A Tale for the Time Being

I rejoiced at the beginning of this summer, bragging to my younger brother about my lack of summer reading. To my own dismay, I spoke too soon, and I left college orientation in June with not one, but two books to read for my upcoming freshman year. Luckily, I love to read, but summer is usually my time to catch up on books I want to read, and sometimes, summer reading undermines my effort to read my own books.

Every student in my freshman class is required (or supposed) to read A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki. When I bought the book in the campus bookstore, I was pleasantly surprised by the intriguing summary on the back cover. After years in high school spent reading classic literature, this contemporary novel was a welcome change.

Blending the diary of a 16-year-old Japanese American living in Tokyo with the words of a Japanese American author living in British Columbia, the book plays with the themes of identity, ethnicity, and mental illness.

The book seamlessly switches between the two narrators to create a multidimensional story. Ruth, an author living in British Columbia, finds the diary of Nao, a 16-year-old girl who possesses Japanese heritage but identifies as an American growing up in California. When her father's job causes them to move to Japan, Nao faces language and cultural barriers that prevent her from assimilating into her own heritage. Ruth sympathizes with Nao's isolation and desperately wants to help the girl, attempting to research any possible signs of the girl's existence.

The novel continues to explore the power of culture and identity, while examining the effects of untreated mental illness and the pain of suicide. Nao desperately searches for meaning in what seems, to her, like a meaningless existence, and as she reads Nao's diary, Ruth simultaneously asks the same questions.

Space, time, and writing converge in A Tale for the Time Being. In the end, both narrators find the peace and truth they seek through their writing and in their lives.