A Tale for the Time Being: A Novel Paperback – December 31, 2013

Time has come today...and so it was and so it will be. Ruth Ozeki's imaginative and delightful book has easily taken its place as one of my very favorite books of the year.The narrative interweaves two stories: that of teenage Nao, whose family turn-of-fortunes has forced her to return from Silicon Valley to a cramped Tokyo apartment and an unforgiving school setting where she is bullied and tortured by classmates. Gradually sinking into depression, Nao's only respite is a summer stay with her great-grandmother Jiko, a Zen Buddhist who encourages her to develop her own "supapawa" (superpower). Her father's suffering is equally pronounced yet more hidden, as his feeble attempts at suicide rock her world.The other narrative is from Ruth; she and her husband Oliver live in an ecologically beautiful and isolated islet called Desolation Sound and one day, she comes across Nao's Hello Kitty lunchbox with her diary and other mementos...swept onto shore. Ruth and Oliver not so coincidentally happen to possess the same names as the author and her real-life husband.As the teenager's world increasingly impinges on Ruth's, the author delves into the real meaning of time and the thin barrier of separation that peels away as we get to know each other. How much agency do we have over another person's narrative? How do we connect with that shining single moment that we need to establish our human will and attain truth?In the words of Nao's uncle, a World War II kamikaze pilot, "Both life and earth manifest in every moment of existence. Our human body appears and disappears moment by moment, without cease, and this ceaseless arising and passing away is what we experience as time and being. They are not separate."Ultimately, the theme of this book is the life force of imagination and creation: how we weave mythical stories and authentic stories, how we create stories about others, how we eventually - if we concentrate - get to own our own stories, and how we put those stories to paper. If this all sounds too "heavy", it's not. The voice of Nao is that of a genuine irreverent teenager; it's fresh, authentic, and delightful. And Ruth and Oliver - half-created, half-real - are engaging and searching characters/personages who are as large as life itself.I loved this book - how it introduces philosophical ideas in a very accessible way, how it combines insight and some humor with inventiveness, memory and myth and how ultimately it focuses on our shared humanity. It's a 6-star for me.

Quantum thinking involves believing that a thing can be at two different points at the same time and can travel between different points in zero time- at least in the sub-atomic world such thinking is needed to "explain" reality. Quantum thought is the intellectual provenance of this ambitious and engaging book. The book explores Zen, dreams, teleportation, disappearing text and other downright magical stuff. The book also presents concrete icons of myth in the form of totems, talismans and rituals. In many novels, such ideas explicate the thought and behavior of characters of particular, usually tribal cultures, e.g. "The Round House." Generally, the reader is not asked or expected to accept such myth and magic as fact. Not so here. This book DOES ask the reader to accept (or at least consider) that what appears to be irrational hokum is quantum reality applied to the otherwise observable world. A tall order and as I read this book I found myself increasingly willing to buy in. On this score, the book deserves full marks; and, based on this alone, I recommend it. But if you're not prepared to take this quantum journey maybe this isn't the book for you.The story is told by two narrators, Ruth and Nao. Ruth is a writer in exile living on a desolate island off Pacific Canada. Ruth finds a bag which appears to have washed up on the island. The bag contains a diary and other artifacts and memorabilia. Ruth comes to believe that the bag was transported across the ocean following the Fukushima tsunami.The diarist is Nao, a young Japanese girl who lived in Sunnyvale, CA for a time because her father got a tech job there. He lost the job and the family had to return to Japan. In mostly "Valley-Girl" speak the diary recounts Nao's happiness in America and misery (and later redemption) in Japan.Ruth's narration chronicles her obsession with tracking down Nao and her family and learning their fates. Here, the book is at its "quantum" best and I don't want to say too much here. For me Ruth's quest is the energy center of the book and its quantum ideas were beautifully expressed. We also meet a lot of "Islanders" where Ruth and Oliver live along the way but none is a well developed character. It turns out that Oliver is one of the smartest self taught people on the planet. Whenever Ruth's detective work hits a wall, Oliver comes up with a logjam breaking insight from whatever intellectual discipline is needed at the time. Oliver has a weird attachment to the family cat and is a bit of a schnook, but I would have liked to know him better than the book revealed.Nao's narration was less successful. It goes on far too long describing her teenage angst, suicide thoughts and being the object of cruel bullying at school. At some point, shes drops out, does prostitution but is transformed by a summer vacation at the Temple where her great grandmother is a nun. Nao goes from "Valley-Girl" to school girl to call girl to Zen girl and I confess that I found it all a bit tedious. Other reviewers have remarked on this flaw, but others have described being fully taken with Nao's story. So there's much room for debate here.Still other reviewers have noted (I think correctly) that on traditional literary measures of character development and plot coherency, the book is somewhat wanting. But traditional metrics are not the real business of Ms. Ozeki's otherwise excellent novel. The book successfully guides us to think inside the box, Schrodinger's that is. That achievement is well worth the read.