This is probably the longest I have spent reading a book in ages. Most reads are frenetic. I get the book and do nothing else for a couple days. This was not my experience with Ruth Ozeki's
A Tale For the Time Being. It felt to me like I needed to go slow in order to grasp the content. Like a nice glass of wine, it was to be savoured, not downed. I think it started differently because I could only find a copy for my book club on the library's electronic reader resource, and I attempted to do this on my desktop, and only achieved a knowledge of what to do with the reader on my phone. It caused me to jump back and forth to the index, following the many references to Japan and Japanese in a slow inefficient way, but it set the tone for a slow methodical read. Then the book expired and I was forced to wait until the hardcopy came in before I restarted. By then I was, like the protagonist, yearning to know more about her great-grandmother, an unlikely physical form of an anarchist nun, and like the fictionalized Ruth, yearning to know more about Nao, the protagonist.
I often enjoy movies that take me somewhere else because I do not have enough time or resources to travel as much as I would like. I enjoyed this book for the same reason; it took me to Vancouver Island to a couple who lived in a small community, that enjoyed the ocean and its bounty, as well as the folk who lived there. It took me to Japan, where a teenage girl was discovering herself, despite being bullied and physically and verbally abused by peers and teacher. Her father and mother were absent much of the time, but the whole family was attempting to reintegrate into Japanese society after living in California for a time, and now feeling much poorer and disassociated. She turned to her ancestors and was inspired by her great-grandmother and her great uncle, who had served as a "sky soldier" in the the Japanese air force, but it was far from a romantic role that the translation alludes to.
This is a book to be enjoyed over sipping. It helps if it's windy and cold and you have a nice hot latte or tea. You need to read it slowly, in increments, taking the time to imagine yourself in a Japanese shop inspired by the French and Manga heroines and villains. You need to imagine how the abused become the abuser, and how a marriage is in the mundane day-to-day. You need to imagine living on the edge of the ocean, vulnerable to power outages and sunamis. You will climb to a mountain temple on the island of Japan and meet a tiny ancient bald woman, and you will be glad you did.
Enjoy!
