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A Tale for the Time Being

Ruth Ozeki

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Mongolia, anyone?
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last updated Mar 01, 2019 03:23PM

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What Members Thought

May 15, 2013 Jenny (Reading Envy) rated it liked it

Shelves: read2013, tournament-of-books, cold-weather-islands, netgalley, location-canada, location-japan, ebooks, around-the-world

In trying to describe this book, I end up with a fairly long list - a journal of 16 year old Nao living in Japan, her great-uncle's diaries from World War II, a biography of her grandmother Niko, and a later-parallel story of Ruth, an author living in Canada who finds Nao's journal and other ephemera washed up on her island shore. Just these ideas and concepts were almost one too many, and then the author decided to throw in a touch of bizarre quantum mechanics, people struggling with Alzheimers In trying to describe this book, I end up with a fairly long list - a journal of 16 year old Nao living in Japan, her great-uncle's diaries from World War II, a biography of her grandmother Niko, and a later-parallel story of Ruth, an author living in Canada who finds Nao's journal and other ephemera washed up on her island shore. Just these ideas and concepts were almost one too many, and then the author decided to throw in a touch of bizarre quantum mechanics, people struggling with Alzheimers, memory loss, suicide attempts, bullying, and a bizarre character trying to plant ancient plants.

If the list seems overwhelming, I do think it was too much for 400ish pages. At times it just gets to be a bit of an information dump. Add in the constantly defined Japanese terms and philosophers remembered by the plant-husband and the great-uncle in his letters (really, he quotes French philosophers verbatim!)... you would think it would be hard to cut through to the story. Nao's personal story still kept me reading, although she suffered from the same paralysis as the rest of the characters in the book, where instead of reaching out to solve their problems, they punish themselves.

One little tidbit from Nao's journal that is a good capture of her tone:
"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... Just wasting time, killing time, feeling crappy." (Quote from NetGalley version, may be altered in final.)

The presence of quantum mechanics in this book might seem puzzling, but her zen-nun grandmother teaches her, "to do zazen is to enter time completely." Nao takes that idea into her journal and addresses all her entries to the "Time Being," inviting the reader to travel with her. The title read that way becomes a play on the words.

ETA: The funniest thing happened when I went to NetGalley to post my review of this book - the book had disappeared from that database. Maybe the author knows what she's talking about, maybe my actions made it disappear. :P ...more

14 likes · Like · see review

Mar 16, 2013 Daisy rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: california, japan, alzheimer-s-dementia, canada, audio-library-books, aroundtheworld2013

Narrated by the author--there's no better way to listen to a book.
This was pretty riveting. I loved it. ...more

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Aug 12, 2013 Friederike Knabe rated it really liked it

Shelves: canadian-lit

Review to follow.

1 like · Like · see review

Jul 23, 2013 Rosana rated it liked it

Shelves: canadian, 2014

I had another case of “too high expectation kills the book” which is not the book’s fault per se. It started well enough, but the mystical/Buddhist/quantum physics ending just did not work that well for me. It felt artificial. It is too bad, as actually my bookclub is just restarting after a couple of years hiatus, and I chose this book for our first discussion. I should know better than choosing a book I have not read…

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Jul 26, 2018 Astrid Lim rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: asia, psychology, literature, historical-fiction, dysfunctional-family, culture, mental-illness

A beautiful story about time, family, love and life. The alternate way of telling the story (Naoko in Japan with her diary and Ruth in present day Canada) is very engaging. Short chapters making this book easier to read, even though there are some heavy stuff inside (suicide, mental health, zen philosophy, and WWII history). It all came beautifully in the end. My first time readi Ruth Ozeki and I was falling in love :)

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