Despite the fact that the memoir is deeply unpleasant to Ruth, she lacks the courage to abandon it-it becomes a physical manifestation of her complicated, painful past. The subject of the memoir is Ruth’s mother’s struggle with Alzheimer’s, and this stokes Ruth’s own fear that she is losing her memory and will get Alzheimer’s herself. Memoirs are, of course, based on the writer’s memories, and Ruth finds this project weighty and tiresome. Therefore, the past is unreal-all that anyone has is the elusive, ungraspable “now.” Ruth, too, feels the burden of her past, as she struggles with the memoir she has been trying to write for a decade. However, she acknowledges that her past happy self no longer exists and that memory is often faulty. As a result of her difficulties, Nao often reminisces about her past, which seems more “real” to her than the present since she was happier back then. Nao’s present is full of troubles, like her father’s suicide attempts and the cruel bullying she experiences at school. For instance, Nao (whose very name is pronounced “now”) points out that as soon as one even says the word “now,” that moment is already in the past-it is “like a slippery fish” that is impossible to catch. Right from its title, A Tale for the Time Being-in other words, a story for the present moment-emphasizes the importance of “now.” Yet the novel’s characters struggle to move on from their pasts and make the present count. Ozeki suggests that for these characters to move forward, they must learn to accept the impermanence of all things, and that they must see every moment they have-the “now”-as an opportunity to improve themselves. Nao and Ruth (the novelist who discovers Nao’s diary washed up on a beach and becomes engrossed in it) struggle to reconcile themselves with change, and they both seem stuck in their pasts. This pun in the title hints that the novel will explore these two notions of time that are influenced by Zen Buddhist philosophy: the importance of the present moment and the short-lived nature of all things. Nao, a Japanese teenager who records her experiences in her diary, explains that all creatures are “time beings,” meaning that everything and everyone is impermanent. The term “time being” refers to the present, and A Tale for the Time Being aptly examines the importance of the present moment.

Part III, Chapter 7: Haruki #1’s Secret French Diary.Part II, Chapter 13: Haruki #1’s Letters.

A tale for the time being a novel