Lessons A Face Can Teach: Ruth Ozeki ’80 Reads from Her New Memoir

Ruth Ozeki ’80, the Elizabeth Drew Professor of English Language and Literature, is no stranger to writing insightful books.

Update — Ruth Ozeki’s reading has been rescheduled to Monday, April 11, at 7 p.m., Neilson Browsing Room.

Her novels—My Year of Meats, All Over Creation and A Tale for the Time Being—have all been critically acclaimed for their unique subject matter and narrative style. (A Tale for the Time Being was the winner of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, and was shortlisted for the 2013 Man Booker Prize and the National Book Critics Circle Award.)

Ozeki’s latest project, a short memoir titled The Face: A Time Code, deals with perceptions of a personal nature. Part of a new series by Brooklyn-based publishing company Restless Books, Ozeki’s book is the result of three hours of self-reflection while contemplating her own face.

Ozeki is familiar with contemplative practice. A longtime meditator, she was ordained in 2010 as a novice priest in the Soto Zen lineage. Ozeki studied English literature and Asian studies while at Smith, and returned to campus in 2006 to receive an honorary doctorate in humane letters. Currently, her work at Smith includes teaching creative writing and crafting a new novel.

Ozeki will read from The Face: A Time Code on Monday, April 11, at 7 p.m. in Neilson Browsing Room.

As a preview, here’s what Ozeki had to say about the thought-provoking exercise behind her newest literary endeavor:

How did you get started with this book project?
“Restless Books [the publisher] contacted me about it. My book is part of a larger series the company is doing called The Face. They invite authors to write an autobiographical essay about their face. The prompt is this wonderful quote by Jorge Luis Borges: ‘As the years go by, he peoples a space with images of provinces, kingdoms, mountains, bays, ships, islands, dishes, rooms, instruments, stars, horses, and individuals. A short time before he dies, he discovers that the patient labyrinth of lines traces the lineaments of his own face.’”

What are they looking for with such a broad prompt?
“The idea is that you’re reflecting on your own face in order to provoke reflections on family, ancestry, lineage, culture, race, sexuality, and so on. I’m one of the first cohorts of three writers that Restless Books approached about this project—the others were Tash Aw and Chris Abani—and I think we’ve all taken it in different directions. I decided to do this observation exercise as a structuring device for the essay, watching my face for three hours and writing notes, in the form of a time code, about the observations and reflections that emerged.”

What surprised you about doing this experiment?
“I expected it to be uncomfortable—and it was. But I was surprised at the kinds of memories that it jogged. Another thing that surprised me was this sudden realization that we all have faces. It sounds so obvious, but after the exercise was over, I went outside and began to look at people differently. I realized that we all have these complicated, sometimes painful relationships with our faces. What a shame—that we’re all so hard on ourselves and so critical of ourselves in that way. I started thinking about what people might think when they look at themselves in the mirror in the morning. What is it that makes them look away? This exercise changed the way I look at people’s faces. There’s something beautiful in all of our faces but we have a hard time seeing that beauty in ourselves.”

What did you learn from The Face writing project?
“I wish I could say it taught me patience. It definitely taught me some compassion. I learned that, in a way, our faces begin to mirror the expectations that other people have of us. Our faces go out into the world, and people see them and respond. We take in that response, and that ends up being formative in our identity construction. Our faces are incredible recursive, protean things—mirrors of the world. I’d understood that intellectually before, but this was a very physical and literal experience of self-reflection on that concept. I think the premise for Restless Books’ The Face series is quite brilliant, and I have a feeling that this is just its beginning.”

Restless Books The Face project.

Ruth Ozeki’s interview from the Smith Alumnae Association’s “An Author’s Voice” series.