A Tale for the Time Being

Reviews and more on my blog: Entering the Enchanted Castle

A dual-strand narrative with a difference – some may find the ending too cutesy-weird, but it was of a piece with the rest. Dark and involving, ultimately a narrative of liberation that brings to the fore the creative role of the reader as well as the writer. When ARE we going to get to read Jiko's life story? That's what I'd really like to know.

Wavered between 4 or 5 stars. Not a perfect book, but it has so many interesting layers and events that turn to out to be connected: suicide, Buddhism, the dot-com bubble burst, the 2011 tsunami, WWII, a diary that triggers it all off (still not sure how the diary traveled from Japan to the PNW, but just went with it). This book was suggested for the “Read a book wherein all point-of-view characters are people of color” category, and seems suitable as the two main POV characters are Japanese.

One sentence synopsis... A Japanese schoolgirl's diary washes ashore in Western Canada - thus begins an exploration of zen principles, biculturalism, suicide, fetish cafes, quantum mechanics, and ecological collapse... to name only a few of this book's many themes. .

Read it if you like... dark comedy, metafiction, or if you feel like dipping your toe into magical realism.

Dream casting... Aoi Okuyama (from Netflix's ‘Giri/Haji', which I also highly recommend) as the young, decisive, diarist Nao. Sandra Oh as Ruth, the writer who finds herself obsessed with the washed up diary.

One of the best books I've read in a long time. Theres's not one moment (or fingersnap of 65 moments) that hasn't been carefully thought through to create this beautiful exploration of time, entanglement, and a life (or a death) with meaning. The research that went into this book must have been incredible. Everything from the daily life of a Japanese high school student in Tokyo to neighborly mechanisms that keep a British Columbian island functionings to the realities of life as a WWII kamikaze pilot and the magical realism that is quantum mechanics. I care deeply for the characters. I feel like I've lived in the setting, and I savored the prose. I don't know what else you could ask for in a novel. It's my first Ruth Ozeki book, but definitely not my last.

Here's the plot: An author with writer's block who lives on a remote island with her husband who is ill finds a Hello Kitty lunchbox that has floated up onto the beach. Inside are an antique watch, a package of old letters in French and the diary of a Japanese teenaged girl.

A Tale for the Time Being was on a list of books recommended as mood-boosting, but it took me a long time (a long, long time) to get to the mood-boosting parts. The Japanese teen is suicidal and her father is suicidal. The author is unhappy and her husband is unhappy. The writer of the old letters is suffering terribly.

I'd put the books at 90% pain and suffering and 10% happiness, and maybe that's a good ratio for most of life. It's a clever and surprising story with deeply real characters, an astonishingly good read.

First, warning about violence, bullying, abuse, severe pain. It's not much, it's important, but it's painful to read. the cat survives

I like the concept - it didn't make me wonder whether the books I read make me or if I make the books I read - probably because I already know both are true :-D
It did rekindle my interest and love of the elderly. People have always been the same. I remember how surprised I was to realize that about my grandfather, born 1901. :-D

I like Ruth Ozeki's way of writing. It was easy to read. I like how she managed to adjust the style and language to the people who were telling the story - or whom were being told about, and to me everyone felt real.

Some “insights” (I suppose I could call them) were a bit clumsy and oversimplified, but that's a matter of taste. I didn't like it, but I can imagine some people might find it endearing. She's quite endearing, Ruth.

I was given this to review.
I'd already read a book by Ruth Ozeki that I really liked http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/917346.All_Over_Creation
and so I had high hopes for this one. It didn't start too well though, two different voices, and neither seemed to speak to me. One a teenage girl sitting in cafe in Tokyo writing a diary and the other a japanese-american woman reading the diary she's found on the beach, on an island in British Colombia.
Her writing is simple, uncomplicated but this is deceptive and as the strands of the story weave together and the layers are built up the characters deepened and I became hooked.
She made me think of Barbara Kingsolver in her realism and Haruki Murakami in her dreamy mystical resonances.
Recommended.

I had just come back from a trip to Japan so I saw this in the library and was like hey, story about Japanese girl and I was instantly hooked.

Reading Nao's story was brilliant. It was interesting juxtaposition towards the initial thoughts I had of the country and the realism of her life tore me up. I also found the back and forth between Ruth and Nao's life interesting, but this interest soon turned into resentment.

At first, the Ruth sections were quite unique in the sense that it helped the readers piece together the puzzle of Nao and the mystery behind her life. I also found that Ruth's life, while boring, was quite unique. The characters living on the island, although not fleshed out very well, helped provide flavour to the semi-lacking social life of the island. I liked how Ruth had to visit different people as if a fetch quest waiting to advance to plot.

Although the Ruth sections got quite stale and boring, constantly getting in the way of the interesting life of Nao, (like seriously i dont care about a lost cat when this poor poor sad girl is bullied, traumatized, turned into a prostitute, and much more worse things) it was ok as it functioned as it's own sort of unique device for the reader. However, when the two characters actually crossed paths, it was not the way I wanted them to at all. The weird dream sequences and time traveling and parallel worlds were just so of putting. While reading I payed not much attention to it as I wanted to know desperately what happened to Nao. But thinking about it, this supernatural plot device made very little sense and was out of the blue for no reason. It is understandable that this is a fiction novel and I found the supernatural events within the Nao section to be forgivable. However, to base the entire ending on some supernatural experiences that Ruth had pulled me out of the realism of Nao's world and ruined the meta fiction this novel was, reverting it into normal fiction.

In the end I felt somewhat unsatisfied. We are given a fickle happy ending, one that is not fleshed out and somewhat ironically similar to the rushed ending given to us in Nao's Diary. Such a happy ending feels good as we are to assume everything that happened to poor sad sad Nao worked out in the end and she lives happily, but it is quite unconvincing.

But don't let these negative comments get to you, I found the book to be quite an enjoyable read in the end, and if I were to write about all the positives I would be writing forever.

Some of these things were:
- Nao sections never got boring
- the way Nao sections are written make it believable this is a 16 year olds diary
- Was a cruel and unforgiving story with very little hope written very well. (Only cringe moment was when she stood on the desk revealing her shaved head lol)
- 16 year old nao and 104 year old Jiko had interesting chemistry and juxtaposition
- learned about the good and bad of Japan
- Nao is very very well written and fleshed out. U can't not root for her

4:

I got wrapped up in Nao's story and maybe my heart broke a little. It was sad and sorrowful, but uplifting all the same.

I did find myself rushing through Ruth's story at times just so I could continue reading Naoko's side, but still found it very enjoyable and maybe I'll read it again later on, so I can pay attention properly. Overall I loved the book, so I'll try and read some more of Ruth's writing.

A barnacle encrusted freezer bag washes up on the shore of a tiny island off the coast of British Columbia. Visible inside is a Hello Kitty lunchbox that holds a journal, a bundle of letters and a broken wristwatch.

So begins the story of Nao Yasutani, a 15 year old girl from Japan who is beset on all sides, from her bullying classmates to her father who has already tried to commit suicide and will surely try again. Maybe, she thinks, she'll join him.

All of this is revealed as Ruth, who is clearly modelled after Ruth Ozeki herself, reads through the journal. We switch back and forth between the two narrative voices as we try and determine along with Ruth what happened to Nao. Is she ok?

We're also introduced to a kamikaze pilot, ecological artist, a 104 year old zen priest, a mom with Alzheimers along with magical realism, quantum mechanics, the multiple world theory, Schrödinger's cat, maid cafes and more. All of it's necessary to explain the larger idea of the zen koan that opens the book. It comes together beautifully despite the gut-wrenching stories within.

I loved this. The weaving of storylines between a girl in Japan and a character who seems to be a factionalized version of the author totally worked for me. I was uncertain how Ozeki could build on the momentum she had to come up with a satisfying ending, but the introduction of quantum physics really worked for me. This book had everything I wanted and was a perfect quarantine read.

 My partner read this for a class and recommended it to me, and she has very smart things to say about this novel like how Ozeki uses quantum theory to challenge how we, as readers, understand novels as an art form of many worlds, how Ozeki recontextualizes folks who have Alzheimer's' and their experiences by putting us in Ruth's (the character's) shoes, how Ozeki connects Japanese generational ennui and Buddhist philosophy to WW2 patriotism and that suicide is a through-line in Japanese sociopolitical history, but what I have to say about this novel is thus: 
Oh boy! I cried my eyes out in the last third, and the epilogue just about killed me. It's good. Nao's story hurts to read, and what stops me from making this a 5 is that Ruth and Oliver's story never grabbed me like Nao's. I found myself wanting to get through their story ASAP to get back to Nao. I didn't get attached to them, and their relationship and their stories... just didn't land for me. 
Great book! You should read it.