A Tale for the Time Being tells the story of Japanese teenager Nao through her diary that is washed up on the Canadian coast. Her diary is found by Ruth, a Japanese-American novelist struggling to write her own memoir. The stories of Ruth and Nao are woven together through the novel, and Ruth becomes obsessed with finding the enigmatic and suicidal Nao.
The theme of time runs deep throughout the novel, in both Nao and Ruth’s strands of the story, and the passage of time feels somewhat distorted. The story drags you in the same way Nao’s diary was dragged by the ocean from one continent to another. In the same way that the bag containing the diary was pummelled by the waves, the book hits you with its original, sometimes bizzaire, but always moving way of looking at the world.
The passage of time is represented by both Ruth’s recently dead mother and Nao’s 104-year-old grandmother, a Buddhist nun and Nao’s one source of happiness. Death is mentioned throughout the book, right from the beginning where Nao imagines and foretells her own death, in the half melodramatic half deadly serious manner only a teenager could achieve.
The fearless youth of Nao contrasts with Ruth’s cautious nature, and Ruth seems to represent the person Nao may grow up to be, although Nao’s constant talk of her own death doesn’t leave you hopeful that she will ever have time to become that woman. They share the bond of both being from Japanese and American backgrounds and therefore both share the same feelings of alienation and not knowing where they belong in the world.
This novel is a beautiful expression of trying to capture an exact moment of time in writing, of trying to express what Nao would call ‘the time being’ in words. However despite the impossibility and futility of the nature of this task, the novel ultimately remains optimistic and is an excellently written tale.
