Sympathy.

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 (animals/environment) as symbols and emotions. 

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.

Sight. 

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.