From the Bookshelf of Constant Reader…

A Tale for the Time Being

Ruth Ozeki

Start date: March 15, 2015

Finish date: April 1, 2015

Discussion: Reading List

Discussion leader: Barb

Find A Copy At

Libraries

Group Discussions About This Book

Showing 2 of 428 topics — 16,892 comments total

Reading List

* The Schedule for July through Dec. 2025
By Lynn · 1 post · 41 views

last updated Jun 20, 2025 08:37AM

Circe - discussion with spoilers
By Jane · 17 posts · 23 views

last updated Sep 06, 2025 04:48PM

showing 10 of 14 topics view all »

What Members Thought

May 15, 2013 Jenny (Reading Envy) rated it liked it

Shelves: ebooks, around-the-world, cold-weather-islands, location-japan, read2013, tournament-of-books, netgalley, location-canada

In trying to describe this book, I end up with a fairly long list - a journal of 16 year old Nao living in Japan, her great-uncle's diaries from World War II, a biography of her grandmother Niko, and a later-parallel story of Ruth, an author living in Canada who finds Nao's journal and other ephemera washed up on her island shore. Just these ideas and concepts were almost one too many, and then the author decided to throw in a touch of bizarre quantum mechanics, people struggling with Alzheimers In trying to describe this book, I end up with a fairly long list - a journal of 16 year old Nao living in Japan, her great-uncle's diaries from World War II, a biography of her grandmother Niko, and a later-parallel story of Ruth, an author living in Canada who finds Nao's journal and other ephemera washed up on her island shore. Just these ideas and concepts were almost one too many, and then the author decided to throw in a touch of bizarre quantum mechanics, people struggling with Alzheimers, memory loss, suicide attempts, bullying, and a bizarre character trying to plant ancient plants.

If the list seems overwhelming, I do think it was too much for 400ish pages. At times it just gets to be a bit of an information dump. Add in the constantly defined Japanese terms and philosophers remembered by the plant-husband and the great-uncle in his letters (really, he quotes French philosophers verbatim!)... you would think it would be hard to cut through to the story. Nao's personal story still kept me reading, although she suffered from the same paralysis as the rest of the characters in the book, where instead of reaching out to solve their problems, they punish themselves.

One little tidbit from Nao's journal that is a good capture of her tone:
"Whenever I think about my stupid empty life, I come to the conclusion that I'm just wasting my time, and I'm not the only one. Everybody I know is the same... Just wasting time, killing time, feeling crappy." (Quote from NetGalley version, may be altered in final.)

The presence of quantum mechanics in this book might seem puzzling, but her zen-nun grandmother teaches her, "to do zazen is to enter time completely." Nao takes that idea into her journal and addresses all her entries to the "Time Being," inviting the reader to travel with her. The title read that way becomes a play on the words.

ETA: The funniest thing happened when I went to NetGalley to post my review of this book - the book had disappeared from that database. Maybe the author knows what she's talking about, maybe my actions made it disappear. :P ...more

14 likes · Like · see review

Nov 11, 2013 Rashida rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: herstory, favorites, historical-fiction, magical-realism

All the prizes. All of em. Don't even know how many or their names or qualifications, but I always see these shortlists and winners lists and stuff. And this book should have won EVERY. SINGLE. ONE. for 2013. So, I guess I need to read whatever books beat it for whatever prize there is. I cannot explain the impact of this book. So many feelings and emotions. And remarkably, while it deals with subjects of great pain and sadness, that's not an emotion the book leaves you with at all (not during t ...more

6 likes · Like · see review

Nov 04, 2013 SooYoung rated it it was amazing

Another book I sped through because it was so engaging. I'm sure I missed some, but that's okay, I enjoyed it enough to look forward to reading it a second time at some point. The overview: A Japanese (but self-identifying American) 16-year-old, Nao, is writing a diary to 'you'. That you ends up being an adult woman, Ruth, living on some remote island in Canada. The novel gracefully entwines their lives (although they're separated by distance and time) and then unfolds a somewhat-mystical and se Another book I sped through because it was so engaging. I'm sure I missed some, but that's okay, I enjoyed it enough to look forward to reading it a second time at some point. The overview: A Japanese (but self-identifying American) 16-year-old, Nao, is writing a diary to 'you'. That you ends up being an adult woman, Ruth, living on some remote island in Canada. The novel gracefully entwines their lives (although they're separated by distance and time) and then unfolds a somewhat-mystical and seemingly-impossible relationship, not just encompassing Nao and Ruth, but all the other people in their lives. The novel deals with universal themes of time, zen, relationships, death, life, sex, family and more in a refreshing way. Not only are the themes and plot handled well, but Ozeki is a fine writer--writing beautiful and poignant and visual sentences. Too often, an author lets drama and plot twists carry the book away forgetting about the words themselves, this is not the case here.

A few excerpts:

"Sometimes at the end of a line, they [letters] crowded each other a little, like people jostling to get onto an elevator or into a subway car, just as the doors are closing." p. 12

"She needed her own species, not to talk to, necessarily, but just to be among, as a bystander in a crowd or an anonymous witness." p. 61

"It's like the word is committing suicide or something." p. 99

" ...and maybe that's why Dad reacted the way he did, flinging his arm out to block her from falling. It was an instinctive daddy reflex, the same move that had probably saved me from breaking my neck or hurtling to my death a hundred times, only I'd never seen it from this angle before, and I was amazed at its speed and precision." p. 134

"the heroic effort and nobility of our human desire to make beauty of our minds" p. 257

"But it was too late. She watched his blue eyes veil over as the wall went up and he pulled his tender parts in behind it." p. 295

"we must keep up our studies even as civilization collapses around us." p. 317 ...more

Like · see review

Apr 07, 2015 Dottie rated it really liked it

Shelves: vplibrary, 2015, keep-list

Wow. I can definitely see this might well not be everyone's cup of tea but it hit the spot - spots? - for me. It touched on past memories of other books which evoked a "wow" Capra's The Turning Point: Science, Society, and the Rising Culture and of course, as Ozecki herself referred to in this volume Proust multi-volume Remembrance of Things Past, and touched on other philosophical and scientific and spiritual aspects which all pull at my thinking at times and somehow wrapped them up in this wo ...more

Like · see review

Dec 30, 2013 Loretta rated it really liked it

Shelves: reading-for-craft

I'm torn about the rating - I did love this book in the beginning, and I adored it again for the last third, but the middle was pretty draggy, enough that it actually took me weeks to finish it and I didn't get back into it until I got on a plane and went on vacation. But mostly, overall, I loved it. I especially loved the voice of Nao, and the flipping back and forth between her story and Ruth's, and all the dharma that infuses the whole book. Just enough magic realism to make me happy. So mayb ...more

Like · see review

Mar 27, 2015 Ruth rated it it was ok

I hate to be a sourpuss, but this was not much to my liking. In fact, I found myself starting to skim 25 pages in. I just couldn’t stand the teenager. However, with encouragement I perservered. I guess you could sum up my reaction thusly.

First 1/3 – Don’t like this much, but people tell me it’s going to get better.
Second 1/3 – It’s much better, now it’s starting to get interesting.
Last 1/3 – Tempted to skim again.
Last part of last 1/3 – Hated it. I can’t stand it when people take scientific prin ...more

Like · see review