Thirteen years after the Tokyo subway sarin gas attack and four years after its initial publication in Japan, Akutagawa Prize-winning author Fuminori Nakamura’s CULT X --- considered by his following to be his magnum opus --- has finally been translated (thanks to Kalau Almony) and published for English-speaking audiences.

After Ryoko Tachibana disappears, hinting to her boyfriend Toru Narazaki that she was going to commit suicide, Toru gets a potential lead on her whereabouts from a P.I., who finds out that Ryoko was previously part of an unknown religious organization in Tokyo, “the kind of organization people didn’t hear many good things about.” He ignores the P.I.’s warning to stay away and goes to its headquarters. There, he learns that Ryoko had been a member of a cult, led by Shotaro Matsuo, that tries to answer the question “Did God or man create the world?” with a revisionist Buddhist scheme of life, death and society.

"Nakamura incorporates a noir aesthetic into his thriller, which makes for an interesting read about tolerance in the face of brutal nihilism."

While trying to learn more about the organization and Ryoko’s present loyalties, Toru delves heavily into Matsuo’s philosophy, which contains discussions of atoms, the Big Bang and politics. Along the way, he hears about Matsuo’s rival group “Cult X,” led by the devious Sawatari, which is far more explicit --- a sex cult with plans to become a terroristic organization. In the meantime, the novel shifts focus for a while to Takahara, Ryoko’s secret lover, and his conscience. Throughout all of this, Toru realizes that Ryoko has joined this dangerous group, and he must infiltrate it to discover their true purpose.

Some of the issues surrounding the book could be chalked up to the translation, which does not conform to the Western methods of storytelling and character development that most Americans are used to --- for example, the anti-nationalist point of view, and in the prologue there is no way for the reader to determine Ryoko and Toru’s ages. That kind of key information may be used when written in Japanese, but there is a choice to make it ambiguous in the English translation. Exploring the different methods of practicing that a cult can take is an intriguing concept, but the translation ends up treating the two main cults in a good vs. evil binary through the use of expository dialogue. The themes and ideas are the stars that just needed to have more light peeking through.

CULT X focuses on the psychology of its characters and challenges readers’ expectations of how they think about the typical cults they have heard about over the years. Nakamura incorporates a noir aesthetic into his thriller, which makes for an interesting read about tolerance in the face of brutal nihilism.