husband meets his ghost wife is sublime.

Has anyone optioned the Tales of the Otori?

The film rights to the trilogy have been bought by Universal for Kennedy Marshall. The script is being written at the moment by David Henry Hwang. It’s exciting as Kathleen Kennedy and Frank Marshall are such great producers.

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14 Responses

  1. Dominic Lou

    Was it intentional to leave the fate of Muto Shizuka undetermined?

    • Lian Hearn

      I had thought Shizuka intended to kill herself, but it turned out Heaven did not permit it. I’ve been working on a continuation of her story, as well as the other characters (Shigeko, Hiroshi, Hisao) but am not sure where it is going. I’ll get back to it this (southern) winter. Sorry it took so long to reply, I was in Japan, then had to move house.

  2. Way cool! Some very valid points! I appreciate you writing this write-up and also the rest of the site is
    very good.

  3. Rachel Cassen

    Have just finished reading the Tales of the Otori, (I bought them for my sons!) it is great to find your web site. I found that I consumed the books and the characters are some of greatest I have ever read.

    • Lian Hearn

      Hi Rachel, thanks for the great comment. It’s wonderful that you bought the books for your sons (how old are they and did they read them too?) Cheers, Lian

  4. Loved the tales of the Otori. Plan on reading the new series but want more of the first also….

    • Thanks for your comment, Rajiv. I’m writing one more – but it’s taking a long time!

  5. Yotam Sade

    Dear Lian, thank you for the amazing series of the tales of the Otori!
    I am working those days on a paper regarding the relationship between the ‘self’ and the society and I have chosen the remarkable character of Takeo as a model for analysis in my paper.
    If it is possible, I want to ask you few questions about the part that the prophecy plays in the construction of his character.
    It seems to me as if the prophecy acts in his life as a social motive. Meaning it represent to social circumstances from which he was born and not only the Fatalism he was brought into.
    Can you please share your thought on this concept?

    • Thanks for your message, I’ll try and think more about this subject in the next few days and get back to you.

    • Lian Hearn

      Dear Yotam, sorry I haven’t replied sooner. The fact is I’m not sure I really understand your question. I think the prophecy is something Takeo chooses to believe because it gives him a temporary shelter of courage and hope which enables him to push through his vision of a more just society. So the question is not whether prophecies are true or not but to what extent they enable us to have the courage to live our lives fully. Please ask again if there’s anything else I can help you with.

  6. I read the Tales of The Otori about ten years ago, having come upon Across The Nightingale Floor in a local library and became instantly obsessed. I loved the book titles, they have a melodic reverential quality and have never left my mind. Again, purely by chance, I found and bought Emperor of the Eight Islands just last week and am once again, thrilled. Looking forward now to Autumn Princess, Dragon Child. And I am an old lady of forty eight who believes good writing isn’t generationally bound.

    • Dear Breeda, thanks for your comment (and for visiting my website). I’m so glad you’ve enjoyed the books. I’m back at work now writing another tale of the Otori – it seems the characters just won’t go away. Don’t call yourself old at 48! I have many more years than that.

  7. Hi Lian,
    I’ve only just started reading your books, I began with the Tale of Shikanoko and have just finished Across the Nightingale Floor. It’s taken me years to find a book that I enjoy, let alone a whole series! I am loving it!
    I just had a question about the relation between the characters in the two books/series. I’m wondering who’s who… it seems that the Otori clan has something to do with Shikanoko’s son Take, and that Maruyama has something to do with Hina, and that the Tohan have something to do with Yoshimori’s acrobat friend Saru? Is any of this correct? I’m just trying to connect the dots! I’m also confused as to why Iida hated the Hidden so much when I thought Saru and Yoshi followed that religion at some point?
    I could have this all wrong, sorry, but I’ve been trying to figure out how it all connects! Ha

    • Lian Hearn

      Hi Diana, thanks for your message. You must have given up on hearing back from me. I’ve been a bit busy and forgot to check this site for a while.

      The Shikanoko books are a kind of origin story for the Otori books, set 300 years earlier. So I was working out some of the history, but of course I wrote them after the Otori, so those books don’t mention that history apart from a sentence in Heaven’s Net is Wide which refers to the legendary hero Takeyoshi and the sword, Jato. In my world historical records were not consistent or all that reliable, so a lot of the past is either lost or considered semi mythical. Saru came from the village of Iida, you are right, and like Yoshi was one of the early Hidden, but I believe he lost his faith and it was not followed by his descendants.

      Thanks for your careful reading of the books which is something of a joy.

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