Dr. Leistiko Character Analysis in A Tale for the Time Being

Dr. Leistiko is a professor of psychology at Stanford University who studies the impact of culture on suicide. Ruth finds his website when she is looking for Nao and her family online, and she finds an excerpt from a letter on Leistiko’s website that she suspects might be written Haruki. It turns out that Leistiko and Haruki were friends when Haruki used to live in California. While Haruki is usually shown through Nao’s point of view in the novel, Leistiko’s emails to Ruth show different aspects of Haruki’s character. While Nao sees her father as a loving but defeated man, Leistiko’s emails reveal that Haruki is a brilliant programmer and an ethical person.

Dr. Leistiko Character Timeline in A Tale for the Time Being

The timeline below shows where the character Dr. Leistiko appears in A Tale for the Time Being. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.

(4) The website Ruth lands on belongs to Dr. Leistiko, a professor of psychology at Stanford University who researches first-person accounts of suicide. Dr. Leistiko... (full context)

Time, Impermanence, and the Present Theme Icon

(5) Ruth sends a quick email to Dr. Leistiko, asking him if “Harry” from the letter is, in fact, a man named Haruki Yasutani... (full context)

...her email before the power goes to see if she has an email from Dr. Leistiko, but he hasn’t replied yet. She then quickly searches for the terms “Yasutani Jiko,” “Zen,”... (full context)

...it comes back on, Ruth checks her email, but she still has nothing from Dr. Leistiko. She returns to the academic archive where she found the excerpt from the article on... (full context)

(3) It’s been nine day since Ruth emailed Dr. Leistiko, and she still hasn’t heard back from him. She resends it with a note of... (full context)

(1) Dr. Leistiko finally writes Ruth back: he says that it is likely that the “Harry” from the... (full context)

The Difficulty of Communication Theme Icon

Leistiko says that Haruki was having qualms about his engineering work for a gaming company being... (full context)

After Haruki moved back to Japan, and Leistiko continued his research on “cultural influences on suicide,” he received a “beautiful and moving cry... (full context)

(2) Ruth immediately emails Leistiko back, explaining how she found the diary and why she is concerned about Nao’s safety.... (full context)

(4) Dr. Leistiko writes to Ruth again, saying that he just unearthed an old email from Haruki that... (full context)

(5) In his email to Dr. Leistiko, Haruki wrote that he and his family were doing well. His wife worked at a... (full context)