Beautifully crafted, A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki tells the story of a Japanese teenager, whose life flipped after she arrived in Japan. Scratch that – this novel tells the story of Time.
Imagine yourself peacefully walking by the shore to stumble upon a plastic bag. Would you throw it away, or pick it up to discover what’s inside? The couple, Ruth and Oliver decide to choose the latter. What they soon discover makes Ruth’s life pause – away from writing a memoir she’d been working on for years, and even writing all-together – she finds herself chained by the words and life of another girl, a younger girl, who she isn’t even sure to be alive.
Ruth picks up Nao’s book from the sea, and everything changes.
This novel leaves the reader enthralled; it is one of those books that hold on to you and stay at the back of your mind until you’re done reading, and after you’re done, you’d want to read it all over again! It holds meaning, authenticity, culture, and truth.
It is a story about Time –about a young girl attempting to write of the adventures of her “anarchist, feminist, novelist, and nun” grandmother, Jiko. Two lives are recorded from the perspective of two women – both writers, both wanderers. The switch between the two is intriguing; it is at once beautiful; captivating, fascinating, truly eloquent. The account is a masterful piece of work.
Nao, the Japanese teenager, symbolizes the past. She speaks of her father, mother, and Jiko. Sometimes she speaks of her classmates, and her substitute teacher. But it’s not their stories that add to the novel, it is the way she tells it: it is her odd yet realistic perspective as though you’re reading a real diary… perhaps even your own diary.
Ruth’s story, on the other hand, is symbolic of the present, which is Nao’s future. Written in third person, the writing is professional, expressive, and carefully pruned.
This is a story about Time, and Buddhists, and Japan. It is a story about those who are fascinated with French culture, and others passionate with the environment. It speaks of hippies and Zen masters. It is a story about a young girl attempting to write about her favourite person, Jiko, and another, attempting to write about her dearest, mother. And this novel, A Tale for the Time Being, is a reflection of both of their souls.
“A time being is someone who lives in time, and that means you, and me, and every one of us who is, or was, or ever will be. As for me, right now I am sitting in a French maid café in Akiba Electricity Town, listening to a sad chanson that is playing sometime in your past, which is also my present, writing this and wondering about you, somewhere in my future. And if you’re reading this, then maybe by now you’re wondering about me, too.”
