Here's my ramblings about A Tale for the Time Being:
The basic premise Ruth Oseki’s A Tale for the Time Being—a Japanese-American novelist living on a small, remote island in Pacific North West Canada, finding a package with the journal and personal effects of a sixteen year old Japanese-American girl—is quite gimmicky. The way in which Ruth and Nao’s stories are separate, yet intertwined works almost too well. What are the odds that Nao’s package would actually be found by anyone, let alone a Ruth, who has the wits and resources to handle it with such care and attention? However, despite all of this, the novel does work, not as realism, and perhaps not even as magical realism, but rather, as a commentary on how individuals are linked—transnationally, ethnically, politically, economically, etc.
Despite their current place of residence or citizenship, both Nao and Ruth are Japanese-American. Although their experiences in the US are represented in fragmented remembrances, neither of the women actually set foot in the United States during the course of the novel. I found the way in which Ruth and Nao’s longing for the US (Ruth for New York and Nao for California) permeates the novel quite significant. The US, or rather, the idea of the US, becomes another character—propelling the characters’ emotions and actions. Although Ruth and Nao’s personal narratives are important individually, I think they are also representative of greater questions of transnational identity, where the notions of home, ethnicity and nationality are never fixed or even stable.
While their identities may be unstable, the links which unify them are quite strong. Of course, they share and ethnic background and are both women, but more importantly, they are both storytellers and writers, not only of their own personal narratives, but of the narratives of others. Every time the narrative is that of Nao’s diary, the reader is to assume that Ruth is actively reading the diary in these instances. Ruth acts as a conduit for telling Nao’s story, both through her reading, and through her diligence in filling in the holes of Nao’s narrative by seeking out her father’s former friend at Stanford, and having her uncle’s letters translated. Nao is particularly invested in telling her great-grandmother, Jiko’s story, which she relays by detailing her interactions with Jiko and which she will continue to tell through the book she plans to write.
Interestingly, neither of the women appropriates any one else’s story. Even as characters in one another’s narratives, each woman is given her own voice. This returns me to the “gimmicky” structure of the novel: Ruth Ozeki, the author, writes a character, Ruth, based on herself, who is writing a book about her mother and who reads Nao’s diary, which gives a great deal of insight into Jiko’s life, whom Nao also plans to write a book about, but who also has written her own books. That’s a lot of books within books. Although it seems confusing when articulated in this way, as a reader, I found that the relationships between all the women, and their multiple narratives are quite clear. They are all “time beings” existing in multiple spaces within each other’s lives and reflecting the ways in which stories, or more specifically, histories, effect individuals’ present conditions even if they exist in a different place and time. Therefore, the ending, in which Ruth dreams—or more accurately, wills—Nao’s story to continue, is in fact, a realistic representation of human interaction.
I was intrigued by the play on the concept of time throughout A Tale for the Time Being. Even the title, as Lisa Schwarzbaum pointed out in her New York Times review, seems to change as we read further into the novel. Nao’s quote of the Buddhist philosopher Dōgen serves as a perfect example of the way that time is deconstructed and redefined throughout the novel. He said “Time itself is being, and all being is time…In essence, everything in the entire universe is intimately linked with each other as moments in time, continuous and separate” (30). But not only is our protagonist’s name a homophone of “Now,” but the two narratives, though separated both temporally and spatially, blend inextricably together.
This is most clearly seen in two scenes of Ruth’s reading of Nao’s diary. First, I found it very telling when Ruth urgently responds to the professor’s email, expressing a sense of urgency about saving Nao from potentially hurting herself. The diary covers events that were just after the dot-com bubble and September 11th—so most likely they occur in 2002-4. Yet the tsunami, which is one of the more likely reasons for how Nao’s diary washed up on the beach in British Columbia, occurred in 2011. Despite this definite distance, Ruth finds herself drawn into the narrative so deeply that she begins to confuse reality, mixing past and present. She loses the ability to see it as an artifact or remember that Nao—if she did not kill herself—would be a young woman at the point of her reading.
Time further collapses when we read Haruki #1’s letters and diaries. Like Nao, Ruth feels intimately connected to the young Haruki, and we learn more about his experience (with the French diary telling a deeper layer of truth than the letters, for example) as the novel progresses.
The island where Ruth and Oliver live seems utterly timeless, which serves as an interesting echo of the timelessness of Old Jiko’s Temple. Oliver’s project of replanting native trees from the Eocene Era on the island emphasizes the way time seems to bend. Ruth says of Oliver: “he could see time unfolding here, and history, embedded in the whorls and fractal forms of nature, and he would come home, sweating and breathless, and tell her what he’d seen” (60).
Finally, Ruth seems to somehow dream into existence the final pages of Nao’s diary, as if she is summoning the story that did not exist. This also brings in the interesting question of the relationship between the reader and writer, between cause and effect. She dreams that she speaks to Haruki in the park to tell him about Jiko dying. She dreams that she places Haruki #1’s diary in Jiko’s office—literally reaching back through time to save Nao and her father.
Here's my ramblings about A Tale for the Time Being:
ReplyDeleteThe basic premise Ruth Oseki’s A Tale for the Time Being—a Japanese-American novelist living on a small, remote island in Pacific North West Canada, finding a package with the journal and personal effects of a sixteen year old Japanese-American girl—is quite gimmicky. The way in which Ruth and Nao’s stories are separate, yet intertwined works almost too well. What are the odds that Nao’s package would actually be found by anyone, let alone a Ruth, who has the wits and resources to handle it with such care and attention? However, despite all of this, the novel does work, not as realism, and perhaps not even as magical realism, but rather, as a commentary on how individuals are linked—transnationally, ethnically, politically, economically, etc.
Despite their current place of residence or citizenship, both Nao and Ruth are Japanese-American. Although their experiences in the US are represented in fragmented remembrances, neither of the women actually set foot in the United States during the course of the novel. I found the way in which Ruth and Nao’s longing for the US (Ruth for New York and Nao for California) permeates the novel quite significant. The US, or rather, the idea of the US, becomes another character—propelling the characters’ emotions and actions. Although Ruth and Nao’s personal narratives are important individually, I think they are also representative of greater questions of transnational identity, where the notions of home, ethnicity and nationality are never fixed or even stable.
While their identities may be unstable, the links which unify them are quite strong. Of course, they share and ethnic background and are both women, but more importantly, they are both storytellers and writers, not only of their own personal narratives, but of the narratives of others. Every time the narrative is that of Nao’s diary, the reader is to assume that Ruth is actively reading the diary in these instances. Ruth acts as a conduit for telling Nao’s story, both through her reading, and through her diligence in filling in the holes of Nao’s narrative by seeking out her father’s former friend at Stanford, and having her uncle’s letters translated. Nao is particularly invested in telling her great-grandmother, Jiko’s story, which she relays by detailing her interactions with Jiko and which she will continue to tell through the book she plans to write.
Interestingly, neither of the women appropriates any one else’s story. Even as characters in one another’s narratives, each woman is given her own voice. This returns me to the “gimmicky” structure of the novel: Ruth Ozeki, the author, writes a character, Ruth, based on herself, who is writing a book about her mother and who reads Nao’s diary, which gives a great deal of insight into Jiko’s life, whom Nao also plans to write a book about, but who also has written her own books. That’s a lot of books within books. Although it seems confusing when articulated in this way, as a reader, I found that the relationships between all the women, and their multiple narratives are quite clear. They are all “time beings” existing in multiple spaces within each other’s lives and reflecting the ways in which stories, or more specifically, histories, effect individuals’ present conditions even if they exist in a different place and time. Therefore, the ending, in which Ruth dreams—or more accurately, wills—Nao’s story to continue, is in fact, a realistic representation of human interaction.
I was intrigued by the play on the concept of time throughout A Tale for the Time Being. Even the title, as Lisa Schwarzbaum pointed out in her New York Times review, seems to change as we read further into the novel. Nao’s quote of the Buddhist philosopher Dōgen serves as a perfect example of the way that time is deconstructed and redefined throughout the novel. He said “Time itself is being, and all being is time…In essence, everything in the entire universe is intimately linked with each other as moments in time, continuous and separate” (30). But not only is our protagonist’s name a homophone of “Now,” but the two narratives, though separated both temporally and spatially, blend inextricably together.
ReplyDeleteThis is most clearly seen in two scenes of Ruth’s reading of Nao’s diary. First, I found it very telling when Ruth urgently responds to the professor’s email, expressing a sense of urgency about saving Nao from potentially hurting herself. The diary covers events that were just after the dot-com bubble and September 11th—so most likely they occur in 2002-4. Yet the tsunami, which is one of the more likely reasons for how Nao’s diary washed up on the beach in British Columbia, occurred in 2011. Despite this definite distance, Ruth finds herself drawn into the narrative so deeply that she begins to confuse reality, mixing past and present. She loses the ability to see it as an artifact or remember that Nao—if she did not kill herself—would be a young woman at the point of her reading.
Time further collapses when we read Haruki #1’s letters and diaries. Like Nao, Ruth feels intimately connected to the young Haruki, and we learn more about his experience (with the French diary telling a deeper layer of truth than the letters, for example) as the novel progresses.
The island where Ruth and Oliver live seems utterly timeless, which serves as an interesting echo of the timelessness of Old Jiko’s Temple. Oliver’s project of replanting native trees from the Eocene Era on the island emphasizes the way time seems to bend. Ruth says of Oliver: “he could see time unfolding here, and history, embedded in the whorls and fractal forms of nature, and he would come home, sweating and breathless, and tell her what he’d seen” (60).
Finally, Ruth seems to somehow dream into existence the final pages of Nao’s diary, as if she is summoning the story that did not exist. This also brings in the interesting question of the relationship between the reader and writer, between cause and effect. She dreams that she speaks to Haruki in the park to tell him about Jiko dying. She dreams that she places Haruki #1’s diary in Jiko’s office—literally reaching back through time to save Nao and her father.