A Tale for the Time Being

A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki brings together some interesting themes: extreme school bullying (in Japan), Japanese youth cultures, the struggle of being a writer, quantum physics, the effect of war on the generations of a family, and Buddhist philosophies. The book has an interesting narrative twist, in that not only are you the reader following the text, but another character is reading the same writing by another person in the story. The title, in the Buddhist interpretation has a double meaning-not just of time but of a being, as in a sentient being. The book explains that the characters in the story and the reader are “time beings.”  As one of the character points out, human time beings need meditation to help them keep away the “big fish” or the fears that settle heavily in the pit of ones stomach. A character in the book is able to teach another to meditate just through leaving instructions in a diary.  This diary seems to connect people so that the fates of the characters are changed through this diary that had floated from Japan to the Canadian coast through the initial power of a tsunami.