A Tale for the Time Being: Part I, Chapter 8: Ruth Summary & Analysis

(1) Ruth thinks that she and Oliver are frittering their lives away, too. The part in Nao’s diary about the hikikomori (“recluses”) made them both uncomfortable, since they, too, are recluses on their island. Ruth feels like changes take place in “a world far away.”

(2) The following morning, Ruth approaches her memoir with a sense of determination. She’s wearing the antique watch and she decides to time herself by it, resolving to do 30 minutes of uninterrupted work. However, Ruth gets distracted by the watch itself, and she starts trying to decipher the kanji characters etched on its back. With the help of her kanji dictionary, she discovers that they read “sky soldier.” She begins to google “WWII” and “sky soldier” to try to locate the manufacturer of the watch. Ruth lands on a forum for watch enthusiasts and discovers that the watch was made by Seiko Company during World War II. She finds out that the numbers engraved on the back were the serial number of the soldier who wore it.

(3) Ruth googles “Haruki Yasutani” but finds nothing about either a kamikaze pilot or a computer programmer. She also cannot find Haruki or Tomoko among the Yasutanis who were missing or dead in the earthquake and tsunami, and Ruth is relieved. She looks for Jiko Yasutani and Zen temples but once again draws a blank. Finally, she looks for “Chuo Rapid Express” and misspells Haruki as “Harryki” in the search bar; she is surprised by the results.

(4) The website Ruth lands on belongs to Dr. Leistiko, a professor of psychology at Stanford University who researches first-person accounts of suicide. Dr. Leistiko has posted an excerpt from a letter from a Japanese man who calls himself “Harry.” The man writes that, in Japan, suicide is regarded as a something beautiful, honorable, and meaningful.

Harry continues by saying that in modern, technology-ridden society, people complain about how everything feels unreal. However, Harry says, this is the way life has always been. Even Plato wrote that “things in this life are only shadows of forms.” Suicide, Harry says, makes life real—and it  feels like “stopping Time Forever.” However, he acknowledges that this is a delusion, too, since suicide is a part of life. 

Harry says that suicide is popular in Japan among middle-aged salarymen like himself because of the recession. Men like him are ashamed that they can’t support their families; they spend their days on park benches. Harry says that the most popular method of suicide is by hanging, and another popular way is to jump in front of a train like the Chuo Rapid Express. He says that he’s tried the train method, but he failed.

Harry says that young people in Japan prefer to jump off roofs to kill themselves. He worries about his daughter, who is unhappy in her Japanese school. Some young people form suicide “clubs”: they meet online, rent a car together, drive to the countryside, and then kill themselves by inhaling carbon dioxide from the car’s exhaust.

Harry fears that his attitude toward suicide is unhealthy for his daughter. Initially, he wanted to kill himself to spare her the shame of his failures—but after he threw himself in front of the train, he saw that his daughter looked incredibly sad.  Now, Harry wants to live, but he’s too afraid to do so. He asks Dr. Leistiko to teach him how to love his life—he wants to find “the meaning of [his] life” for his daughter.

(5) Ruth sends a quick email to Dr. Leistiko, asking him if “Harry” from the letter is, in fact, a man named Haruki Yasutani who used to live in Sunnyvale. She says that she needs to reach either Mr. Yasutani or his daughter, Naoko, as soon as possible, since Ruth is concerned about Naoko’s well-being. After she does this, Ruth is disappointed to see that it is already one in the afternoon—she hasn’t managed to get any writing done. Even worse, she hears someone’s car outside.

(6) The car outside Ruth’s house is Muriel’s. Residents of the island often drop in without warning, which Ruth and Oliver dislike. Out of politeness, Ruth sits with Muriel and Oliver as they chat about garbage—but she’s bored. She inspects the packet of letters that came in the lunch box and finds that one envelope is thicker than the rest and is wrapped in wax paper. Inside is a thin, folded composition book written in French. Ruth interrupts Muriel and Oliver to ask if they can help her with the French.

(7) Neither Muriel nor Oliver get very far with the French in the composition book, and as Muriel prepares to leave, she suggests that Ruth call Benoit—another resident of the island—to help her decipher it. Watching Muriel walk tentatively down the steps, Ruth is reminded of Nao’s description of the old naked ladies in the public baths. Ruth, too, is beginning to feel her age in her knees and hips, and she recalls that she never had trouble getting enough exercise when she lived in New York, because she walked everywhere. Ruth’s memories of New York feel “vivid and real,” just like Nao’s memories of Sunnyvale.

Muriel is surprised to see the Japanese Jungle Crow as she gets into her car. Oliver tells her that he thinks it rode the same drift as the lunch box. Muriel tells him that the Sliammon people who used to live in British Columbia believed that a crow named T’Ets was a “magical ancestor who could shape-shift and take human or animal form.” After Muriel has driven away and Oliver has gone into the garden, Ruth speaks aloud to the crow, asking it what it wants. The crow stares silently back at her, and Ruth is convinced that it's waiting for something.