Ruth Ozeki

A novelist on a remote island in the Pacific is linked to a bullied and depressed Tokyo teenager after discovering a Hello Kitty lunchbox that washed ashore.

A Tale for the Time Being

On a remote island in the Pacific Northwest, a Hello Kitty lunchbox washes up on the beach. Tucked inside is a collection of curious items, including the diary of a sixteenyear-old Japanese girl named Nao Yasutani. Ruth, who finds the lunchbox, suspects that it is debris from Japan's devastating 2011 tsunami. Once Ruth starts to read the diary, she quickly finds herself drawn into the mystery of the young girl's fate. In a manga cafE in Tokyo's Electric Town, Nao has decided there's only one escape from the loneliness and pain of her life, as she's uprooted from her U.S. home, bullied at school, and watching her parents spiral deeper into disaster. But before she ends it all, she wants to accomplish one thing: to recount the story of her great-grandmother, a 104-year-old Zen Buddhist nun, in the pages of her diary. The diary, Nao's only solace, is her cry for help to a reader she can only imagine. Full of Ozeki's signature humour and insight, "A Tale for the Time Being" is a brilliantly inventive, beguiling story of our shared humanity and the search for home.

bianca

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?

In the wake of the 2011 tsunami, Ruth discovers a Hello Kitty lunchbox washed up on the shore of her beach home in British Columbia. Within it lies a diary that expresses the hopes, heartbreak and dreams of a young girl desperate for someone to understand her. Each turn of the page pulls Ruth deeper into the mystery of Nao’s life, and forever changes her in a way neither could foresee. Weaving across continents and decades, A Tale for the Time Being is an extraordinary novel about our shared humanity and the search for home.

Manu

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.

A brilliant, unforgettable novel from bestselling author Ruth Ozeki—shortlisted for the Booker Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award “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.” In Tokyo, sixteen-year-old Nao has decided there’s only one escape from her aching loneliness and her classmates’ bullying. But before she ends it all, Nao first plans to document the life of her great grandmother, a Buddhist nun who’s lived more than a century. A diary is Nao’s only solace—and will touch lives in ways she can scarcely imagine. Across the Pacific, we meet Ruth, a novelist living on a remote island who discovers a collection of artifacts washed ashore in a Hello Kitty lunchbox—possibly debris from the devastating 2011 tsunami. As the mystery of its contents unfolds, Ruth is pulled into the past, into Nao’s drama and her unknown fate, and forward into her own future. Full of Ozeki’s signature humor and deeply engaged with the relationship between writer and reader, past and present, fact and fiction, quantum physics, history, and myth, A Tale for the Time Being is a brilliantly inventive, beguiling story of our shared humanity and the search for home.

A Novel

Jamie Neely

In the wake of the 2011 tsunami, Ruth discovers a Hello Kitty lunchbox washed up on the shore of her beach home in British Columbia. Within it lies a diary that expresses the hopes, heartbreak and dreams of a young girl desperate for someone to understand her. Each turn of the page pulls Ruth deeper into the mystery of Nao's life, and forever changes her in a way neither could foresee.Weaving across continents and decades, A Tale for the Time Being is an extraordinary novel about our shared humanity and the search for home.

Ian Mason

A novelist on a remote island in the Pacific is linked to a bullied and depressed Tokyo teenager after discovering a Hello Kitty lunchbox that washed ashore in this new novel from the award-wining, best-selling author of My Year of Meats.

Gaby

I really liked Nao’s story but wasn't really captured by Ruth’s perspective.

amelo

Meg Ma. Guerrero 

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

Ianna Chia

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

Ashley Denktas

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.

esperanza 

jess

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.

indri

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. 

Mari Sivoney

Kahli Scott

Reihan Maulana

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.

Andrew John Kinney

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!

Lamia Hajani

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.

Shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize 2013.'Hi! My name is Nao, and I am a time being. Do you know what a time being is? Well, if you give me a moment, I will tell you.'Ruth discovers a Hello Kitty lunchbox washed up on the shore of her beach home. Within it lies a diary that expresses the hopes and dreams of a young girl. She suspects it might have arrived on a drift of debris from the 2011 tsunami. With every turn of the page, she is sucked deeper into an enchanting mystery. In a small cafe in Tokyo, sixteen-year-old Nao Yasutani is navigating the challenges thrown up by modern life. In the face of cyberbullying, the mysteries of a 104-year-old Buddhist nun and great-grandmother, and the joy and heartbreak of family, Nao is trying to find her own place - and voice - through a diary she hopes will find a reader and friend who finally understands her. Weaving across continents and decades, and exploring the relationship between reader and writer, fact and fiction, A Tale for the Time Being is an extraordinary novel about our shared humanity and the search for home.

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!

Jannis M

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.

jam 🍯

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.

Karis Ryu

Anyaconda

This was one of the books that has been on my want to read list for years. Then I found a thrift shop copy and it sucked me right in. 
It is such an impactful book and I don't really know how to describe it. I want to read everything Ruth Ozeki has written and is going to write. 

This is a new favorite of all time.

Ivy X

Received this from a goodreads giveaway. 

It took me a while to get through this book but it was a great read (minus 1 star because of how slow it got at some points). I loved the trippy perspectives relating to concepts of time, multiple universes/outcomes, life/death, etc -- reading them from Nao's perspective was so refreshing! 

While Nao's sections spoke to me more than Ruth's, I think Ruth's sections provided the necessary perspective of a present reader. 

Also, spoiler -- but the two most heartbreaking moments in this book were: 
1. when Nao found out her father tried to win the online auction for her sake. The sadness and shame she probably faced when she realized what he was trying to do and how much he knew about the bullying she was experiencing :( & the anger she must've felt when she thought "oh this is another thing my father can't do right."

2. Reading Haruki #1's secret French Diary and finding out that he decided to crash into the waves -- "Better to do battle with the waves, who may yet forgive me." -- this truth is so heartbreaking as it highlights a bitter reality for kamikaze pilots during the world war. Haruki #1's struggle with his moral compass/conscience also puts Nao's father's experience of being fired for not wanting to work on military technology into perspective and you understand his grief/depression more.

Trish

❝ Life is full of stories. Or maybe life is only stories. ❞

——

❝ But memories are time beings, too, like cherry blossoms or ginkgo leaves; for a while they are beautiful, and then they fade and die. ❞

——

❝ Where do words come from? They come from the dead. We inherit them. Borrow them. Use them for a time to bring the dead to life. ❞

——

Marcus Tullius Cicero said, “To be ignorant of what occurred before you were born is to remain always a child. For what is the worth of human life, unless it is woven into the life of our ancestors by the records of history?”

A Tale for the Time being is a multifaceted, metaphysical novel orbiting around the elusive concept of time. There are dual perspectives, two timelines, discussions of Buddhism, Zen practices, school bullying, depression, suicide, quantum physics, elements of magical realism, commentaries on politics, war, natural disasters, terrorist attacks, dementia, writing and reading. That’s the big-picture summary. 

But if someone asked me what this book was about and why they should read it, I’d say this:

A Tale for the Time Being is a coming-of-age story that says “you’re never too old to grow up.” 

——

❝ Hey Jiko, how old do you have to be before you’re really grown up? Not just your body, but your mind?

<105 years>

Thats what she just texted me. That’s how old she says you have to be before your mind really grows up, but since she’s a hundred and four, I’m pretty sure she’s joking. ❞

——

No matter how difficult and unbearable life may seem at a moment, keep living. Change is the one thing we can rely on, so keep learning, keep growing, keep living— the world, circumstances, people, and atmosphere around you will change too, then one day you’ll wake up with a new zeal for life. 

And for those moments you feel your life is stuck or stagnant, look to the past—history and literature—and learn from it, know what happened before you, expand your mind, your perspective, your horizons. Never stop growing up. 

——

Thank you so much @penguinbooks and @vikingbooks for the gifted book.

eliz

it's hard for me to listen to audiobooks so I almost never do but the narrator of this book (the author herself) saved the whole thing. much entertaining than the story itself, gave life to the characters the way I couldn't read it the same way again after trying to read it with my own eyes. it's unfortunate since I liked the flow of Nao's side of story but it keeps on dragging because of Ruth's povs. could not care less about her and her husband and anything about her overall.

edit: from 2-3 stars
while browsing through my notes I realized that the story is actually quite memorable. guess I read it on the wrong time.

excerpts:
p. 21 "A time being is someone who lives in time, and that means you, and me, and everyone of us who is, or was, or will ever be."
p. 126 "I don't think it was helping him find the meaning of life, but at least it gave him a concrete goal, which counts for something. I believe it doesn't matter what it is, as long as you can find something concrete to keep you busy while you are living your meaningless life."
p. 137 "...by cutting into illusions. By cutting intro pixels and finding blood. By entering the cave of mind and walking into fire. By making shadows bleed. You can feel life completely by taking it away."

A brilliant, unforgettable, and long-awaited novel from bestselling author Ruth Ozeki "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." In Tokyo, sixteen-year-old Nao has decided there's only one escape from her aching loneliness and her classmates' bullying. But before she ends it all, Nao plans to document the life of her great-grandmother, a Buddhist nun who's lived more than a century. A diary is Nao's only solace--and will touch lives in a ways she can scarcely imagine. Across the Pacific, we meet Ruth, a novelist living on a remote island who discovers a collection of artifacts washed ashore in a Hello Kitty lunchbox--possibly debris from the devastating 2011 tsunami. As the mystery of its contents unfolds, Ruth is pulled into the past, into Nao's drama and her unknown fate, and forward into her own future. Full of Ozeki's signature humour and deeply engaged with the relationship between writer and reader, past and present, fact and fiction, quantum physics, history, and myth, A Tale for the Time Being is a brilliantly inventive, beguiling story of our shared humanity and the search for home.

Jonathan Crowe

My review is now online at AE: The Canadian Science Fiction Review.

Sara

Stephanie Ridiculous

Be warned that sexual assault, child prostitution, and bullying are major plot lines. Probably not suitable for younger readers, and adults should proceed with caution. 

This book starts promising but totally fails to deliver. Ruth is boring, one dimensional, and static. She is treated like an idiot by everyone in her life and usually just takes it. Her husband is just as flat and literally only serves to communicate information either pointless, or that the author thinks you're too stupid to figure out yourself. 

Nao is supposed to be a 16 year old girl, but her narrative doesn't fall in line with that at all. 

The majority of the book references a goal that is never achieved, the authors attempts to be edgy with "quantum time" hi-jinks is dull and predictable. 

The first 30 pages or so are intriguing, but it falls apart quickly after that.

A Tale for the Time Being

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