Ruth,
one of the main characters in A Tale for the Time Being, happens to find
a diary about Nao washed up on shore on the island where Ruth and Oliver live,
and in the beginning it seems like they are two different people, unrelated
except for the fact that Ruth is reading about Nao, similar to how these twelve
pieces in the origami firework are unrelated as of now.
However, as the novel and Nao’s
diary progresses, it is seen that Nao and Ruth share similar experiences. Aside
from the fact that they both are Japanese, they both seem to be out of place in
where they are living right now. Ruth felt like she fit in when she lived in
New York, where she could be among other people; however because of her
circumstances with Oliver’s and her mother’s health, she had to move to the
island where Oliver lives. As a result, “she missed people,” (61). Nao,
similarly, fit in when she lived in California. She had friends, her father had
a job, and life seemed to be going well for her. Then when her father lost his
job and they had to move back to Japan her life fell apart; other students
started to bully her and her father started to attempt to commit suicide.
They
are further related when Ruth begins to connect more and finds more clues about
Nao’s life with the help of the internet. She first finds an article by a
professor that seems to match up with the events Nao has described and later
searches up Yasutani Jiko and finds an article, helping her become even more closer to Nao and her story, much like this origami firework.
The firework is more complex than it seems like how Nao describes time as complex. She wants to live now, but by the time she says now, it is in the past already.
Aside from origami, A Tale for
the Time Being is interesting to me because it reminds me of Frankenstein. The novel is set up like a frame tale, much like in Frankenstein.
Walton is listening to Frankenstein talk about the Creature and then writing
about it to his sister, while Ruth is reading about Nao in her diary. Both Walton
and Ruth act as an outside perspective, reacting to the story as a reader
would.
