I have just finished reading the BIG READ book: Ozeki’s A
Tale for the Time Being. 

Me: “I’m finished. I’m sad.”  

Patrick Robbins: “Did it have a sad
ending?” 

Me: “No. I’m sad there is no more to read.”

It’s a wonderful book with too many discussable themes to count.
Off the top of my head: the environment; technology and its uses; zen Buddhism;
war; bullying; the aesthetics and ethics of suicide; being and time; history
and memory; mutual construction of the writer and the reader. And none of these
weighty themes are pounded or expounded to oblivion. The characters—and the
settings—grabbed me and kept me spellbound. I found myself torn between jotting
notes in the margin and rushing headlong to the next page. The next page won.
I’m going to read it again.

A Tale for the Time Being joins two other books of the
last ten years on my list of favorites: The Poisonwood Bible and The
Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay.

I’m hoping to participate in some of the discussions. And you may find me sitting zazen.

Louise Robbins

Professor Emerita,

School of Library and Information Studies

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