A Tale for the Time Being: A Novel
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.
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.
BUY THE BOOK
These clubs recently read this book...
Community Reviews
this was one of the most interesting books i've read in a long time, i can't pretend to fully understand it (the end especially) but nevertheless it left such a strong impression. nao's story was the soul of this book, her witty writing and way of seeing the world as well as her insights into japanese culture and mindsets was what kept me reading. ruth's story was a little slow at times but i appreciated her realism and empathy as well. i highly recommend the book but please check trigger warnings beforehand as it is definitely very graphic at times!
I'm on the fence between 2 and 3 stars for this one. I really did not enjoy it very much. Then it went mystical and totally lost me. I think I'll stick with 2, after all.
Finally done. This was hard to slog thru...alternating between perspectives, adapting Japanese culture with quantum physics and Zen Buddhism....I never felt really connected with the characters or story. The idea that Schrodinger's experiment might be how the world works is intriguing, but that's a short story .
This book is not the sexy Buddhist nun story it promises to be on the first few pages. That was a disappointment. It is also not the realistic story it promises to be for the first 60% of the book as it descends into magical realism madness. But I fell in love with the characters and any book that weaves mindfulness and physics into a narrative about time is likely to win me over.
See why thousands of readers are using Bookclubs to stay connected.