A Tale for the Time Being {My Own Personal Book Club}

I picked this book for it’s cover.
Seriously, how great are the color combos???

Book: A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki.

About:
”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.

To Read or Not to Read:
Yes.
I loved the feeling I had after finishing A Tale for the Time Being. There were some pretty gritty parts, but I loved the way Ozeki tied in all the storylines. And there were many: 16-year-old outcast, suicidal computer genius with a secret humanitarian’s heart, 104-year-old feminist Zen Buddhist nun, WWII scholar Kamikaze pilot, Japanese American novelist, and Canadian environmentalist. Some of the first dream sequences were a little blah to me, but overall it’s an interesting read. I loved the peek into the Zen Buddist world! A lot!

My Thoughts:

Nao talks about her 104 year old grandmother, Jiko, doing things really slowly “in order to spread time out so that’ she’ll have more of it and live longer.” I actually love this concept and I feel like it goes along with my own little mantra to ‘be present’ and to ‘do small things with great love’. Our lives are collections of small moments and our moments should be savored. p24
Nao says she quit blogging because she “caught (herself) pretending that everybody out therein cyberspace cared about what (she) thought.” And that when she thought about “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 (her) heart.” As a person I couldn’t agree more with this statement, and as a blogger I feel like everyone has a story to tell, and if they are passionate about their story, and have an important message to share then they should. But a blog (or FT or twitter or instagram) shouldn’t be your life. p26
Ozeki quotes Milan Kundera from Book of Laughter and Forgetting. The book was written in 1980 and I feel like is rings so true today! “Once the writer in every individual comes to life (and that time is not far off), we are in for an age of universal deafness and lack of understanding.” Wowza! How true is that today!!?!? It is so easy to share your story, and that’s great! But so many people substitute that for more authentic interactions. And you know how I feel about that! p26
Suicide is a common theme in this book. Nao’s father writes a letter trying to explain the Japanese perspective about suicide and I found it so interesting. I wonder if this really represents the way the Japanese culture views suicide. p87
Nao talks a lot about her experience living with Jiko in the Zen Buddhist temple. Nao shares many of the Japanese prayers the nuns say throughout the day and over mundane tasks like bathing and even pooping. This was a lovely reminder to me to pray without ceasing. p164 p167
Jiko introduces the practice zazen to Nao. Its about meditating and thinking of nothing. She calls it “nonthinking.” I love this. p183
The concept of fighting a wave. LOVE! This comes up later with Jiko’s son who is a kamikaze pilot in WW2. This is such a beautiful metaphor and I’ve thought about that whole story so many times… but I can’t ruin that for you!! p192 p251

Believe it or not, I could talk a lot more about this book! And all the different layers of theology.
Read it and let’s chat!