推荐好书：”A Tale for the Time Being” by Ruth Ozeki

还是在海边度假时选了这本 “A Tale for the Time Being”，谁知道这本书一点不轻松，探讨了很多深刻甚至痛苦的话题，且富含哲理，充满思考。 

在介绍本书前，先要介绍作者－－Ruth Ozeki是美日混血，在美国大学毕业后在日本进修工作多年，又回到北美，对两地文化都有深入的了解。 她是小说家、电影制作人，还是禅宗讲师。

这本书的构思实在很特别，很新颖。

书名Time Being很有意思，Time Being即是‘此刻’，这一个‘刹那’。 每一天，有百万个刹那，一瞬间就已消失。“But in the time it takes to say now, now is already over. It's already then.”

任何故事和文字，在作者写完的一刹就已经死亡；但当有缘和读者幸会的当下，又在读者眼中重新复活。 作者和读者的关连是那么奇妙－－“I am reaching through time to touch you...you're reaching back to touch me.”

开篇的自叙，是一个日本少女Nao写的日记。 Nao是个在加州长大的日裔少女，因为.com的泡沫破碎，做电脑的父亲在美国失业而且丧失一切股票存款，只好全家卷铺盖回国定居。 父亲被失业击垮，人生跌落谷底，几度企图自杀。 Nao在学校遭到全校（包括人渣老师）令人怵目惊心的bullying，逼得她也想自杀。。。在她孤寂绝望的生命中，只有曾祖母，一位104岁的禅宗老尼给予她理解、智慧和力量。 

这本日记被海啸冲到温哥华附近的太平洋小岛，被作家Ruth（是的，作家自己也做了小说里的人物，还把老公也拉进去！）捡到。 Ruth开始细细阅读Nao的日记，为她的故事动容，为她的遭遇担心，同时焦急地在网上努力找寻Nao的行踪，希望能阻止Nao的自杀。。。直到Ruth的老公指出，如果Nao没有自杀，按时间事件推算，她也该是28，29岁的成人了！ 啊，一切都晚了吗？

故事还有一支强劲的分线：Nao的granduncle，原本读哲学和法文的大学生，在二战末期被迫征召做神风特攻队的自杀飞行员。 他和其他新兵在军营被恶劣军官残酷bully，偷偷用法文写下日记，披露内心的煎熬，最终决定在特攻时‘叛国’，不冲向敌舰而是投海。 

Bullying－>自杀，这似乎是贯穿了这个家族的主题。 当下的痛苦如此巨大，世界充满了灰败困顿，看不到一丝丝希望，死亡真的就是解脱人生羁绊的唯一出路？ 不可能再破茧而出吗？

这本书需要读者静下心来细细品味。 作者的文字温婉细腻，作为少女Nao的口气非常authentic，那样一个倔强俏皮的她栩栩如生。 整部书架构完整，虽然故事的主线支线都相当灰暗，但作者以Nao和Ruth的时空转换做节奏上的调节，且话语中不失幽默，叫人在沉重情节中仍然能够透一口气。

书里涵盖的话题相当广泛：bullying、自杀、军国主义、神风特攻队、海啸、禅宗、女性新思想、日本的女仆咖啡屋、环保、核灾、量子力学等等。。。 层次丰富，收放自如；还有一些令人匪夷所思的幽幻情节，虚实难辨，的确有些‘玄’惑，到后来连小说里的Ruth都怀疑自己的理性。 

身为美日混血，作者勇于批判日本在二战时的军国罪行和现今社会的种种畸形，有些恐怖残忍程度实在令人发指。 但同时在巨大的伤痛中，她的笔触又这样温柔而坚定，也许是禅宗对人性的洞察和同情，对时光和存在的参悟。 

Quotes:

“Sometimes when she told stories about the past her eyes would get teary from all the memories she had, but they weren't tears. She wasn't crying. They were just the memories, leaking out.”

“Both life and death manifest in every moment of existence. Our human body appears and disappears moment by moment, without cease, and this ceaseless arising and passing away is what we experience as time and being. They are not separate. They are one thing, and in even a fraction of a second, we have the opportunity to choose, and to turn the course of our action either toward the attainment of truth or away from it. Each instant is utterly critical to the whole world.”

“Assumptions and expectations will kill any relationship, so let’s you and me not go there, okay?”

“No hits is the mark of how deeply unfamous you are, because true freedom comes from being unknown.”

“When I run out of the things I love, I move on to the things I don't hate too much, and sometimes I even discover that I can love the things I think I hate.”

“The way you write ronin is 浪人 with the character for wave and the character for person, which is pretty much how I feel, like a little wave person, floating around on the stormy sea of life.”

“Live. For Now. For the time being.”

“Jiko looked out accross the ocean to where the water met the sky. "A wave is born from the deep conditions of the ocean," she said. "A person is born form the deep conditions of the world. A person pokes up from the world and roll along like a wave. Until it's time to sink down again. Up, down. Person, wave.”

“When you beat a drum, you create NOW, when silence becomes a sound so enormous and alive it feels like you're breathing in the clouds and the sky, and your heart is the rain and the thunder.”