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A review by sidharthvardhan
A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki
4.0
"And if you decide not to read anymore, hey, no problem, because you're not the one I was waiting for anyway. But if you decide to read on, then guess what? You're my kind of time being and together we'll make magic!"
‘A Tale of Time Being’ is about a teenage girl, Nao who is going through a lot of suffering –in fact so much suffering that at times you doubt whether the author has gone too far to make her suffer. Nao’s story is being told through her diary which she wants someone to read, and this diary is final discovered and read by Ruth (the author herself).
The story touches a lot of themes including:
1. concept of time being, Zen philosophies (both of which, most of us won’t get completely but whatever you do understand you shall love),
2. Schrödinger’s cat, Quantum physics (we have a lot of those these days. This one could do better without them.)
3. Dōgen’s philosophy (who never impressed me),
4. suicide
5. and relationship which reader develops with a story, among others.
To put it in simply, it is a sort of book where understanding is not same as reading. It could do with a bit of editing in initially chapter relating about Ruth. The last chapter looked like redundant to me – but on the whole it is a beautiful package. Ruth had a point about what she said about September 11. There are some very beautiful passages, writing is innovative, some issues are raised which is nicely done but whats most beautiful is some of most beautiful writing. The poem Nao's grandmother writes towards the end is really moving.
Here, for example, is a paragraph written by Nao in her diary, showing how she is dying to have a conversation:
“Oh well. That’s what’s going on in my world. How about in yours? You doing okay?
I don’t know why I keep asking you questions. It’s not like I expect you to answer, and even if you did answer, how would I know? But maybe that doesn't matter. Maybe when I ask you a question like “You doing okay?” you should just tell me, even if I can’t hear you, and then I’ll just sit here and imagine what you might say.
You might say, “Sure thing, Nao. I’m okay. I’m doin’ just fine.”
“Okay, awesome,” I would say to you, and then we would smile at each other across time like we were friends, because we are friends by now, aren’t we?
‘A Tale of Time Being’ is about a teenage girl, Nao who is going through a lot of suffering –in fact so much suffering that at times you doubt whether the author has gone too far to make her suffer. Nao’s story is being told through her diary which she wants someone to read, and this diary is final discovered and read by Ruth (the author herself).
The story touches a lot of themes including:
1. concept of time being, Zen philosophies (both of which, most of us won’t get completely but whatever you do understand you shall love),
2. Schrödinger’s cat, Quantum physics (we have a lot of those these days. This one could do better without them.)
3. Dōgen’s philosophy (who never impressed me),
4. suicide
5. and relationship which reader develops with a story, among others.
To put it in simply, it is a sort of book where understanding is not same as reading. It could do with a bit of editing in initially chapter relating about Ruth. The last chapter looked like redundant to me – but on the whole it is a beautiful package. Ruth had a point about what she said about September 11. There are some very beautiful passages, writing is innovative, some issues are raised which is nicely done but whats most beautiful is some of most beautiful writing. The poem Nao's grandmother writes towards the end is really moving.
Here, for example, is a paragraph written by Nao in her diary, showing how she is dying to have a conversation:
“Oh well. That’s what’s going on in my world. How about in yours? You doing okay?
I don’t know why I keep asking you questions. It’s not like I expect you to answer, and even if you did answer, how would I know? But maybe that doesn't matter. Maybe when I ask you a question like “You doing okay?” you should just tell me, even if I can’t hear you, and then I’ll just sit here and imagine what you might say.
You might say, “Sure thing, Nao. I’m okay. I’m doin’ just fine.”
“Okay, awesome,” I would say to you, and then we would smile at each other across time like we were friends, because we are friends by now, aren’t we?