“A Tale for the Time Being” by Ruth Ozeki

The fact that I am 137 pages into this 422 page book, and my monthly book review was due two days ago, tells you how busy I am this Christmas. A good busy, I’m happy to report, but not much time to finOKish Ruth Ozeki’s masterpiece, A TALE FOR THE TIME BEING. I say “masterpiece” after such a short time with this book because I am already blown away at the premise and the execution.

Ruth, a writer on a remote island in the Pacific Northwest, finds a Hello Kitty lunchbox washed up on the beach. Ruth suspects it’s debris from Japan’s 2011 tsunami. Inside, she finds the diary of sixteen year old Nao, begins to read it, and is immediately drawn in. Nao has been uprooted from her U.S. Home, is bullied at school, has watched her parents’ relationship dissolve, and plans to kill herself.  The story goes back and forth between Ruth and Nao, and includes the story of Nao’s great-grandmother, a 104 year old Zen Buddhist nun.

Nao’s voice is clear and convincing. She sounds sixteen, but a sixteen that’s been through more horrors than most adults. Ruth’s voice is believable too, as are her struggles to figure out both what’s going on with Nao, and with her own inability to finish her long neglected memoir.

A blurb on the back of the book says that A TALE FOR THE TIME BEING “deftly blurs the line between fact and fiction”. For me, it also blurs the line between the kind of “believable” fiction I usually read and fiction that borders on fantasy. I envy people who enjoy fantasy, and, when I’m reading A TALE FOR THE TIME BEING, I’m almost one of those people. The descriptions, dialogue, narrative, and story line keep me absorbed.

I can’t imagine this book ending in an unsatisfying way, but, even if it does, I’ll appreciate all it’s shown me so far. “Read–Write–Read–Write–Read–Write” is prescribed sustenance for writers, and Ruth Ozeki’s book makes the “Read” part an impressive pleasure.

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