What Connects Ruth And Nao In 'A Tale For The Time Being'?

Question

Readers of 'A Tale for the Time Being' always mention a deep link between Ruth and Nao. What's their core connection, and does it transcend time or reality?

Riaana Coetzee Davids · Answer

A diary written by the teenage girl Nao in Tokyo, carried to a remote island in the Pacific by a tsunami inside a Hello Kitty lunchbox, becomes a temporal link between Nao and the writer Ruth. Although they are far apart in space, through the diary Ruth learns about the life of the other girl and at the same time she tries to come to terms with her own isolation. In contrast, in 'An Outcast Of Time' a character’s entire life is unanchored from time and he has to relive history in all its disorganized fragmentation.

Graham · Answer

A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki is a novel about human connection all expressed through a physical object (a diary) that has been carried by the ocean across time and space. Writer Ruth lives on a remote Canadian island, feeling her way through her life as she approaches middle age, and struggling with creative stagnation. When a strong tsunami hits Japan in 2011 the diary of teenager Nao, who is being bullied at school, and is struggling to come to terms with her father’s depression and her own search for identity is washed up on the beach of Ruth’s island home. As Ruth becomes increasingly obsessed by the fate of the writer she starts to read about Japanese culture and gets into quantum physics and Zen Buddhism. Her husband, Oliver, even suggests that Nao may be a fictional character which throws up a whole host of further questions about the connection between reader and subject of a written work. Thus Ruth finds her own fears about growing old and feeling useless being mirrored by the recently teenager Nao who also finds an audience for her pain whether she is alive or not. The two women form a wonderful connection in the pages of the novel and explore the ways in which a story can be a connection between two isolated people over space and time.

The connection between Ruth and Nao is set against the background of the ocean. It is the silent carrier of Nao’s words to Ruth. The water, in Japanese culture, is a symbol of both separation and unity. The way of life of this writer living on a coast contrasts sharply with the despair of a young girl from the urban area of Tokyo. Both of them are facing tides of change of different kinds and scales. The survival of Nao’s diary against all odds of the ferocious ocean mirrors her fight for survival against all odds of her difficult life. In wanting to ‘save’ Nao, Ruth is perhaps expressing the maternal gene that she has never been able to express in her life. In a non-linear fashion, they relate to each other’s vulnerability. Ruth’s studies on the kamikaze pilots of World War II, and the wisdom of Jiko of the Yasukuni Shrine in Tokyo, add to the historical depth of their connection, and reveal to the reader the kind of connection possible between two people despite space and time.

Xenia · Answer

Linking Ruth to Nao in ‘A Tale for the Time Being’ is another example of the author highlighting the unintended consequences of our actions. Nao wrote her diary expecting no one to read her words of teenage anguish whereas Ruth, an equally isolated writer, found the diary by chance. The link between the two is that of raw pain meeting reflective solitude. The diary travels across the Pacific and becomes a metaphor for the way pain can travel and change the lives of strangers becoming links in a chain of kindred spirits. Although Ruth reads the story of Nao’s life the author’s intention is that Ruth will become immersed in the anger and pain of the young girl and that Nao will achieve what every writer wishes for – an audience who can see the true person in them. The sea is a great metaphor for this link in that although it is the carrier of the diary it is also silent witness to the connection between the two people and proves that geography is no bar to empathy.

Glenwood Munson · Answer

Ruth “gets” Nao through her sense of humor. Their connection isn’t purely based on the reader feeling pity for the young girl who is facing unspeakable horror. No, Ruth is charmed by Nao’s spirit. She loves the young girl, as she comes to know her through her writing. And what Ruth loves about Nao is the girl’s personality, her wit, her resilience, her cleverness. All of these qualities make the threat to Ruth’s life even more dire. She isn’t fighting to save a victim, she’s fighting to save a person that she likes, a person that she even admits that she would probably like if she ever met. The emotional texture of this link between Ruth and Nao is one of heartbreak mixed with humor. It’s real and it’s not abstract or theoretical in nature. It’s real because it’s the same kind of connection that we would have with a friend whose writing made us laugh out loud one moment and then gasp in horror the next moment.

Vijayendran · Answer

The link between Ruth and Nao is one of cultural translation. As a Japanese-American writer living in Canada, Ruth is somewhat disconnected from contemporary Japan and its culture. The diary of a young Japanese school girl who writes in English becomes a portal into the specific, often harsh world of 21st-century Tokyo, of Japanese school life, of the sub-culture of otaku and of family relations. Ruth’s research into Nao’s life is an act of translation trying to understand the complex web of societal pressures that determined Nao’s actions and decisions. At the same time, Ruth experiences her Japanese homeland (or her ancestral homeland) in a very physical and real way. Unlike a tourist, Ruth is an investigator of a personal crisis that is embedded in a very specific culture. For Nao, writing in English is a means of reaching out to an audience that is perhaps located in the West. Ruth becomes a cultural intermediary for the reader and in her research she has to grapple with all the nuances of Nao’s world. Nao’s diary is a cross-cultural missive and Ruth is its decipherer.

reynaldo villamor · Answer

I also want to bring up the physical object of the notebook, but in terms of connecting the two women the shared meditation on time is more relevant. So when Ruth, stuck on a remote island, gets Nao’s diary washed up on the beach she is transported to a moment in the past and can feel its intense presence. Although the two women never meet the connection between them is deep and engrossing to read about, primarily because of Ruth’s growing obsession with verifying the facts of Nao’s life and her eventual death. This is a one-sided relationship but it’s deeply and movingly conveyed. The connection between the two women is largely based on empathy. Ruth, stuck in her own writer’s block and searching for meaning in her life and her struggles with loneliness and the cruel treatment of others by society, finds in Nao’s brave and powerful account of her life a corresponding and corresponding account of her own struggles and in her own bravery and ultimate despair in the face of the seemingly senseless actions of others a way to find her own purpose in life and her own meaning. The journal becomes a powerful link between two women living in different times and circumstances but whose struggles are mirrored in each other. The journal passes from hand to hand, carried by the ocean currents that also carry the flow of time and consciousness between them, and in each case it is a powerful object that connects the reader to the writer. But in the end it is not so much the physical object of the journal that links the two women as the powerful and moving account of one woman’s life that it contains. And the novel suggests that it is through our stories that we are rescued from obscurity and kept alive. Ruth’s research gives weight to Nao’s struggles and Nao’s brave and powerful story gives Ruth purpose in her own life.

It is one of the most elegant explorations of the relationship between a reader and a writer that I have ever read.

Jesus Guerrero · Answer

My brain is all Zen and quantum foam right now after reading through this entire thread. Too much of it to make sense of, in other words, so maybe we can just say that they’re connected because that was a good plot device for the author. Honestly though, sometimes the best stories are just good stories. I think that the diary is connected to Ruth through her need to feel connected to Nao and to be able to tell Nao’s story in a way that feels meaningful to her. And it feels connected to both of them in a sort of magical, possible way. The lunchbox, for example, is a Hello Kitty lunchbox that survived the tsunami. It’s a very specific image, which is why it works. And it’s the kind of image that makes sense in the context of the book. The connection between Ruth and Nao feels very real because Ozeki is a great story teller and she has complete confidence in her storytelling. So, I suppose the connection between Ruth and Nao and between the reader (me, you) and the book is the true connection. We’re all time beings, after all.

George Damalerio · Answer

The connection between Ruth and Nao’s story is a commentary on passive consumption of media. Ruth is not a casual reader; she is an active, intervening reader. Rather than reading Nao’s story and absorbing it, Ruth is trying to change the outcome of the story or even discover the outcome of the story. Typically our connection to media is at arms length and safe. But the connection between Ruth and Nao’s story is defined by this sense of responsibility. What do we owe to the suffering of real people in their stories? Even when those stories are greatly fictionalized, we still feel a sense of responsibility or debt to those stories and to people who are suffering. Ruth feels a great debt of responsibility to Nao and their connection is difficult, strenuous, anxious and urgent. It is not easy or comfortable. In fact it is quite demanding. The link between Ruth and Nao’s story is the weight of that responsibility or that engagement. Nao has written her story in a very vulnerable way and therefore demands of her reader the same level of engagement that she has displayed in writing her story. She forces the reader out of their passive reading of a story and into an active engagement with the story. The connection between Ruth and Nao’s story is therefore one of a contract of urgency. Nao has sent out an SOS and Ruth feels compelled to answer it. This is how we should read the pain of the world’s suffering even if it is just delivered to us in a book or on a screen.

Gina Ordonio · Answer

So this connection to secondary characters in search of Ruth’s link to Nao, through investigation, first leads her to the online presence of Haruki #1, Nao’s father. Piecing together the story of his failed academic life and subsequent, desperate decline, Ruth gains insight into the family trauma of Nao and her family. This is not just a single link between two females, rather it extends to all of Nao’s parents, Jiko and the historical figure of Nao’s uncle, a kamikaze pilot, down to the last detail. Ruth’s connection to Nao is deepened with every new insight into the lives of those who have shaped Nao’s life. She can feel pity for Haruki #1, be in awe of Jiko and horror at the stories her uncle shared with her before he died. Ruth is not saving a girl, she is attempting to gain insight into an entire line of human suffering and also into incredible, also somehow flawed human beings. Her curiosity about Nao’s diary and the rest of her life creates a web of connection to all these people, spanning decades and even generations.

venancia zingapan · Answer

A literary bridge not made of physical matter, but of the diary of a young woman who attempts to take her life in Tokyo. The diary contains the story of her great-grandmother and her own struggles as a bullied and isolated teenager. A novelist, Ruth, living on a Pacific island in her late 50s finds the diary and becomes obsessed with the contents and the question of whether Nao is still alive. The diary is the physical object that connects the two women, but it is also a metaphor for the themes of their struggles. Ruth’s search for answers to the questions posed by the diary becomes an act of care for Nao, throwing her a lifeline in the reverse direction of their communication. And Nao writes to an unknown ‘you’ and in doing so creates the listener she needs to tell her story. They save each other’s bacon in obscure ways: Nao gives Ruth a story and Ruth’s reading and caring of the diary gives Nao a sense of historical substance and validates her existence. It is a haunted and beautiful novel in fragile and imagined form.

kserrano · Answer

Ruth and Nao are connected through sheer narrative necessity in the best possible way. The novel needs a way to connect two vastly different people, and the realist novel has, in this case, a great plot engine in the form of the diary-in-a-lunchbox. Once one accepts the premise of the diary, the connection between the two people can blossom into all of the explorations of empathy, quantum physics, Zen, etc. that people are discussing about this novel. At its core, however, the connection between Ruth and Nao is simply the ‘what if?’ of the scenario presented. What if your most private diary were to be found by a stranger on the other side of the world? What if you found a diary that felt like a cry for help and you were able to answer it? This connection into this scenario taps into some of the deepest fantasies that humans have: the possibility of being completely understood by a stranger and the possibility of having a secret that makes you important. The connection between Ruth and Nao is thus the ‘Once upon a time’ of the novel that allows for the rest of the philosophical explorations of deeper themes to occur. And these explorations of deeper themes are made to feel real by the individual character depths that have been developed in each of the two people.

Dax O. Walet · Answer

Ruth reads Nao’s great-grandmother’s story, which goes back to World War II and the kamikaze pilots. In reading the diary of a Japanese girl of today, Ruth also reads the story of early 20th-century Japan, its militarism, and its aftermath. The diary is a palimpsest of time, containing many layers of experience. By becoming engaged with Nao’s diary, Ruth becomes the curator of this history, of this personal experience. She reads the diary of a Japanese girl today and so she reads the experience of a young boy growing up in Japan a century ago. She connects with the story of Jiko as he grows up in Japan a century ago and so she connects with the story of Nao growing up in Japan today. This is a connection of historical consciousness. And by reading Nao’s diary, Ruth becomes a part of the story of Nao’s family, connecting with the cultural and family experience that has influenced Nao. Ruth is now a part of the many stories that make up her own life, as well as the lives of Nao, Jiko, and Haruki #1. She is able to hold all of these stories in her mind as she tries to make sense of them and the connections between them. The connection between Ruth and Nao is a connection of historical consciousness on a large scale. Ruth’s reading of the diary of this Japanese girl today makes visible the many connections between Ruth and Nao and the many other stories that are part of their lives, a long story of human experience.

What Connects Ruth And Nao In 'A Tale For The Time Being'?

12 Answers

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