A Tale for the Time Being / Ruth Ozeki

RATINGS

Overall: 5 / 5 stars

Text Level: High

Entertainment: High

Self-Help: Medium

Genres: Fiction, Contemporary, Magical Realism, Japan

Page Count: 432

Is this book right for my inmate and me?

Individuals drawn to feeling of suicide and not having meaning in life will find this coming-of-age story powerful.

Review By: Blackbird (Inmate)

A tale of hope for those that might feel lost alone and thinking of giving up.

How do we handle the feeing of loss of purpose? Can we handle the pain of being case aside? A Tale for the Time Being leads us through the story of two women’s lives as they search for a renewed purpose.

Ruth Ozeki writes a great coming-of-age story about a teenage girl, Nao, living in Japan suffering from intense bullying and she struggles of having no wehre to turn besides to the pages of her journal that is found by a woman on the opposite side of the globe. Through this journal, Ruth, the Canadian reader learns just as much about herself as she does about Nao, living a world away.

So many of us living in prison heave early lives that were filled with pain and being ostracized by society. These feelings of hurt and shame lead many of us to feel that the world wold be better if we were not in it. The thoughts of suicide run rampant in jail, because we feel we detached from a purpose. We have lost the view of how we can serve others and the level of meaning we still hold in this world. This story helps an inmate work through some of these most painful emotions to see that we still have value.

In this story by Ozeki, we read about the wrenching tale about a teenage girl named Nao, as she is forced to deal constantly with bullying from her Japanese classmates. Life has always been this way for Nao. Until recently she had a great life living in California that was free from struggles and pain. her world is turned upside down when her father loses his job and they are forced to move back to Japan while he searches for work. This leads to her father falling into deep depression with multiple suicide attempts. With no one at home to hear her social pain, she finds peace and lessons of life from her grandmother that has lived for many years as a monk. All of this is read to us by the character of Ruth, a middle-aged woman living in Canada, that herself has become stagnant in her own goals to be a writer. Both live are changed for the better when a journal filled with Nao’s experiences washes up on the beach for Ruth find.

Suicide should never be an option. However, as inmates there are times when that feels likes that is only way to escape from our pain. This story teaches us that the world might throw us unexpected and painful turns but by having faith that the sun will rise and we have value to this world, we can overcome the darkness. Life is a series of ups and downs, but if we remain faithful to seeing our worth to others, we will grow. Life gives us many opportunities to learn lessons about ourselves through situations that might carry pain. In these we can see the blessings of becoming more.