ruth author of a tale for the time being

The relationship between the writer and reader is thus the second major theme of the book.īut let’s go back to the start. Instead, the past is made to reach out to the future and the future to the past where they seemingly blend in the present, through you – the reader. Unlike many other fictional stories about time travel, this one is neither set in some futuristic scene nor does it make use of any sci-fi ploys to whisk you back into the past. What is a time being? Who is this Nao girl? What will happen to her? This is what you want from an opening line, right? – to be willfully ensnared, hook, line and sinker.Īs you may have guessed, a major theme of this novel is time, or to be more precise, time travel. Suddenly I had more questions than answers. So perhaps the opening sentence would more accurately read “A long long time ago in a faraway land…where everything was zen and peaceful.” Where in such a story would I find the tension, the drama, the gravitas I needed to get through it? I was not feeling hopeful.Īnd then I read this: “Hi! My name is Nao, and I am a time being.” My brain did a double flip in excitement. I knew nothing about the author either, except that she was an ordained Buddhist priest of Japanese descent living in North America. Who could blame me? With a title like that I half expected the opening sentence to read “A long long time ago in a faraway land”. When I first heard that we would be reading A Tale for the Time Being, I was not exactly enthusiastic. This way anyone who couldn’t be there, can still join in with the fun! Our ninth book is A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki and the review is written by Lameez Alexander. For every book we read during the book club, one of our book club members will write a review.

Ruth author of a tale for the time being