A Tale for the Time Being by Ruth Ozeki

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.