A Tale For The Time Being By Ruth Ozeki: An Analysis

“Do not judge a book by its cover” the famous metaphorical phrase of all time is heard by many but followed by few. The novel A Tale For The Time Being, written by Ruth Ozeki serves something similar. On the outside when one reads it, they are likely to think that it is all about death. The book revolves around a sixteen year old girl Naoko Yasutani who plans to express her feelings in her diary. Nao as she is called, plans to commit suicide, but before killing herself; she wants to dedicate the diary to tell information about her 104 year old great grandmother, a Buddhist nun named Jiko. Instead of writing about Jiko, Nao writes about the bullying, suicide attempts her father committed. Years later, on the other side, a Hello Kitty lunchbox

The idea of stopping time seems absurd but in the novel halt the passage of time meant living long enough to help identify their true identity. The novel starts with Nao explaining to readers what her story is about. One of the first things she says is, “I am a time being. Do you know what a time being is? Well, if you give me a moment, I will tell you. A time being is someone who lives in time, and that means you, and me, and every one of us who is, or was, or ever will be” (Ozeki 1). For Nao in the beginning time is limited as she is thinking about considering suicide. What this means is that she has to finish her Jiko’s story. However, that goal remained unfinished as she started writing about all the bullying and her life struggles. For Nao texting Jiko and finding the answers helped solve lot of problems and would like to stop the flow of time so that she can identify her true self with the help of phone. Nao also believed that Zazen helps one live in the present by blocking what happened in the past and what will happen in the future. The practice however is difficult because while Nao wants to live in present her mind keeps recalling the events in the past and therefore, wants to stop time so that for once she can enjoy now. Haruki #1 the owner of the sky soldier watch and japanese letters and French diary also reflects similar attitude towards time. He says, “If I

Nao who gets seperated from her friend uses Technology such as email to connect with her friend. She feels connected with Americans friends by writing blogs. Nao shaves off her hair and meditates in the wood and when the priest walks by she feels more like Jiko and other nuns which makes her feel less like failure and more connected to her olders. Shaving off her hair gives Nao the sense that she has her “superpawa” makes her brave and stand up for herself at school. Nao’s father who has tried committing suicide when sees the video of his daughter being raped and her panties are put on internet for auction tries to save his daughter’s respect which later connects both together. Being the father he couldn’t let himself see his daughter’s rape he joined the auction to get his daughter’s panty back because his ideology tells him to do anything to protect his princess. Similarly, Ruth can not help but think about Nao and her struggles which is a vacation from her own struggles. Hsiu-Chuan Lee, in his article, "Sharing Worlds through Words: Minor Cosmopolitics in Ruth Ozeki's A Tale for the Time Being" writes about how Ruth uses Internet to constantly stay in touch with Nao. Lee writes, “Ruth, finding herself caught up in Nao’s story, obsessively Googles Nao and her family. The events of