A Tale for the Time Being

Author/Guide: Ruth Ozeki

Why a Booktrail?

2011: ‘Hi! My name is Nao, and I am a time being. Do you know what a time being is? Well, if you give me a moment, I will tell you.’

ISBN: 978-0857867971
Genre: Fiction

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What you need to know before your trail

Canada: Ruth discovers a Hello Kitty lunchbox washed up on the shore of her beach home. Inside is a diary in which a young girl has written about her hopes and dreams. It appears that is may have been washed away after the tsunami in Japan and she can’t help reading on to find out more about this mysterious girl and her dreams.

Tokyo: 16 year old Nao Yasutani is going through a difficult time. In the face of cyberbullying, the mysteries of a 104-year-old Buddhist nun and the heartbreak of family, Nao is trying to find – through a diary – a reader and friend who finally understands her.

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Travel Guide

Canada – Vancouver Island

Circling higher still, up and up,and the mountains of the Vancouver Island Range came into view, the Golden Hinde, the white glaciers glowing in the moonlight. On the far side stretched the open Pacific and beyond, but the crow could not fly high enough”

“Whaletown post office was a tiny wooden shack, clinging to an rocky outcrop on the edge of Whaletown Bay.The mail came over by ferry three times a week and so three times a week, a representative from each of the households in Whaletown got into a car or a truck or an SUV and drove to the post office to pick up the mail.”

This is the part of the world, remote and an island like much of Japan bt o far removed from where the tragedy took place. Ruth finds a lunch box here and wonders what secrets it contains.

Japan – Tokyo

Nao tells her tale using the title as her beginning point, for a time being is a being in time. She’s highly intelligent and s really from California which she wants to go back to. Tokyo for her is a holiday with a Buddhist nun named Jiko.

In writing the diary an account of Japan is created on the page. The author illustrates the two countries and how the war affected both. History often repeats itself through events and people.

The calmness and isolation of Vancouver Island is in complete contrast to the chaos of Tokyo. But loneliness is not about the people around you but the ones you surround yourself with.