Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in A Tale for the Time Being, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Time, Impermanence, and the Present
The Difficulty of Communication
Life vs. Death
Coincidences and Connections
Sexual Perversion and Violence
Summary
Analysis
(1) Ruth tries to sit zazen, but she always ends up dozing off. She wonders how this practice could open up her mind, she just feels bored.
Ruth’s challenges with zazen suggest that she isn’t spiritually ready for it yet. She is still “asleep” in a spiritual sense and is struggling to pay attention to the present and “wake up” the way Dogen advises.
Themes
(2) Ruth continues trying zazen meditation, but she keeps falling asleep. Between sleeping and waking, she hovers in a dreamlike state.
As Ruth keeps trying zazen, her experience of it seems to be gradually changing. Before she falls fully asleep, she enters a semiconscious state that is not quite a dream—which seems very similar to the vivid dreams she has in which she encounters Jiko. This seems to imply that zazen triggers the same kind of spiritual experience in Ruth that her supernatural dreams do.
Themes
(3) When Ruth was a little girl, she used to worry that she would travel so far away in her dreams that she wouldn’t be able to return in time to wake up. To console her, her father told her that he would always come and find her.
As a child, Ruth was fearful that she would get stuck in the dream world. When she enters a strange dream state as she practices zazen, Ruth remembers this, because the dream state feels so real to her. Throughout the novel, dreams are a vehicle for characters to connect across time and space, which leads to Ruth questioning if the dream state is any less real than her conscious life.
Themes
(4) Oliver tells Ruth that she is perhaps trying too hard to succeed at zazen—she probably needs a nap instead. Ruth says her entire like is like a nap that she needs to wake up from. She says that the universe has sent Nao her way, and that she really wants to heed Nao’s words to achieve her “superpower.”
Ruth recognizes that she is spiritually “asleep.” She takes Nao’s words to heart, and she feels fortunate for their connection that seems to transcend time and space.
Themes
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(5) Ruth and Oliver go to get some clams and oysters from a clam garden. After they’ve harvested enough, they drink beer and eat oysters. Oliver tells Ruth that these oysters are called the “Miyagi oyster,” since they are originally from Miyagi, Japan. Ruth is surprised by this coincidence. She thinks about Jiko’s temple, which might or might not still be clinging to the mountainside in Miyagi. Ruth then wonders aloud how much time she and Oliver have left, and Oliver replies they had better enjoy their lives while they can.
Jiko’s temple is in the Miyagi prefecture in Japan, and Ruth is surprised that there’s a connection to that place right on her island: the Miyagi oysters she’s having for dinner. Once again, the characters are connected through a coincidence that seems destined. When Ruth feels this connection with Jiko, she is reminded of her own mortality as she thinks of how Jiko’s temple is impermanent.
Themes
