"A Tale for the Time Being" by Ruth Ozeki – A Life in a Lunchbox

Though perhaps those who are used to the Western way of living sometimes crack jokes about the prevalence of suicide in certain Asian cultures, such as the Japanese one, the truth is that it is a very real problem on the other side of the pacific. 

Countless people of all ages and all types of lives put an end to their existence on a very regular basis, believing that it is by far the best solution to any problems they may be experiencing.
A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki is basically set in motion by this phenomenon, as a Japanese teenager living in Tokyo decides to end her life of bullying and loneliness. However, before she does so, Naoko decides to chronicle the life of her Great Grandmother who was a Buddhist monk who managed to live more than a hundred years. 

However, that is only part of the story as on the other side of a Pacific lives Ruth, an author suffering from writer’s block and praying for some kind of intervention. She finds in the form of a lunchbox that washes up on a shore, containing the story of Nao’s life.

Though at first the narrative in A Tale for the Time Being feels somewhat disjointed and hard to follow, after a while you get used to the rhythm established by Ozeki and have no trouble knowing what time and place we are talking about at any given moment. It mainly jumps back and forth between Ruth and Naoko’s stories, putting them in parallel and using one to complement the other.

As long as we are talking about the narration, I have to say that Naoko is a rather eye-opening narrator, being wiser beyond her years, carefully choosing her words and displaying a level of self-awareness very few adults, let alone teenagers possess. 

The time she spends with her great grandmother, listening to her stories of a past long-forgotten is simply touching and beautiful as we are treated to very vivid and accurate descriptions of what life is like for a Buddhist priest.

If you are expecting a novel that is completely grounded in reality and a touching story about teen angst, then hold your horses a bit because what you are getting here is philosophy, Zen Buddhism, animal spirits, quantum physics, the meaning of life, the meaning of suicide, and a lot more. 

On the whole, it feels to me more like a reflection on various aspects of life itself, rather than the story of one teenager amongst many.

All in all, if you like slower-paced books that are more meditative in their nature, then I highly recommend you check out A Tale for the Time Being; readers who prefer intellectual materials certainly won’t be disappointed.

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Ruth Ozeki Personal site Ruth Ozeki is a Canadian-American novelist who has also extensively dabbled in filmmaking for over ten years, not to mention she holds the title of Zen Buddhist priest. She was awarded the Kiriyama Prize for My Year of Meats and the American Book Award for All Over Creation.