 What's that? No spoilers. Okay. I won't. No spoilers. Okay. That's okay. You're safe. But I guess my question is, let's see now, how many of you know what a superpower is? Okay. Good. All right. So before we start, what I'd like to do is just take a moment to touch back in and, you know, sort of touch back into our superpower. All right. And so what I'd like you to do is just, I mean, we've all come from various places all over, probably very busy fighting traffic, walking through the crowds, lining up outside, jockeying for seats, all of that, right? So let's just take a moment and why don't everybody just kind of sit up straight. That's right. Good. Nice. Just sit up straight. And you can close your eyes too. Let's close our eyes for just a moment and just really appreciate the fact that we're here in this wonderful place, this wonderful library. And that somehow we've all made it here today. And just take a moment to feel grateful to everything that's happened that's allowed you to be here today. I certainly feel that way too. Thank you. Can you open your eyes again? It always helps me to have that moment with people in silence before engaging in a talk like this. So thank you for that. I wanted to talk today a little bit. I want to talk a little bit about the book and about the writing of this particular book and about how books come to me generally. I mean all books come I think in a slightly different way, but how this book came to me. And then I'd like to do some reading from it as well. I think all books come to me in slightly different ways, but this book in particular, I know exactly how it came to me and I know exactly when it came to me. It came to me in December of 2006. And that was when I first heard the voice of this young girl. And she introduced herself to me and she said, Hi, my name is now and I'm a time being. Do you know what a time being is? And that was such a strange question. And so I kind of sat up and I paid attention to it. And that was when I made the first file in the computer. And that was really where the book started. And so what I thought I'd do is just read a little bit of the beginning of the book so that you can kind of get a sense of what it was that I was hearing at that time. Hi, my name is now and I'm a time being. Do you know what a time being is? Well, if you give me a moment, I will tell you. A time being is someone who lives in time. And that means you and me and every one of us who is or was or ever will be. As for me right now, I'm sitting in a French maid cafe in Akiba Electricity Town listening to a sad chanson that's playing sometime in your past, which is also my present, writing this and wondering about you somewhere in my future. If you're reading this, then maybe by now you're wondering about me too. You wonder about me. I wonder about you. Who are you and what are you doing? Are you in a New York subway car hanging from a strap or soaking in your hot tub in Sunnyvale? Are you sunbathing on a sandy beach in Phuket or having your toenails buffed in Abu Dhabi? Are you a male or a female or somewhere in between? Is your girlfriend cooking you a yummy dinner or are you eating cold Chinese noodles from a box? Are you curled up with your back turned coldly towards your snoring wife or are you eagerly waiting for your beautiful lover to finish his bath so you can make passionate love to him? Do you have a cat and is she sitting on your lap? Does her forehead smell like cedar trees and fresh, sweet air? Actually, it doesn't matter very much because by the time you read this everything will be different and you will be nowhere in particular flipping idly through the pages of this book which happens to be the diary of my last days on earth wondering if you should keep on reading and if you decide not to read anymore, hey, no problem because you're not the one I was waiting for anyway but if you do decide to read on then guess what? You're my kind of time being and together we'll make magic So this was the kind of quality of voice that was sort of coming through the ether at me and as soon as I heard it I knew certain things about this girl about this girl now Yasutani I knew that she was a junior high school student living in Tokyo I knew that she was troubled and possibly even suicidal I also knew that she in spite of that had a kind of an attitude and a sense of humor so that was kind of interesting She was writing in English so odd, right? Why is this Japanese school girl writing in English? I also knew that she was writing to someone although she didn't know who it was she was writing to and so of course neither did I So when questions like this, you know when you start to hear a quality of voice or a quality of language like that you start to pay attention and when the questions start to arise my job is a novelist to answer them and so the question that was really the burning question in my mind was who is it that now Yasutani is writing to and as it turned out it took me about five years to figure this out and I discovered much to my surprise and I was going to say dismay but much to my surprise that now's reader was a novelist named Ruth like me who lives on an island off the coast of British Columbia like me who has a husband named Oliver like me So what a coincidence, right? So I thought I would read a little bit of Ruth's section so you have a sense of that voice as well A tiny sparkle caught Ruth's eye a small glint of refracted sunlight angling out from beneath a massive tangle of drying bull kelp which the sea had heaved up on the sand at full tide She mistook it for the sheen of a dying jellyfish and almost walked right by it The beaches were overrun with jellyfish these days The monstrous red stinging kind that looked like wounds along the shoreline But something made her stop She leaned over and nudged the heap of kelp with the toe of her sneaker and poked it with a stick Untangling the whip-like fronds she dislodged enough to see that what glistened underneath was not a dying sea jelly but something plastic a bag Not surprising, the ocean was full of plastic She dug a bit more until she could lift the bag up by its corner It was heavier than she expected a scarred plastic freezer bag and crusted with barnacles that spread across its surface like a rash It must have been in the ocean for a long time, she thought Inside the bag, she could see a hint of something red Someone's garbage, no doubt tossed overboard or left behind after a picnic or a rave The sea was always heaving things up and hurling them back Fishing lines, floats, beer cans, plastic toys, tampons, Nike sneakers A few years earlier, it was severed feet People were finding them up and down Vancouver Island washed up on the sand One had been found on this very beach No one could explain what had happened to the rest of the bodies Ruth didn't want to think about what might be rotting inside the bag She flung it farther up the beach She would finish her walk and then pick it up on the way back take it home and throw it out Well, needless to say, she doesn't throw it out Instead, she takes it home and leaves it on the porch where her husband Oliver finds it He had smoothed the bags flat, laid them out on top of one another in descending orders of size, and then sorted the contents into three neat collections A small stack of handwritten letters A pudgy bound book with a faded red cover A sturdy antique wristwatch with a matte black face and a luminous dial Next to these sat a Hello Kitty lunchbox that had protected the contents from the corrosive effects of the sea The cat was sniffing at the lunchbox Ruth picked him up and dropped him on the floor and then turned her attention to the items on the table The letters appeared to be written in Japanese The cover of the red book was printed in French The watch had markings etched onto the back that were difficult to decipher so Oliver had taken out his iPhone and was using the microscope app to examine the engraving I think this is Japanese too, he said Ruth flipped through the letters trying to make out the characters that were written in a faded blue ink The handwriting is old and cursive, beautiful but I can't read a word of it She put the letters down and took the watch from him Yes, she said, they're Japanese numbers, not a date though Yon, nana, san, hachi, nana Maybe a serial number? She held the watch up to her ear and listened for the ticking but it was broken She put it down and picked up the bright red lunchbox The red color showing through the scarred plastic was what had led her to mistake the freezer bag for a stinging jellyfish How long had it been floating out there in the ocean before washing up? The lunchbox lid had a rubber gasket around the rim She picked up the book which was surprisingly dry the cloth cover soft and worn its corners blunt from rough handling She put the edge to her nose and inhaled the musty scent of mildewed pages and dust She looked at the tarnished guilt title embossed on the red cloth spine A la recherche du ton perdu she read by Marcel Proust Her French wasn't great but she opened the cover anyway curious to see if she could understand just the first few lines She was expecting to see an age-stained folio printed in an antique font so she was entirely unprepared for the adolescent purple handwriting that sprawled across the page It felt like a desecration and it shocked her so much she almost dropped the book Hi She read My name is now and I'm a time being Do you know what a time being is? So that's the dialogue that gets established between these two characters Ruth who finds the diary washed up on the beach immediately, of course, thinks it's debris from the 2011 earthquake and tsunami washing up on the coast of British Columbia and she starts to read the diary and becomes obsessed with now's life and with discovering the girl's fate and so it really is the book ends up being a kind of a conversation between readers and writers which is something I think that all readers understand and certainly all writers do and I'd like to I'd like to read another section that takes place a little bit later in the book but just for those of you who haven't read it yet I'll give you a little bit of backstory The reason that now speaks and is writing in English is because she grew up in Sunnyvale, California her father was head-hunted at a tech firm there and worked there and so she moved there when she was about three her father then loses his job for mysterious reasons which will be revealed and has moved the entire family back to Tokyo now is put in a junior high school in Tokyo and she's completely unequipped to handle life in a junior high school in a culture that is really quite foreign to her she doesn't have her Japanese is not as fluent as it should be she doesn't have the social skills and the family has no money they've lost all their savings so she doesn't have a lot of money to buy cool stuff so as a result of all of this she's being quite terribly bullied and she's decided that she's going to commit suicide she's going to end her life but before she does she wants to do one last act of redemption which is to tell the life story of her 104-year-old great-grandmother Oljiko who is a Zen Buddhist nun she's not just any Zen she's not just any 104-year-old Zen Buddhist nun she's a 104-year-old anarchist feminist Zen Buddhist nun just to kind of put that into context for you and she's really the only reliable adult in now's life and so the scene that I would like to read now is a scene that takes place during now's summer vacation and during her summer vacation she's been sent to live at Oljiko's temple and so she's she's spending her summer vacation there have you ever tried to bully a wave punch it, kick it, pinch it pinch it, hit it beat it to death with a stick? stupid after Oljiko found my scars she took me on an errand into town on the way back she wanted to stop and buy some rice balls and soft drinks and some chocolate treats she had this idea that we could take the bus to the seaside and have a picnic there I didn't particularly care but she seemed to think it would be a big treat for me to eat store-bought food and play by the ocean so I was like, whatever, you know willing to go along because it's hard to disappoint someone who's 104 years old because of her cataracts Jiko can't really walk very well and she always carries a stick but what she really likes is when you hold hands with her I think holding hands makes her feel more confident and so I got into the habit of holding her hand when I was next to her and to tell you the truth, I liked it too I liked the feeling of her thin little fingers in mine that being the strong one and keeping her tiny body close to me it made me feel useful when I wasn't there she used her stick I liked feeling more useful than a stick before getting on to the bus to the seaside Jiko wanted to stop at the family mart in town to buy our picnic but there happened to be a gang of youngy girls hanging out in the parking lot in front so I lied and said I wasn't hungry they were speed tribe biker chicks with bleached orange and yellow shaggy hair and baggy construction worker pants and big flapping lab coats that looked like the kind that doctors and scientists wear only they weren't white they were neon bright and graffitied all over with giant black kanji the girls were squatting on the pavement by the door chewing gum and smoking a couple of them were leaning on wooden swords the kind you use for kendo and I was like no way grandma I'm really not hungry but old Jiko had her heart set on making a picnic for me so what could I do? I held her little hand real tight and when we got near the girls one of them spat and it landed at our feet and then they started to say stuff it was nothing I hadn't heard at school before but it shocked me because of Jiko being so old and how can you say rude stuff about manko and chinchin to an old lady who's a nun it took forever to get past them because Jiko walked so slow and they were kind of blocking our way they kept on shouting out and spitting and I could feel my heart racing and my face growing hot even if old Jiko didn't bat an eyelid finally we made it into the family mart the whole time we were looking for rice balls and drinks and deciding whether to buy chocolate or sweet bean cakes for dessert I kept looking through the window at the girls squatting outside the store I knew that when we left they would say more stuff to us maybe they would throw things at us or trip us maybe they would follow us to the beach and get their boyfriends to rape us and beat us and throw our dead bodies into the ocean or maybe they would just do the business themselves with their wooden swords I'd gotten plenty of practice at school imagining this kind of thing happening to my own body so it didn't bother me that much but the idea of someone hurting my old Jiko was brand new to my mind and it made me feel like throwing up but old Jiko wasn't paying any attention she was concentrating on selecting the flavors of our rice balls and eventually she decided on sour plums flavored seaweed and spicy cod roe she wanted me to choose a chocolate treat either pocky or melty kisses but how could I focus on something so unimportant I had to protect us from our enemies outside the door even if she was too old and blind to comprehend the danger we were in and I was trying to calculate my chances of fighting off a dozen Yankee bitches when all I had was my pathetic little super power it took forever for Jiko to pay the cashier you know how it is with old people and their coin purses but I didn't mind her offer to help I was kind of hoping that maybe she would take all day and maybe by the time we'd finished the gang would have gone but no such luck they were still there squatting on the pavement and the minute we walked out of the store they kind of locked on to us spitting and sizing us up I tried to hurry, Jiko passed them but you know old Jiko she always takes her time the girls started calling out and as we got closer their cries grew louder and more screechy and a couple of the squatting ones got to their feet I moved in front but when we were even with them suddenly old Jiko stopped she turned to face them peering as if she was noticing them for the first time and then she tugged on my hand and started shuffling in their direction I held back whispering dame na yo oba chama ikoyo but she didn't listen she went up and stood right in front of them and gave them a long look which is how she looks at everything long and steady probably on account of the time it takes for an image to form through the milky lenses of her cataracts the girls in their neon colored pants and blue and orange and red mechanical coats with the big black kanji must have been just a confusion of lines and bright colors to her eyes no one said anything the girls were jutting out their chins and hips and shifting restlessly from side to side finally I guess old Jiko understood what she was looking at she dropped my hand and I held my breath and then she bowed I couldn't believe it it wasn't a little bow either it was a deep bow the girls were like what the fuck one of them a fat girl squatting in front kind of nodded back not quite a bow not completely respectful but not a punch in the face either but then the tall one in the middle who was clearly the girl boss reached over and gave the fat one a swift punch in the head namuten no ka she snarled chuto hanpananda yo chanto ojigimo dekinai no ka she smacked the fat girl once more and then she stood up straight put her palms together and bowed deeply from the waist the rest of her crew jumped up and did the same Jiko bowed to them again and nudged me so I bowed too but I did it half-assed so she made me do it again which made things even because now it was like old Jiko was the girl boss of our gang and I was the fat screw-up who couldn't bow properly I didn't think this was so funny but the gangbangers thought it was hilarious and Jiko smiled too and then she took my hand and we walked on when the bus came Jiko sat by the window and looked back out at the parking lot I wonder what omatsuri it is today she said omatsuri? a festival? hmm, yes she said those pretty young people dressed up in their festival clothes they look so gay I wonder what the occasion is it's not a matsuri those were gangbangers, granny biker chicks, young girls they were girls? bad girls, juvenile delinquents they were saying stuff I thought they were going to beat us up oh no Jiko said, shaking her head they were all dressed so nicely such cheerful colors two have you ever buddied a wave? Jiko asked me at the beach we had eaten rice balls and chocolate and were hanging out Jiko was sitting on a small wooden bench and I was lying on the sand at her feet the sun was beating down Jiko had tied a damp white hand towel around her bald head and seemed as cool as a cucumber in her gray pajamas I was hot and sweaty and feeling restless but I hadn't brought a bathing suit and didn't really want to go for a swim but that's not what she was asking bullied a wave, I repeated no, of course not hmm try it go to the water and wait for the biggest wave and give it a punch give it a good kick hit with a stick go on, I will watch she handed me her walking stick there was no one around except for a couple of surfers way down the beach I took old Jiko's stick in my hand and walked and then ran to the edge of the ocean waving it above my head like a kendo sword the waves were big breaking on the beach and I ran into the first one that came at me yelling kiai like a samurai going into battle I smacked the wave with a stick cutting through it but the water kept coming I ran back up the beach and escaped but the next one knocked me over I got to my feet and attacked again and again and each time the water crashed down on top of me grinding me against the rocks and covering me with foam and sand I didn't mind the sharp cold felt good and the violence of the waves felt powerful and real and the bitterness of salt in my nose tasted harshly delicious over and over I ran at the sea beating it until I was so tired I could barely stand and then the next time I fell down I just lay there and let the waves wash over me and I wondered what would happen if I stopped trying to get back up just let my body go would I be washed out to sea? the sharks would eat my limbs and organs little fish would feed on my fingertips my beautiful white bones would fall to the bottom of the ocean where anemones would grow upon them like flowers pearls would rest in my eye sockets I stood up and walked back to where Old Jico was sitting she took the small towel from her head and handed it to me maketa! I said throwing myself down in the sand I lost the ocean won she smiled was it good feeling? mmmm I said that's good she said have another rice ball three we sat there for a while longer waiting for my shorts and t-shirt to dry down the beach in the distance the surfers kept falling into the water and disappearing the waves keep beating them up too I said pointing Jico squinted but she couldn't see them through her cataracts there I said see that one? he's standing up he's up he's up oh no he's down I laughed it was funny to watch Jico nodded like she was agreeing with me up down the same sing she said it's a typical Jico comment all about pointing to what she calls the not too nature of existence when I'm just trying to watch some cute guys surfing I know better than to argue with her because she always wins but it's like a knock knock joke where you have to say who's there so the other person can tell you the punchline so I said no it's not the same thing for the surfer hmm you are right not the same not different either see what I mean it is different Granny the whole point of surfing is to stand on top of the wave not underneath it saffa wave the same thing I don't know why I bother that's just stupid I said a surfer's a person a wave is a wave how can they be the same Jico looked out across the ocean to where the water met the sky a wave is born from deep condition of the ocean a person is born from deep condition of the world a person pokes up from the world and rolls around like a wave until it is time to sink down again up down pass on wave she pointed to the steep cliffs along the shoreline Jico a mountain the same thing the mountain is tall and we live a long time Jico is small and we will not live much longer like I said this is pretty typical of the kind of conversation you have with my old Jico I never completely understand what she's saying but I like that she tries to explain it to me anyway it's nice of her it was time to go back to the temple my shorts and t-shirt had dried out and my skin was super itchy from the salt I helped Jico to her feet and we walked back to the bus stop together holding hands again I was still thinking about what she said about waves and it made me sad because I knew that her little wave was not going to last and soon she would join the sea again and even though I know you can't hold on to water still I gripped her fingers a little more tightly to keep her from leaking away so thank you so that's the process of of writing this book it was probably one of the most convoluted writing experiments I've ever undertaken and it ended up taking a terribly long time but in the end what I realized about this book is that novels are time beings too and they simply take the time they take and as much as one might wish it to be otherwise the novel has its own timeline and its own chronology and that my job as a writer once again even though I might wish it to be otherwise is simply to try to listen and try to answer the questions that arise as they arise and hope that somehow through that process I'll find my way to the end of a book and I was lucky in this case that that happened so is that okay so I think that's it thank you so much for coming yeah thank you