The Fate of Rural Hell

In 1975, when political scientist Benedict Anderson reached Wat  Phai Rong Wua, a massive temple complex in rural Thailand conceived by  Buddhist monk Luang Phor Khom, he felt he had wandered into a demented  Disneyland. One of the worlds most bizarre tourist attractions, Wat Phai Rong  Wua was designed as a cautionary museum of sorts; its gruesome statues  depict violent and torturous scenes that showcase what hell may be like.  Over the next few decades, Anderson, who is best known for his work, Imagined Communities,  found himself transfixed by this unusual amalgamation of objects,  returning several times to see attractions like the largest metal-cast  Buddha figure in the world and the Palace of a Hundred Spires. The  concrete statuaries and perverse art in Luang Phors personal museum of  hell included, u201cside by side, an upright human skeleton in a glass  cabinet and a life-size replica of Michelangelos gigantic nude David,  wearing fashionable red underpants from the top of which poked part of a  swollen, un-Florentine penis,u201d alongside dozens of statues of evildoers  being ferociously punished in their afterlife. In The Fate of Rural Hell, Anderson unravels the intrigue of this strange setting, endeavoring to discover what compels so many Thai  visitors to travel to this popular spectacle and what order, if any,  inspired its creation. At the same time, he notes in Wat Phai Rong Wua  the unexpected effects of the gradual advance of capitalism into the far  reaches of rural Asia.   Both a one-of-a-kind travelogue and a penetrating look at the community that sustains it, The Fate of Rural Hell is sure to intrigue and inspire conversation as much as Wat Phai Rong Wua itself.