Review: A Tale for the Time Being

A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This review is also found on Goodreads! :)
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Actual Rating: 4.5 stars
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This book is one of the most well though-out and well researched book I've read. Ozeki expertly combined quantum mechanics and fiction in one heartbreaking tale. I have to be honest, I'd classify this as a painful read. Looking at the cover, you'd think it's a happy story. It's really not. If you're in this stage in you life where everything is hopeless, reading this might be triggering. The majority of the book is morbid, but beautifully so. If you do get to the last parts of the story, you would find yourself--oddly enough--lifted, as if you hadn't been reading a few hundreds of pages of loneliness, bullying, death, and suicide.

I fell in love with this gradually, not in an instant. Although the first few paragraphs in Nao Yasutani's point-of-view quickly endeared her to me. Nao loves fully, but unable to love herself. It is Nao's story, but her relationship with her father steered every course the story took. It reminded me of my own relationship with my dad (which made me miss him terribly). I don't even know how to compress the things tackled in this book in one measly paragraph. It's too much: suicide, dignity, conscience, Japan, America, ijime, Zen, Buddhism, war, quantum mechanics, and so on. Despite the plethora of information (fact fused with fiction), I didn't find the story hard to follow. I guess it's because I took my time reading it. It's really not the type of book I wanted to rush. The story was riveting; Nao was heartbreaking. And with how esoteric Jiko Yasutani talks of life, time, and time beings, I couldn't find it in my heart to rush a novel so profoundly written.

I've read a few reviews of this book before. Some reviews talked about how the quantum physics at the last part was a turn-off. Maybe it was because I was expecting it already, but when I got to that part of the story, I found it beautiful and moving. I'm not an expert on quantum mechanics nor have I spent years studying it, but it is one of the few scientific topics I've been interested in ever since I've read Dark Matter. So maybe, other than I was expecting the topic, I was already warmed up to the idea. I was more curious on how Ozeki will weave it in her story. And I was not disappointed. I do understand how weird it was for unassuming readers because of the sudden onslaught of scientific terms, phenomena, and explanations as the end approached.

Ruth Ozeki writes beautifully. Her prose builds itself unto your imagination effortlessly. She creates worlds out of words, and I am forever awed at how poetic and concise this book was written.

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I could not possibly list down every beautiful line or nugget of wisdom I found in A Tale for the Time Being, because it is the entire book. To fully understand its wisdom and beauty, you have to read it. And take your time with it. Breathe with it, and then live it.

Everything in the universe is constantly changing, and nothing stays the same, and we must understand how quickly time flows by if we are to wake up and truly live our lives. That's what it means to being a time being, old Jiko told me, and then she snapped her crooked fingers again. And just like that, you die.

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