The novel also touches on the real life events of the nuclear radiation, and global warming.

The animals present in the novel are the cat, the crow, whales, and barnacles, bugs are also mentioned. Pesto is the family cat. The crow is a native Japanese species that follows the current and debris across the ocean. The whales are mentioned to have been killed for their blubber, and also bombed. The barnacles clung to the plastic bag the Hello Kitty lunchbox was in, they died. Bugs were a hobby of Nao’s father.

Ruth’s mother, is no longer with her. Ruth’s father isn’t mentioned. Ruth’s husband Oliver is what brings her to the island, which she hates. Oliver becomes pushed aside and even a bit bullied by Ruth as she journeys through the diary.

Nao’s journal is a way for Nao to show others who she is. She’s a teenage girl thrown into a tumultuous situation, it’s a time of high emotions and stresses. Since none of her schoolmates like her, she can’t be real with them. None of her other acquaintances want to genuinely know her, only use her for their purposes. Her family is so uninterested in who she really is. There is a moment where she takes charge of her life and shaves her head and finds a bit of peace within herself.

Can anyone hear me? Shit. My head is pounding. How did I get here? Ow, my legs. I can’t move them. I think I just woke up from being unconcious. I think I was suppose to die. Where am I? Wheres Oliver? Where’s that woman that Oliver hangs out with? Agh I can’t hear anything.

Let me see if I can remember anything…

I remember Her getting angry about something and I was sleeping so soundly but the way she got angry scared me so bad that I couldn’t help but jump and run somewhere where I felt safe. I stepped outside and felt the brisk, salt filled air against my face and it made my usual wet nose into something as dry as the food that I eat on occasion. It was a pretty clear night from what I remember, I felt so safe when I finally left that house, I felt like maybe I should go for a quick stroll before going back to bed because I was feeling particularly lucky. Maybe I could find a juicy pest to snack on… Man, that thought is making me hungry. Was that the last time I ate?

I walked along the moist grass and I could feel my paws falling into mud puddles on occasion. For a while, I could hear the sounds of the ocean waves, coming in and then going out, coming in and then going out. I heard a rustle in the huckleberry bushes and pounced on the most plump mole rat I had ever seen, oh my god I was so excited and just remembering this is making all this pain feel better but I think before I ate that plump mole rat, he made a wish while he died and that wish had come true.

Right, I was surrounded by four raccoons. Man those creatures are nasty, I’ve heard people admire how cute they are but truly, I find them to be annoying and disgusting. I could NEVER just rummage through garbage looking for something, let alone something to EAT. Well, they came for me, because that was the mole rats wish and that’s the last thing I remember. I vaguely remember crawling back toward the house, but where I am now… it smells like my house but somehow I am not in my house…?

It’s dark. I’m cold. I really can’t move my legs and I can’t feel my tail. Am I okay to just die here?

What was that?

Is that the woman I hear? Is that Oliver’s Woman? Am I smelling Oliver?! Oliver! I try to meow but I can’t. My mouth is parched. I open my eyes a little more and notice the cracks of light coming down. I don’t know where I am, I really don’t. Oh please Oliver, please just see me please please please. I opened my eyes more, hoping that the suns reflection will turn my eyes into another beam of light.

Something is coming. But it smells familiar. It’s Oliver. Oh thank god.

Careful with the tail there.

There was one thing I wanted to confess, just in case kamisama misinterpreted some of the actions that I had been partaking in the last few days. If someone were to have watched me the way we watch T.V. but with no back-story, then they would most likely think that I am father with feelings of incest toward my daughter but I wanted to make it clear that this is not the case and I was truly just trying to help. But even then, I still feel like I have committed a sin.

You see, my daughter and I share the family computer, and I know that anytime my daughter logs off the computer, she clears her cache but one night she forgot to do it and I ended up seeing something that made me cry harder than I think I have ever cried before.

I knew she was being picked on in school but I didn’t or more like, I couldn’t even imagine that it was going this far.

It fills me with disgust to even say this but my daughter’s blood soaked underwear was being auctioned off. Can you believe this? I couldn’t believe that some people could be filled with so much hatred to do that to another human being, let alone to someone like my precious daughter. I felt like I had only once choice to help and this is where I am scared that my actions may have been misinterpreted. I made an account on this website: C.imperator (Ah, I love the internet, I love how I can hide myself and be something as strong as a Staghorn Beetle) and I put in my bid. I started bidding not because of hentai feelings for my daughter but I wanted to save her innocence. I couldn’t let the perverts  of the world wide web to mercilessly steal that innocence away from her. I didn’t have much money but I continued to bid higher and higher and hoping and hoping that these terrible people who were bidding on her underwear would just give up and stop, I wanted to scream “SHE’S MY DAUGHTER. STOP. PLEASE STOP.” My palms were so sweaty and I was shaking so much from fear and anxiety. This was my one chance to do right by my daughter, to save her.

And yet… I lost.

maketa.

And I find myself realizing that maybe I’m not as strong as a Staghorn Beetle. But maybe I will be in my next life.

Sincerely,

sym·pa·thy
noun \ˈsim-pə-thē\
: the feeling that you care about and are sorry about someone else’s trouble, grief, misfortune, etc. : a sympathetic feeling
-Merriam-Webster

There is  website called doesthedogdie.com which has compiled a list of movies with an animal in it and next to each title is an icon symbolizing the outcome of the dog; it lives, it’s injured but lives, or it dies. And isn’t it funny how if I search “does the dog die” on Google, the first five results are about accessing whether or not fictional dogs die in films or literature? But, if I search “does the person die” or “does the character die” I come up with sites on dealing with death or specific television spoilers that seemingly relate to current media events.

I immediately identified the theme of sympathy for the last 100 pages when it’s revealed that Benoit’s dog has been killed by wolves.  Despite feeling sympathetic for the human (and animal) characters before that, I hadn’t seen it as a theme until the little dog died.One my even argue that Ruth begins reading Nao’s diary out of curiosity but continues as she begins to feel sympathy and care for the voice behind the purple ink. But why is it that it’s not until the end that Ruth’s overwhelming care and sympathy for Nao, her father, Jiko, and Haruki # 1  begins to spiral into fantasy and maddening dreams while we as readers are swept into it with the mirroring of animals lost and dying?

In my previous posts, I note the theme of loss and the theme of nature which are both maintained through the entire plot. But as those themes combine and the reader watches as characters lose their connection to nature we also grow with discomfort. It isn’t until Jiko’s death that the sympathy manifests itself into progression and understanding. Jiko herself stands as an ultimate sympathetic character. She states that she hates only one person (because he is a war criminal) but prays for everyone. I imagine it would take a lot of sympathy to understand the pain of many people, especially those you did not agree with. But Jiko understands the reality of nature is not always pleasant and loss is inevitable, and therefore she can accept her sympathy and channel it as she pleases.

On page 393 Ruth touches the diary but it has gone cold, parallel to Nao touching Jiko after her life had fully faded. Nao’s narrative is over and Ruth has discovered the reasons why there is not trace of her diary-friend anywhere on the internet; the search is over. As Ruth can accept not knowing but just being she gives away her grief and so we can let go as well.

Nature is a complex Time Being. Animals, plants, soil, and water all hold their own memories and histories. All around our bodies are other breathing and living beings. At times they seem to exclude us from their world, such as the whales leaving Whaletown or the wolves taking a temporary leave. Sometimes they seem to communicate with us, such as Chibi, the temple cat, who comforts Nao with her company or the Jungle Crow who warns with caws while perched above. And sometimes, they coexist complexly, like the constant rhythm of a wave or the inevitable PNW rain storms. But like the rock with inscribed “Do not build beyond this point”, we have come to learn from nature’s memories and find symbolism through them.

“How had she become a woman who worried about wolves and cougars eating her husband?”  The influence of environment is blatant in this book. his phrase specifically reminded me how fearful people are of “the wild” but how complacent they have become within man-made structures. Compared to life in New York city, are the worries of cougars and wolves truly gone? Think of what you often hear an attractive older woman called: a cougar. And the phrase “wolf in sheep’s clothing” portrays something that appears to be innocent but is really filled with malicious intent. Is the path she created any different than it would be, surrounded by constant stream of people who all mirrored the ferocity of nature?

Similarly, the constant cycles of life and death are like the cycles of moon and tide. The sea and its magic is a constant theme throughout the book. The water is what brings Nao’s story to Ruth, ultimately giving it life. The sea is the divider between California and Japan as well as Canada and Japan; a boundary of communication and culture. The sea’s tide is in direct connection to the cycles of the moon; on page 291 Nao cries for the first time (in response to the fighting insects) and it is her own inner ocean and her own influenced cycles that move her.

The synchronicity and coincidences created by nature’s magic (the Jungle crow arriving the time of the diary and then leaving once it is finished) is also an apparent theme. The tension between Oliver and Ruth during Pesto’s absence is uncomfortable and heavy but once Ruth finds answers Oliver finds Pesto. The crow warns us for what is ahead and the wolves stand for the worst possible outcome.

When I first learned what foreshadowing was I looked for it everywhere. Anytime something peaked my interest in a story I immediately deemed it as foreshadowing and claimed I knew what was going to happen. Most of the time, I was wrong. (But to be fair, it was an eleven-year-old me up against an old, dead white guy hailed as Great. Funny… when considering my lifestyle interest of feminism, that sort of seems like foreshadowing in itself.)

The first time I was assigned to read Oedipus at Colonus, my teacher introduced it with a grin and said, “Keep your eyes open and really look for the themes.” I missed it. Later, when he assigned us The Crying of Lot 49 I frantically underlined any mention of sight or visibility with hopes to understand Oedipa’s connection to Oedipus. I think I concluded that she was looking for herself; searching for identity through possible global conspiracy.

When I began A Tale for the Time Being I fell into usual habits; looking for themes and trying to make connections. As Ruth looked for hints about what would happen I looked with her. I distrusted Nao’s writing and in doing so, connected it to post modern methods. (My final senior year paper in high school was on post modern themes: merry tricksters, intertextuality, nontraditional forms, distortion in time, fiction about fiction [meta-fiction], untrustworthy narrators, contains many POVs, kaleidoscopic narratives. I appropriately titled the paper M.I.N.D.F.U.C.K..) I understood Jiko’s lack of physical sight but clarity and wisdom though spirituality to be similar to Oedipus’ shift of lens. Nao’s writing as super power led me to believe that she was rewriting parts of her history so we would only know her as she hoped we would, hence the distrust. I connected so quickly to the post modern-themes that when I found something similar I connected the two. But in doing this, I began to miss things. My distrust of narrative seeped into my distrust of fantasy and I almost lost my own sight of the book.

Jiko shares spiritual vision similarities to post-gouge-Oedipus and Ruth may be like Oedipa, searching for answers through conspiracy, but they are no more than similarities. They are themselves their own contribution to the reader’s vision. Just as Nao finds importance during her summer with Jiko, her sight and might changing, I too find importance in allowing my sight to be changed.

I view it almost as a psychological case-study, looking at an individual who suffers from bullying and neglect. I also find the visions Nao seems to have – such as Haruki #1′s ghost – to perhaps be extensions of this? Viewing it from another angle, Haruki’s ghost could be an extension of her feelings for her father considering she goes to great lengths to compare the two Harukis. And if it’s a real ghost, than perhaps communication from the afterlife is a valid answer. Ruth’s own memoir also serves a form of communication, as I interpret it as a much more “official” form Nao’s diary, albeit unfinished. Ruth’s dreams of Jiko, like Haruki’s ghost, serve as an otherworldly form of communication – perhaps it’s Ruth’s subconscious communicating with her. Maybe it’s Nao’s spirit making connection with Ruth? I mean if Nao’s fate is left unanswered, than we could theorize that perhaps Nao did die and maybe this is her way to reaching out to Ruth? I have no idea, but I like to speculate on these kinds of things.

Hi, do you remember me? I know it’s been a while since we’ve emailed each other but I wanted to open up to you and honestly tell you about how much I miss you and Sunnyvale and how hard life has been since I moved back to Japan. I decided to be honest with you because I know that although you might read this, it probably won’t sink into your head or you’ll probably just ignore it like you had been doing with the last few emails I sent you a while ago. I don’t even know if this is your email address anymore to be honest.

I know before I told you about Japan’s crazy fashion, but to be perfectly honest, I really don’t have the sort of money to afford those sorts of clothing, as a matter of fact, as cute as you may have found my school uniform, I actually get made fun of a lot because my classmates think I look weird in it. They tease me a lot. They say I smell like a foreigner so I thought it would be best if I didn’t send you a “manga style” uniform because I think you’d probably get made fun of for wearing it a lot and you would probably smell like a foreigner like me.

I really miss Sunnyvale and I think Dad misses it too. I am feeling so lost right now because I don’t have any friends here like I did in Sunnyvale but even then, lately I’ve been questioning the sort of friendships I had back home and have come to realize that maybe I never really had any real friends there either but still… At least people pretended to be my friend there and didn’t harass me all the time. I’ve been trying to be strong about it but sometimes it’s really hard. I feel like I am constantly at battle with not only my classmates but within myself. Maybe you were only my friend because I was Japanese but I felt like you still listened to what I had to say, we would both just bitch about things together and that felt nice.

This is going to be my final email to you by the way, sorry I should have mentioned that earlier. I’m going to be gone soon but I don’t really want to define what “gone” means just in case you worry (which I doubt you will). I guess all I really wanted to say to you was… Well… I don’t really know. I think I just felt like reaching out to you because you were a special person in my life for a while and maybe you should know that.

Friends, not friends, that’s same thing right?

-Nao