At the crux of the novel, it’s the communication between Nao and Ruth which carry the spirit of the story and, of course, give us something to read. Communication, or lack of, is a HUGE component of A Tale for the Time Being. There are many forms of communication throughout the story, such as the diary, talking or texting, but also more abstract forms of communication. For example, diaries are typically very personal things, but Nao’s is different – it’s inviting, mysterious and yearns to tell a story in itself. She is directly talking to whoever or whatever is in contact with her diary, be it the reader or the dustbin on the street. Nao is very determined to share her tragic point of view with anyone who is willing to read. It’s in my experience that depression or sadness often results in a “cry for help” even if it’s not apparent. It seems to me that due to the lack of communication between Nao and her parents, this diary is exactly that – a cry for help, a way to make sense of bad circumstances.

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.

Other than life/death, I think the strongest theme in A Tale for the Time Being is the theme of time or age and how that can be interpreted in a number of different ways. Time plays a huge role, both in terms of the timeline difference between Ruth and Nao, but also how each character handles their time. Nao feels that at the age of 16, she has already wasted all her time. She feels as though she has accomplished nothing in her life, and fantasizes about ending her time on earth. She refers to herself as a Time Being, something Ruth embraces in the end as well. Ruth is lost in what could be described as writer’s block, and has felt as though she has wasted a lot of time not working on her memoir. Reflection and memory is a huge component of time, and the characters in this novel reflect upon the past a lot.

Nao is always thinking about the “happier” times – her life back in Sunnyvale, her old friends, her father’s happiness – and Ruth thinks about her life in New York as well as her mother before she died. Before long, Ruth begins to pour most of her time into this diary, and despite their difference of age, connects with Nao at a most personal level. At one point, Ruth refers to writing as the “opposite of suicide”, meaning that writing is “about immortality. Defeating death or at least forestalling it”. The theme of life and death are very much tied to time and age, and Nao’s diary preserves her 2001 teenage self as if she poured a bit of her soul into it (harry potter reference!), which lends to the idea that writing is a form of “time travel”.

One of the strongest themes in A Tale for the Time Being is the theme of Life and Death and what this means for the character of Nao. For my money, I felt that both Ruth and Nao’s stories emphasized different sides of the same coin, meaning that I took the theme of death from Nao and the theme of life from Ruth. Nao is a girl who is obsessed with suicide, and speaks about it very casually through her diary. She almost glamorizes it to the point where it would seem like an honorable thing, but you can tell that the thought of her father’s suicide greatly disturbs her. Through her diary, we can see that death seems to loom over the life of her family. Her great uncle Haruki #1 was a suicide pilot, and Nao becomes enamored by his story to the point where she “unfairly” tries to compare him to her father. When it came to her father’s botched suicide attempts, Nao basically tells him “Man up like Haruki #1. If you’re gonna do it, do it properly”, which speaks more about her frustration with her father than her “words of encouragement”.

Even ghosts seem to make their way into this story, like when Haruki #1 returns in spectral form to Nao. Haruki’s letters contain a certain air of death, like storm clouds shrouding the country side, due to the nature of his position during the war. These letters reveal a deep personal shame of Haruki, and the darkness of his inevitable death resting in his mind. The truth that Haruki #1 chose to die on his own terms instead of taking the lives of others only strengthens this theme. Through all of this, Ruth becomes obsessed with Nao’s life and is taken by the idea that she needs to “save Nao”, possibly from death or from herself. Ruth’s own life has become bored and unproductive as she has been sitting on an unfinished memoir for years and I think Nao’s diary gives Ruth a much needed kick start in terms of getting her inquisitive mind going again – meaning something to focus on.