Schrödinger’s Cat and Loose Ends.

    The final third of Ruth Ozeki’s A Tale for a Time Being brings the science-fiction novel full circle, reinforcing themes such as the Buddhist perspective of suicide and death, as well as Ozeki’s continuous inquisitions into time and being. In the first third of the novel, Ozeki introduces a Chekhov’s gun character in Oliver’s cat, Schrödinger. While reading the rising action of the first two-thirds of the novel, it did not appear to me how Schrödinger would have an impact on the outcome of the novel and its prevailing message. However, after completing the novel, I believe it is the glue that ties the meditation on time together. In the final third, Ruth and Oliver have a fight that leads to the cat being spooked and running away. Until the end of the book, the cat is missing and can neither be presumed dead or alive until new information is known. Similarly, this is the case with Ruth’s obsession with Nao and Haruki #2. Ozeki closes the loose end around Nao’s father by wrapping up the email correspondence with the Professor, however, Ruth continues to struggle with whether or not she is impacting Nao, presently. Being the prevailing loose end of the conclusion of the novel, Ozeki centers the ever-presence of the Schrödinger’s cat paradox between Time Beings. 

    In essence, human consciousness exists in time, however, time is not linear, Ozeki argues. The dissection of the interconnectedness of Time Beings highlights the potentiality of impact one Time Being can have on another through time. The author accomplishes this meditation on the interconnection of time while also reinforcing the ‘chance’ element that accompanies it. Just as it was chance that led Nao to pick the À la recherche du temps perdu by Marcel Proust and its translation having an impact on what Nao was going to write in journal, it is chance that connects the Ruth and Nao as Time Beings. It is up to Ruth to grasp the reality that Nao is her Schrödinger’s cat, and it is through Jiko’s Buddhist philosophy that she may be able to. As Nao is neither dead nor alive, she just is.

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