A Year of Meats (1998) had the same
time blend, past and present. It had the
same composure of Space, as well, Japan and the USA. There’s nothing new under the sun.
She was there in All Over Creation
(2004), too. Is she writing the same
story, over and over, with new characters to keep things spicy? Nothing wrong with that, many of my favorite
authors do just that.
But Ruth is not a master writer, not
much of a professional one either, three books in 25 years. No, she’s no Robert Parker, who ground out
fifty variations of the same book in a similar 25 years. His Spenser was an alter-ego. He wrote himself as an almost super-hero,
with an African-American side-kick. No
ego with Ruth Ozeki, she simply blatantly writes about herself because it’s
easier and she wants to communicate her thoughts on life, the world, and her
metaphysical ponderings. The book is a
canvas for her with which to paint her story.
I’ve read each of Ruth’s three books
now. There’s a pattern here. She’s always well-researched, always
entertaining, and always writes about herself.
She’s not a typical writer. Well,
she’s not an author. She simply uses the
written word to tell us about the seemingly many interests in her life.
The alternating chapters didn’t work
well for her. It does for some authors,
but didn’t work for Ruth. It seemed as
though it might have been a good device in the beginning, but then she sort of
painted herself in the corner and couldn’t get out without metaphysical
time-space jumps which got almost Science-Fictiony.
