Chiang Reading

Exhalation Story Blog

            I found this story interesting, and, in a way, bittersweet. What interested me this most—and what I hope we discuss in class—is the story’s central theme: “…the future and the past are the same…we cannot change either, but we can know both more fully” (41). The author plays with our understandings of time since many of use view the past as unchangeable and the future as infinitely changeable. But how does that work when we travel through time in unconventional ways and through unconventional means? In stories such as Back to the Future, different futures exist because of changes in the past. In this story, however, the past and the future are determined by each other—and because one is fixed, so is the other.

            In this story, not only are past and future interwoven, but the past and future selves of many people are interwoven. Rainya, the rope-maker’s wife, even secretly worked in her husband’s past to help him and secure her future. What’s even more mind-boggling is that she collaborated with her future and past selves to ensure the future. She wondered, as an older self, how the things in her life came to be—and, she realized, it was because of her future self’s assistance. The story presents one’s life as a loop, infinitely spinning, never changing, existing all at once. Everything, it seems, is pre-determined and thus must occur. Neither the past nor the future can change, but only one’s understanding, and perspective might.

            This begs the question: are there other universes in this story? Can other choices be made? If so, what does this mean? If these other choices can be made, does that place them in a system impenetrable by other systems? How does quantum mechanics and time figure into this?  I find it fascinating how the author portrays time; at the beginning of the story, the merchant’s explanation for his work and his creation as a means to explain a possible conception of time: “He offered an explanation, speaking of his search for tiny pores in the skin of reality, like the holes worms bore into wood, and how upon finding one he was able to expand and stretch it the way a glassblower turns a dollop of molten glass into a long-necked pipe, and how he allowed time to flow like water at one mouth, while causing it to thicken like syrup at the other” (15). Time, in this case, is malleable, but reality is not. The events that occur must occur and do occur, but the linearity of time isn’t necessary. We can loop around, circle back, or jump ahead, but the events remain the same. This story really aided in my conceptualization of time outside of a linear format, while still structured. It would seem, the author implies, that time may change—be manipulated or melded—but reality is distinct, separate, and unchanging. And so, I wonder: what is time’s relationship to reality? And does time even matter at all? 

             

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Hamilton

  Will Pikus             Lin Manuel Miranda’s play “Hamilton” took Broadway by storm when it was released. Personally, I remember my parents looking into getting tickets for the show. We all realized it wasn’t worth it since tickets were over eight-hundred dollars per person. The play itself also struck me as kind of strange. I questioned why everyone was getting so excited over the ethnically swapped show. One character within the show was especially strange. King George is right where he was supposed to be the entire time. The tyrannical King is laughing maniacally after each of his songs about how “You’ll Be Back”. While this is likely an accurate depiction of King George, one big question comes to mind. Why is he still white?             As a student brought up last class, why was Hamilton’s story choses by Miranda? It’s one of the oldest whitest stories in th...
Read more

A Tale for the Time Being – "to live"

In the final third of Ozeki’s A Tale for the Time Being, old Jiko gives Nao and her father a seemingly simple – yet to them, a difficult – task: “to live” (362). While her final request to her descendants affects them deeply because of their suicidal ideations, it is also Jiko’s final comment on Zen Bhuddism. In the practice of Zen, one must be rather than think about being in order to truly be alive, so, Jiko’s request of Nao and Haruki #2 tells them to stop worrying, stop planning, stop thinking – just to live. Neither Nao or Haruki #2 actively lived in the moment before Jiko’s death, instead, they planned for the moment they would cease being. After her death, reporters, priests, and those who admired Jiko assumed that the meaning of her final writing, just the singular character for the phrase “to live,” was complex, deep, and mysterious. However, Nao and Haruki #2 are the only ones who understood the true intention of her final word. She simply tells them to be alive. By doing s...
Read more

Finale of A Tale for the Time Being

  Emma Straus    21 st Century Literature and Time    Final 3 rd of A Tale for the Time Being    September 2022        A Tale for the Time Being brings an ending that is hopeful with a touch of realism in only a way the novel itself could accomplish. It is filled with messages that are universal to the readers, as well as the characters, such as Ruth, in the novel. The ending encapsulates both mysteries and lessons to be learned.    At the end of the diary, Ruth finds herself confused and even a bit sad. The idea of “we’ll make magic together...” comes back, and Ruth is left to many questions. Of course, when the novel began, Nao’s and Ruth’s overlapping narratives were an essential part of the story. Throughout the story, Ozeki plants metaphors and plot points for readers to understand the way in which everything in itself is connected. The ending of the novel comes with the entanglement of the metafictions and met...
Read more