A Tale for the Time Being

A Tale for the Time Being is written by Ruth Ozeki detailing the story of Ruth reading a teenage girl’s diary. Ruth by reading Nao’s diary begins to form a close friendship with the girl despite never meeting her or being able to find any proof of her existence. Through the unique structure of the book, Nao and Ruth create a dialogue with each other and they form an intimate bond despite the distance that divides them. The distance between them is not something to underestimate. Nao wrote and finished her diary months and months before Ruth ever finds it on the beach. Their relationship transcends time and space which is a major theme of the book. Time is described as, “Do not think that time simply flies away. Do not understand ‘flying’ as the only function of time. If time simply flew away, a separation would exist between you and time. So if you understand time as only passing, then you do not understand the time being.   To grasp this truly, every being that exists in the entire world is linked together as moments in time, and at the same time they exist as individual moments of time. Because all moments are the time being, they are your time being.” This provides a unique perspective on time and points out the relativity of time.  This quote describes how Nao and Ruth’s relationship can work. There is no separation between them because they are linked together by the simple fact that they are human beings that in the universe. Ruth and Nao are both beings in time, there is no time that has passed between them because all moments of time are linked together. This quote is important to the novel because it explains how time is viewed in the novel.