RM : Of course the novel is a very old way of expression. To tell you the truth, it is hard to believe that it still exists. But anyway, all writers must , in one way or another, be aware of or be conscious of other kinds of expression within their own age. For example, the works of writers like Joyce or Proust are different from those of the writers who didn't know movies.

There are these writers known as magic realists who come mostly from South

America. They depict what seems like an illusionary world, but as a matter of fact, for them, it is nothing but real.

Now your works, . . . I've been trying to figure out how this type of work has become possible, and came to the conclusion that the secret probably lies in movies and pop culture. For example, you have the style of Mozart or Debussy, and at the same time you use the methods of Charlie Parker or Bob Dylan. All kinds of culture are mixed up in your work. Not that you were directly influenced by them. It's just that you have a certain kind of resonance of the age that we live in. This is why I said, "No other writer has done this before."

SE : In at least much of American fiction over the last thirty or forty years, the American literary imagination has been usurped by movies and rock'n roll. And since that has not happened to the same extent in South America, the South American writers seem to have a conviction about their illusions that most North American writers don't have.

And part of the problem with most of North American fiction is that, I think, most of the writers have become intimidated by what they perceive to be their obsolescence. I've never really understood what postmodernism is, but I suspect that it is in some part a response to the latent obsolescence of fiction and that it is trying to overcome that obsolescence by making its artificiality its own point. It's an intention of postmodernism that I personally reject. I may be completely obsolete, I may be hundred years behind my time, but I still want to try to draw the reader into the reality of my work.

RM : It's OK not to be postmodern. Why not ? And you are not obsolete at all. To the contrary, I think your work is the very new. Reading your books, I hear Bach, Bob Dylan, and also sometimes The Velvet Underground, Doors, Charlie Parker, John Coltrane. But at the same time, the music that I hear from your work is so unique. American pop music has not yet been able to produce the content or substance that your world has.

SE : Thank you again. When I was a film student at UCLA, I somehow intuitively decided that I needed to make a choice. I could either be a novelist or a film maker, but from the way I was creatively wired or creatively connected, I wasn't going to be able to do both. I'm struck by the fact that you are. I wonder if you feel a division in your creative psyche in order to do this, or if the literature informs the film and the film informs the literature. And finally I would just like to add that the Velvet Underground is the greatest American rock band of all.

RM : The switches or the channels that I use to write novels and to make movies are of course different. I guess I will have to explain how it is in Japan. Now Japan is a very small, flat, unified world. Everything is very small and very much the same. There are no Others. It intends to be relaxing but it can also be dull. You can't meet with the New, or the Strange.

When you make movies you are able to meet all kinds of people, the actors, the film crew, etc., and all of you are bound by a certain kind of risk. As you know, making a movie is like gambling, you have to take a risk. And these encounters can be very useful in my fiction writing. They produce good feedback.