the book of form and emptiness by ruth ozeki

The Book of Form and Emptiness adds a new layer to Ozeki’s earlier emphases on impermanence and interconnectivity. That is why it is so beautiful now, and why I appreciate it when I can still drink from it… When it is gone, it is gone. It is the nature of a teacup to be broken. In an incident typical of Ozeki’s writing, Aikon’s teacher counsels her when she drops his most cherished teacup.

The most prominent Buddhist presence in The Book of Form and Emptiness is Aikon, an “office lady” turned Buddhist nun who writes a decluttering guidebook à la Marie Kondo. In each of her four novels, she is at her best when her fiction connects her Zen practice to her characters’ lives. Ozeki is both a novelist and a Buddhist priest. Benny’s initiation into the Aelph’s world provokes many of the novel’s best scenes: a trail of breadcrumbs in the neglected sections of the public library, existential conversations with a one-legged immigrant poet, and the sky burial of a non-binary ferret. She introduces him to San Francisco’s counter-cultural and artistic underground. While on the psychiatric ward, Benny meets a young woman-similarly broken-who calls herself the Aelph. Her love of broken things extends, of course, her son, whom she must eventually institutionalize because of the voices he hears. Her flaws are written large, but, like literature’s best flaws, her hoarding is a perversion of her greatest strength. Like the characters in her earlier work, the characters here are believable and human Annabelle in particular is lovely, lonely, and strikingly real. The Book of Form and Emptiness is Ruth Ozeki’s first novel since the 2013 publication of her prize-winning A Tale for the Time Being. The Book of Form and Emptiness, Ruth Ozeki (Viking, Canongate, September 2021) It is surely never comfortable to live with someone who hoards, but Benny’s situation is complicated: he can hear the voices of material objects.īenny can also hear the narrative voice of the novel itself as it tells his story. As a few years pass, Annabelle lets their home fill with the clutter of things she thinks will fill the emptiness her husband left behind. His mother, Annabelle, too, struggles with her grief. Teenager Benny Oh has just lost his father, a Japanese-American jazz clarinetist.

The book of form and emptiness by ruth ozeki