Superpower

 The first time we read about superpower in A Tale for a Time Being, Nao explains that when Jiko pronounces the English word superpower it sounds more like “SUPAPAWA–!” I like the way that Ozeki uses these two words (superpower and supapawa) throughout the rest of the novel because it seems that supapawa is more of a skill that anyone can learn how to cultivate, whereas individuals have their own unique superpowers. After reading the final third of the novel, the importance of superpower can be traced back throughout both Nao and Ruth's narratives. 

It seems that Jiko taught Nao to use her supapawa of zazen at the perfect time because it helps her keep her sense of self and sense of peace, especially in the face of bullying and her father’s second suicide attempt. It seems fitting that the chapter in which Nao explains how to practice zazen is followed by Ruth attempting zazen. Just as Jiko taught Nao her supapawa, Nao taught Ruth as well.  

A specific way that superpower was important in Nao’s narrative was in her relationship with her father. Throughout the novel, Nao’s family life is strained and traumatizing, mostly due to decisions made by her father. For the most part, we see Nao judge, fear, pity and resent her father for what he has done to their family. However, after Ruth tells Nao’s father in her dream that Nao needs him and Jiko dedicates her departing poem to the duo, their father-daughter bond is revitalized, and they are final able to communicate with each other. Nao has a newfound understanding for her father’s actions. She writes in her diary, 

 

My dad was a total superhero, and I was the one who should be so ashamed, because the whole time he was being persecuted for his beliefs, I was just pissed off at him for getting himself fired and losing our money and ruining my life. Shows you how much I knew (388).  

 

Nao uses the word superhero to describe her father, something she never would have done prior in the novel. She later says, “My dad seems to have found his superpower, and maybe I’ve started to find mine, too, which is writing to you” (389). This line is reassuring, especially for Ruth, because it gives a sense of security to Nao's character. There was so much undetermined about the fate of Nao and her father until this point in the story. It’s also interesting that this reassurance comes in the section of Nao’s diary that Ruth thought she had imagined or lost. It makes it more impactful that the real Ruth Ozeki seems to use her own “superpower” to create a sense of magical realism at this point of the novel. It's believable that the characters could interconnect and influence each other with a certain magic or superpower because of the way that Ozeki writes about topics such as time, philosophy, Zen Buddhism, and quantum mechanics. She already had planted these ideas and themes in the story, in addition to the theme of supapawa, which makes the "lost" part of Nao's diary and Ruth's influence on it all that more believable. Ruth even says to Oliver, “Yeah, I thought so. I felt a bit like a superhero just then” (394) when describing her decision to put Haruki Number One’s secret French diary in the box with his remains for Nao and her father to find.