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Ruth Ozeki
Ruth Ozeki is an American-Canadian author, filmmaker and Zen Buddhist priest. Photo By Latrippi - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=32116034
The Book of Form and Emptiness
Synopsis
Thirteen-year-old Benny Oh has always been able to hear things other people can't. A year after his father's sudden death, the voices grow insistent — a sneaker, a broken teacup, a wilted lettuce, all clamoring for his attention. His mother, Annabelle, unable to face her grief, starts collecting the things that speak to her too, and the house fills with a jumble no one can walk through. Committed briefly to a psychiatric ward and diagnosed with schizophrenia, Benny finds the one place where the voices settle: the public library, where objects know to whisper. There he meets a mesmerizing street artist called the Aleph, a wheelchair-bound philosopher-poet called the Bottleman, and — most improbably — his own Book, who has been watching Benny's whole life and finally starts to tell his story back to him.
Ruth Ozeki, herself a Zen Buddhist priest, weaves in koans, climate anxiety, and the noise of a culture drowning in its own belongings to ask what it means to listen — to things, to other people, and to yourself. The novel won the 2022 Women's Prize for Fiction, whose judges praised its "sparkling writing, warmth, intelligence, humour and poignancy."
Genres
Characters
Benny OhProtagonist
A grieving 14-year-old who begins hearing the voices of inanimate objects after his father's death.
Annabelle OhSupporting
Benny's mother, an audio archivist who spirals into hoarding while unable to face her husband's death.
Kenji OhSupporting
Benny's father, a jazz clarinetist whose sudden death opens the novel.
The AlephSupporting
A nonbinary punk street artist and dumpster-diver Benny meets and falls for at the library.
The BottlemanSupporting
An elderly, wheelchair-using philosopher-poet who collects bottles outside the library and offers Benny wisdom.
Women's Prize for Fiction (2022)
Frequently asked questions
What does the title "The Book of Form and Emptiness" mean?
The title echoes a line from the Buddhist Heart Sutra — "form is emptiness, emptiness is form" — reflecting the novel's Zen Buddhist undercurrents (author Ruth Ozeki is an ordained Zen priest). It also plays on the book's central device: Benny's own Book, a physical object made of paper and ink (form) that comes alive to narrate his story (emptiness/consciousness), and on his mother Annabelle's hoarding, in which physical objects (form) come to stand in for the grief and emotion (emptiness) she can't otherwise face.
Is The Book of Form and Emptiness a sequel to A Tale for the Time Being?
No. The Book of Form and Emptiness is a standalone novel with its own characters and story — Benny Oh, a grieving teenager who starts hearing the voices of objects, and his mother Annabelle. It shares no characters or plot with Ozeki's earlier novel A Tale for the Time Being, though both explore Buddhist ideas, grief, and the power of books and storytelling.