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.
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Readers say *A Tale for the Time Being* weaves mindfulness, quantum physics, and Japanese culture into a unique narrative blending realism and magical...
This book started out promising. The juxtaposition of the characters that jumped in time was an interesting concept. The use of narration from a teenager that is clearly being bullied, past a believable extend the times, to an adult reading this information about the teenager's struggles was a valid concept. Until Nao became a whining, babbling, insecure person to the point of an unbelievable narrator as a trite teenager that was going to commit suicide just like her somewhat useless father, and then never did. She became nothing more than people that constantly say they're going to kill themselves for the use of attention, but never follow through. I am in no way advocating suicide – I believe it is a coward's choice; but to spend 422 pages babbling about it was poor writing.
The most interesting storyline of the whole novel as her great grandmother that is a nun in a monastery. The entire book should have been about Jiko. Not her life, her father's life, and her incessant whining about school in Tokyo. All of that was useless backstory compared to Jiko's presence of mind, and Haruki #1's life as a kamikaze bomber. That was the story, the rest was wasted words.
While I feel I learned a lot about Japanese culture, I cannot recommend this book. It's about 250 pages too long. And note – I am no stranger to long books.
The most interesting storyline of the whole novel as her great grandmother that is a nun in a monastery. The entire book should have been about Jiko. Not her life, her father's life, and her incessant whining about school in Tokyo. All of that was useless backstory compared to Jiko's presence of mind, and Haruki #1's life as a kamikaze bomber. That was the story, the rest was wasted words.
While I feel I learned a lot about Japanese culture, I cannot recommend this book. It's about 250 pages too long. And note – I am no stranger to long books.
My kind of read. I like a story within a story. Modern, current , historical, multi cultured, ancient wisdom and coming of age story. If you are someone intrigued by Japanese culture, you will appreciate this book.
"Live. For now. For the time being."
Confusing, bewildering, sad, and full of hope, this is beautifully written but extremely abstract. I loved Nao's spunk and humour and was dismayed by the hardship she endured. Another reminder of how much being a teenager sucks; how much being a human being sucks.
This is not your average, plot-driven story so be prepared to do quite a bit of mental gymnastics. Also, there are pretty triggering themes including bullying, depression, suicide and death, so be warned.
What the actual *BLEEP* was with that ending? Quantum physics and the multiverse?
I did enjoy many bits of the book, the parts at her grandmother's temple were lovely, and the insights into the brutality of the Japanese Army were heartbreaking. But the disappearing words and multiple universes at the end came out of the blue; for 14 hours I'd been listening to a young girl's story of victimization, exploitation and suicidal ideation, interwoven with her great uncle's story and filtered through the lens of another woman's perceptions and experiences when a sudden right turn threw it into anime terrritory. Honestly, go watch Shinkai Makoto's film "Your Name", it's a far superior handling of a very similar story.
The part talking about 9/11 was heartbreaking as was much of this book. Some was strange. I fell in love with the characters especially Nao and her great grandmother the Buddhist nun.
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