After his excellent The Thief, I made a vow to read anything by Fuminori Nakamura, but Cult X was one tedious read. So this is going to be a short review because I have nothing worthy to say.

When Toru Narazaki’s girlfriend, Ryoko, disappears, he tries to track her down, despite the warnings of a private detective he’s hired to find her. Ryoko’s past is shrouded in mystery, but the one concrete clue to her whereabouts is a previous address where she lived: in a compound in the heart of Tokyo, with a group that seems to be a cult led by a charismatic guru with a revisionist Buddhist scheme of life, death, and society. Narazaki plunges into the secretive world of the cult, ready to expose himself to any of the guru’s brainwashing tactics if it means he can learn the truth about Ryoko. But the cult isn’t what he expected, and he has no idea of the bubbling violence beneath its surface.

Inspired by the 1995 sarin gas attack on the Tokyo subway, Cult X is an exploration of what draws individuals into extremism. This multi-faceted novel is nothing less than a tour de force, capturing the connections between astrophysics, neuroscience, and religion. It is an invective against predatory corporate consumerism and exploitative geopolitics, and it is a love story about compassion in the face of nihilism.

I took the above synopsis from the back of the book and it served a huge purpose. Sometimes I had re-read it again to understand WTF I was reading. The words are like black particles floating around before my eyes and I can’t get past two chapters at a time. The story isn’t compelling, neither are any of the characters.

There is a lot of very disturbing sex, but they are hardly well-written, and they made no sense. Women exist in the cult for the pleasure of men; consent is a dubious concept. I am no prude, mind you, and I can’t understand why do the people in the cult do what they do.

The writing is abysmal. Huge chunks of it are devoted to endless rants about philosophy, culture, disenfranchisement and religion. I skipped them. I am not sure if it’s the translation that is bad, but with a story this nonsensical I doubt it matters much. I have no fricking idea why there are so many rosy raves about this novel; maybe it’s just me. I rather poke needles into my hand, while reading this. At least this way I can feel something.

*1/2 / 5