SO interesting. Avid Muakami fans will find much in common with several of his fiction themes: isolation of the individual, isolation/pastiching of the self from the self, touching faintly on the supernatural, cults... no cats or jazz records though ;)

The first half of the book is edited transcripts of interviews that Murakami did with survivors of the 1995 sarin gas attacks on the Tokyo subway by members of the Aum Shinrikyo cult. Murakami wrote a brief analysis after that half (I listened to this analysis part twice and want to find a text copy to study).

The second half is edited transcripts of interviews with people who were members of Aum Shinrikyo leading up to the time of the attacks (but not the people who actually did the gassing). Again afterward, Murakami presents an essay analysis in the form of an article that he wrote reviewing a biography of one of the members.

This book is so valuable because it's a distilled amount of first-hand accounts of PTSD, survivor's guilt, etc, and a bit of self-culture analysis on the part of the victims, and what exactly a cult does to suck people in deeper from the perspective of Aum members. Of course, all of it was fascinating, but the interviews with Aum followers was the most interesting part.

Some takeaways that struck me because I have seen these even in mainstream Christian churches:
- Guru-ism: One person has all the answers and you aspire to be like them
- Lack of sharing knowledge sources (example: does your pastor talk about what he read to prepare for the sermon? Few people just make things up, but beware the person who doesn't openly cite and by not doing so creates a dependence on him/her for getting knowledge)
- Openly shaming/punishing/sense of disapproval for breaking rules, questioning, or not fitting in enough with the group
- Leader surrounded by only yes-men (Often this is hard to know unless you are part of the leadership team or know leadership members well, but if you get a chance to see that, you should be very wary.)
- Rules about personal relationships, diet, clothes
- Give more money and get access to more/special information or a better position within the group
- Circular reasoning for things that don't make sense (instead of saying: Honestly, I don't know but here is what I personally believe)
- Unwanted/inappropriate sexual advances from leadership (if you feel like something is "weird" it probably is)

Though that is the most interesting, the most profound part is Murakami's reflection between parts one and two. He says that instead of accepting the standard narrative of good vs evil, us vs them, we need to realize that it is "us" who created the conditions for "them" to exist. Therefore, we need to take responsibility for that, communicate, and work to change that for the future. If all of these alienated, outside-of-mainstream people who were so attracted to Aum had found a different community to become a part of and accepted by, they wouldn't have needed to join Aum. Many of the members said things like, "I had a lot of friends, but no one was interested in talking about what I was truly interested in. At Aum I encountered many people who thought the same way I did." No wonder they willing gave thousands of yen to join. It's not that these beliefs or interests were so obscure or crazy—they just wanted basic spiritual purpose, a sense of belonging, a community center to do stuff at, and something more meaningful than consumerism. But looping back, I couldn't help but think about the current political discussion in the US—how did Trump get elected? How do all these racist people exist? etc etc. Maybe a better question is "What did I do to participate in creating the conditions for X situation to happen?"

The audiobook version is very nice with actors for masculine, feminine, and Murakami's voices.