Saturday, March 22, 2014

A tale for the time being

A tale for the time being / Ruth Ozeki 422 pgs.

This is a really beautiful novel with epistolary elements between two authors...Nao is a young Japanese girl who is going through some "issues".  She has recently relocated to Japan after her dad was laid off from his job in Silicon Valley.  She has few friends and is actively bullied by her peers in Japan.  We know about this because Ruth, an author living on a small Canadian island finds her diary and other documents when they wash ashore. Ruth and Nao start a "relationship" based on Nao's writing and Ruth's reading.  It is interesting to follow Ruth's thoughts as she reads.  There are a couple of other important characters.  Ruth's husband Oliver (and their pesky cat), Nao's father who attempts suicide several times, Nao's granny who is 104 and a Buddhist nun and Haruki #1, Nao's great uncle who died in the war.  Many of the characters never meet but know each other through the written word and stories from other characters. It is not easy to explain the attraction to this story because the relationships are not easily explained but take the time to explore this book.

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