Reading Ruth Ozeki’s ‘A Tale for the Time Being’ in Sweden
Weekly recs 26.5.24
A friend of mine kindly lent me this book a few weeks ago, and I felt my trip to Sweden would be the perfect opportunity to dive into my first Ozeki experience (pictured alongside my first fika in Haga, Gothenburg!)
A Tale for the Time Being is a dual narrative story, split between the diary of a teenage Japanese schoolgirl and a writer living in the US. Though the concept of a diary washed up on a remote shore feels like it could be cliché, the execution has actually been interesting so far. In the translation of the diary, Ruth (the character, not the author) leaves us a multitude of educational footnotes which aide with unusual phrases, Japanese cultural idioms and sometimes personal thoughts. I’m actually learning a fair amount from this book already, and it’s clear that Ozeki has put a lot of effort into researching and supplying these anecdotes in a way that supports the narrative. Clever.
The diary itself is strange, covering some deeply emotional topics with a schoolgirl’s chatty voice and sarky humour. Naoko and her family have experienced some traumatic events in recent times and it seems as though Nao doesn’t have anyone she can really trust and talk to about what’s happening, except for her great-grandmother the Buddhist monk Jiko. It should be warned that there is mention of suicide in this book, which I wasn’t expecting, and this could be distressing to some people. We’ll see how it all develops, but for now I’m enjoying this read - will keep you posted!
On Friday we took the train from Gothenburg to Stockholm, and we’ll be here until Tuesday. The streets are so bright and colourful in the sunshine, quiet, and lined with beautiful flowering chestnut trees, unlike the chaos of central Gothenburg with its construction sites and trams and traffic. We did wander down to Gamla Stan on Saturday in the heat, and it got pretty busy down there and verrry touristy, though the architecture and little streets were cute. We prefer our area of Vastastan, which is still close to centre but a lot more laid back, with nice little cafes and restaurants and lots of parks (we’re only a 10 minute walk away from a big lake called Brunsviken!)
We attempted to walk around it yesterday but only got a quarter of the way before we had to turn around, as the heat was exhausting. We did stumble around the Bergianska Trädgården and its cute little glasshouses, which was so picturesque by the lakes edge. It’s fair to say that we really like it in Sweden!
Speak to you soon,
Holly 🦋