Author: Ruth Ozeki
Group meeting: Thursday, March 20, 2014
Place: Julie’s house
Dessert: Cranberry upside-down cake and home-made cinnamon ice cream
I have been part of a book group since it’s inception in 1981. Some of us were friends in Library School at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. We chose to read books by women and they are usually about women as well. It was a political statement at the time. Female authors were not read as popularly as male authors. (Even now, I look at the best seller lists and wonder, “Where are the women?”) We never have trouble finding books to choose for the group to read. We meet monthly and the host serves a dessert.
A Tale for the Time Being was the 2013 Go Big Read book. This is one book that is chosen annually to be shared throughout classes and discussion groups at UW-Madison. So, one can assume it is a good read.
The book did not disappoint. It is the story of a diary: the young woman Nao who wrote it in Japan and the middle-aged woman Ruth who found it in British Columbia. I don’t intend this to be a book review (you can find that yourself with the title and author), but, rather my reaction to it. My favorite character is Jiko, the feminist Buddhist monk grandmother of Nao. Her life and her relationship with Nao are very special. I found the information about the young Japanese university students who were conscripted to be kamikaze pilots amazing and heart-wrenching. The quantum physics that works its way into the story near the end is hard to understand. When I gave up trying, I just thought of what was happening as magic. Simple; but it worked for me.
