A Tale for the Time Being
Reviews
oh this book was so lovely, it makes me feel more appreciative towards all the time beings on this earth ! i even teared up from time to time, what a blessing to be able to read and get inspired from books like these 🥲
A Tale for the Time Being is a bit like this - the words and stories and hopes you need most can find you if you give them the chance to, if you just stop for a moment and breathe and allow your whole self to take in what surrounds you.
This book reflects on the violence that plagues humans in this world, from children bullying other children to technological advancements aiding a war absent of conscience. It grieves over the tragedies that haunt the people of Japan, including those of the kamikaze pilots from World War II and the Tohoku tsunami of 2011. It draws from Zen Buddhism philosophy to lift one out of the confines of the aches of the past, with thoughts and ideas reminiscent of coping strategies learned in therapy. Its wisdom reminds readers that in the midst of all the ugly, beauty still persists in this world, in this life.
This book is meditative and sincere. It’s magical in its mysteriousness and infinite coincidences, in its ghosts and mystical crows, in the way time slows down and layers over itself, in the way a Buddhist nun named Jiko describes everything in this world as being one and the same.
I think this book I found by chance was one meant for me, and I intend to treasure and hold it close.
Gorgeous read; entertained in two worlds that are really just one
POPSUGAR 2020: A book set in Japan I really really liked this, but did find it a bit dense at times, though for the most part the writing was either beautiful and magical (Ruth) or completely in character of a teen girl, equally tortured and hopeful (Nao!!!! Love Nao!!!!!!)
i loved the dual narrative here; nao’s voice is so lively + dreamlike (even when dark), and the contrast with ruth’s modern life & problems is just so fascinating. loved, thanks @foxface for putting me on
Read while traveling to Tokyo for the first time. Liked the beginning, loved the middle, liked the end. The meat of it revolves around a relationship between a young girl and her Buddhist feminist grandmother. The teachings, language and confrontations with Japanese heritage and culture all brought the my experiences in Japan to life. A story beautifully told.
I really liked Nao’s story but wasn't really captured by Ruth’s perspective.
One of my favorite reads this year! Though it took me some time to finish it (I've become a very slow reader), it never once lost my interest. It's intriguing, sometimes alarming, and it keeps you wanting to figure out what's happening alongside Ruth. Had a lot to think about once I was done with the book even though I wasn't all too sure what it was I was trying to think about, if that makes any sense. I wasn't sure if I'd enjoy this book as much as I wanted to but I was very happy with my experience with it. (Not to mention, it's a very pretty book to look at.)
so glad i gave this book a chance. reminded me of how i used to obsessively write in a diary every day for more than 10 years of my life, like i wanted to remember everything.
this book got me out of a reading slump from how shit i was feeling IRL. reading this reminded me that tragedy will always exist but there is so much stupid hope, sometimes it is worth it to be alive. god damn. this book held my hands and told me to keep my head up for another day.
took me a bit of effort to get through the POV-switching at the start of the novel but holy shit, i was so invested in nao’s diary entries and the investigative work from ruth. this book SLAPS
I really enjoyed it - once you get sucked in you get sucked in (which took about till Nao's 2-3rd excerpt). It made me realize that tragedy doesn't always mean death or some elaborate unlucky circumstance. Sometimes it's just not knowing the whole picture, saying the wrong thing, or just simply irony. The story makes it feel like there is something beautiful to that.
I can appreciate it for all that it is: a well-written novel with some great lines and full-fleshed characters. However, I was bored out of my mind and it took me months to get through. That is not the fault of Ruth Ozeki, it is simply just not something I would normally gravitate towards. Maybe I will try to read this again in a few years, but for now, she will live on my bookshelf.
4.5
One word review : tempestuous. This is another book, after Kafka On The Shore, that made me reflect and ponder aimlessly, onto existential crisis. With a tempestuous yet overzealous emotions governing me throughout this 432-page-novel that took the author 6 years to complete, I finished the book with an empty feeling and in huge desperation to learn Quantum Mechanics and stalk more into Ruth Ozeki. Ruth Ozeki’s new Japanese literature novel fused with metaphysics and the blurred sense of reality and dream [a.k.a magical realism] dives into a tantalizing narration that brandishes mysteries to be solved and ideas to be explored. It tells us about an American novelist named Ruth has found Nao’s diary on the beach in a plastic-wrapped Hello Kitty lunchbox that also contains a batch of old letters, and the whole novel goes through each process of Nao’s life. Ruth was a novelist who was feeling dislocated and loss. Even if she loves Oliver, her husband who is an ecologist, it was undeniable that she missed the bustling life in New York City that she left to join him on the remote island. This led her unable to finish the book she’s been working on for years, so finding Nao’s diary is like the birdwatcher’s spatuletail. She immerses herself in Nao’s diary and searches obsessively online for clues about the girl’s family and their ultimate fate. Ozeki masterfully develops the two parallel stories while erasing the line between reality and past. She creates a virtual dialogue between the blocked writer and the diarist, who confides, “I’m reaching forward through time to touch you.” Ruth’s and Nao’s struggles to find meaning in their lives draw on everything from mythology and Japanese history to quantum mechanics and European culture. There’s also plenty of Japanese pop culture, scathingly portrayed as exploitative of vulnerable young women and a tool in the enforcement of conformism. The novel ultimately conveys through the darkest points of bullying and also suicidal-Kokoro-feels of Jiko’s son, who was shimmering with the conviction that art and faith lead us to truths beyond the reach of reason alone. Ozeki knew that in the end, the most important truths are simple.
this book covers so many themes and one of them is something that i’ve been into lately — about simply being in the moment. i think out of all the other medias that i’ve consumed about the theme, this book gives the best, most though-provoking exploration about it. other than that, i feel like the book would be a lot better if we get less of the author’s part (i’m sorry 😭). Nao’s parts are so good, but Ruth’s part is a little bit dull that i found myself sighing every time i reach hers. not only that it kinda interfere with the focus on Nao’s story, i just don’t prefer being told on how to react? to a story (but i understand if other people enjoys this kind of format). + the sudden magical realism (?) when we’re like 80% of the book kind of caught me off guard too but anyways. i do enjoy Nao’s part a lot, so at the end, the good managed to outweigh the bad. the writing is great, and i love the humor that comes up every now and then. i also like the closure that we got. a 4/5!
A bit slow at times, but the mystery kept encouraging me to reach it's end. Based on tragic points of history that can still resonate with many today with an even more impactful necessary message of perseverance.
In my opinion, a perfect book.
Just Finished reading "A tale for the time being" by Ruth Ozeki. This book tells us about two stories but different timelines, where "Ruth" is the observer of Nao's Story. Nao's story has been pretty rough, with all the kinds of bullying and stuff, yet she managed to go through with the help of her grandmother, Jiko. As a person who likes historical events, this book gives some information about The 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami. It makes me feel something like.. maybe a bit of humanity and humbleness?? It was a funny book, but also a bit touching. This book is great for engaging with interesting philosophical ideas without being heavy-handed about them. That being said, I would definitely read it again.
This was an interesting read with a twisty ending. I had no idea that 15,000 people died in the 2011 tsunami in Japan, and the depiction of the vicious nature of Japanese high school life caught me a bit off guard. The cycling of narratives between Nao, Ruth, and Haruki's letters to Jiko helped keep up the pace of the book, which otherwise would have bogged down a bit (for me) with only Nao's story. Nao's spiritual growth through the book from aimless schoolgirl to something approaching maturity was well done. Thanks to Lori for pointing me to this!
I thought about this book for a long time after I read it. Just fascinating stuff. A bit odd towards the end and not a choice I would have made as the author, but still... wow.
23/05/2016: '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.' This book was so beautiful! It was funny and heartbreaking and extremely insightful all at the same time and the main character, Nao, was extremely loveable. I found myself more drawn to her story at first but slowly Ruth and Oliver and even little Pesto crawled their way into my heart. It was a beautiful story and the writing was just as good. The book is peppered with marvelous quotes and the following is one of my favourites: 'Sometimes when she told stories about the past her eyes would get teary from all the memories she had, but they weren't tears. She wasn't crying. They were just the memories, leaking out.' Overall, this is one of my favourite reads of 2016 so far. I highly recommend it!
Best book I have read this year!
My favorite book.
I've read and reread and listened and relistened to this book multiple times (it's phenomenal as an audiobook, narrated by Ozeki herself with proper intonation for the Buddhist chants). In my opinion, it is the most masterful of Ozeki's novels and expertly employs her version of magical realism in a way that makes the regular world seem all the more special. This book is very dear to me.
This book makes me want to live.
i will love this book forever
Highlights
...To grasp this truly, every being that exists in the entire world is linked together as moments in time, and at the same time they exist as individual moments of time. Because all moments are the time being, they are your time being. ㅡ Dōgen Zenji, Uji
I never cried. But for some reason, the sight of these stupid bugs tearing each other apart was too much for me. It was horrible, but of course it wasn’t the insects. It was the human beings who thought this would be fun to watch.
I should only make myself ridiculous in the eyes of others if I clung to life and hugged it when I have no more to offer.
Does falling scare you? I’ve never been afraid of heights. When I stand on the edge of a tall place I feel like I’m on the edge of time, peering into forever. The question What if…? rises up in my mind, and it’s exciting because I know that in the next instant, in less time than it takes to snap my fingers, I could fly into eternity.
I was still thinking about what she said about waves, and it made me sad because I knew that her little wave was not going to last and soon she would join the sea again, and even though I know you can’t hold on to water, still I gripped her fingers a little more tightly to keep her from leaking away.
“A wave is born from deep conditions of the ocean. A person is born from deep conditions of the world. A person pokes up from the world and rolls along like a wave, until it is time to sink down again. Up, down. Person, wave.”
I just lay there and let the waves wash over me, and I wondered what would happen if I stopped trying to get back up. Just let my body go. Would I be washed out to sea? The sharks would eat my limbs and organs. Little fish would feed on my fingertips. My beautiful white bones would fall to the bottom of the ocean, where anemones would grow upon them like flowers.
…it was okay just to feel grateful sometimes, even if you don’t say anything. Feeling is the important part. You don’t have to make a big deal about it.
I had a strong thought to turn around and throw myself headfirst down the steep stone steps or just let myself free-fall backward into the pillowy softness of eternity, and it wouldn’t matter if I bumped and bounced like a cabbage all the way down until I hit bottom and then rolled out to sea, because at least I’d be safe and dead.
He was standing a few steps above me, and he looked really tall, and as I watched him, I thought maybe I could understand his faraway expression. Maybe it was happiness. I think my dad was happy.
Maybe this is what it’s like when you die. Your inbox stays empty. At first, you just think nobody’s answering, so you check your SENT box to make sure your outgoing mail is okay, and then you check your ISP to make sure your account is still active, and eventually you have to conclude that you’re dead.
But in the time it takes to say now, now is already over. It’s already then.
Then is the opposite of now. So saying now obliterates its meaning, turning it into exactly what it isn’t. It’s like the word is committing suicide or something. So then I’d start making it shorter… now, ow, oh, o… until it was just a bunch of little grunting sounds and not even a word at all.
It was hopeless, like trying to hold a snowflake on your tongue or a soap bubble between your fingertips. Catching it destroys it, and I felt like I was disappearing, too.
It made me sad when I caught myself pretending that everybody out there in cyberspace cared about what I thought, when really nobody gives a shit. And when I multiplied that sad feeling by all the millions of people in their lonely little rooms, furiously writing and posting to their lonely little pages that nobody has time to read because they’re all so busy writing and posting, it kind of broke my heart.
Whenever I think about my stupid empty life, I come to the conclusion that I’m just wasting my time, and I’m not the only one. Everybody I know is the same, except for [her]. Just wasting time, killing time, feeling crappy.
And what does it mean to waste time anyway? If you waste time is it lost forever?
And if time is lost forever, what does that mean? It’s not like you get to die any sooner, right?
I explained this to Jiko, and she agreed it wasn't such a good idea, but that it was okay just to feel grateful sometimes, even if you don't say anything, Feeling is the important part. You don't have to make a big deal about it.
"The ancient Greeks believed that when vou read aloud, it was actually the dead, borrowing your tongue, in order to speak again.”
"Because it's your job to know?" He had been directing his remarks to the ceiling, and now he turned to face her. "You’re a writer." It was perhaps the cruelest thing he could have said. "But I'm not!" she cried, her anguished voice rising to compete with the wind. “I used to be, but I’m not anymore! The words just aren’t there…”
She wasn't crying. They were just the memories, leaking out.
She closed her eyes again. Her mind was her power. She wanted her mind back.
“I can’t take a break," she said, sitting back down and crossing her legs. “My whole life is a break. I really need to do this."
Print is predictable and impersonal, conveying information in a mechanical transaction with the reader's eye. Handwriting, by contrast, resists the eye, reveals its meaning slowly, and is as intimate as skin.
I think it's important to have clearly defined goals in life, don't you? Especially if you don't have a lot of life left. Because if you don't have clear goals you might run out of time, and when the day comes, you'll find yourself standing on the parapet of a tall building, or sitting on your bed with a bottle of pills in your hand, thinking, Shit! I blew it. If only I'd set clearer goals for myself!
I wasn't so interested in the dinosaurs and ichthyosaurs and stuff because they're kind ofa cliché. Every elementary school kid goes through a phase of dinosaur love, and I wanted my knowledge base to be more subtle than that. So I skipped over the great lizards and in November, just around the time I'd started on the extinct Hominidae, my dad committed suicide again.
In my dream, I asked her, What on earth is a moment? A moment is a very small particle of time. It is so small that one day is made of 6,400,099,980 moments(...) Old Jiko snapped her fingers(...)Please try it, she said. Did you snap? Because if you did, that snap equals sixty-five moments(...) If you start snapping your fingers now and continue snapping 98,463,077 times without stopping, the sun will rise and the sun will set, and the sky will grow dark and the night will deepen, and everyone will sleep while you are still snapping, until finally, sometime after daybreak, when you finish up your 98,463,077th snap, you will experience the truly intimate awareness of knowing exactly how you spent every single moment of a single day of your life (...) her point was simple. Everything in the universe is constantly changing, and nothing stays the same, and we must understand how quickly time flows by if we are to wake up and truly live our lives. That’s what it means to be a time being, old Jiko told me, and then she snapped her crooked fingers again. And just like that, you die.