Yoko Ogawa’s The Housekeeper and the Professor is an enchanting story about what it means to live in the present, and about the curious equations that can create a family. He is a brilliant math Professor with a peculiar problem—ever since a traumatic head injury, he has lived with only eighty minutes of short-term memory. She is an astute young Housekeeper—with a ten-year-old son—who is hired … a ten-year-old son—who is hired to care for the Professor. And every morning, as the Professor and the Housekeeper are introduced to each other anew, a strange and beautiful relationship blossoms between them. Though he cannot hold memories for long (his brain is like a tape that begins to erase itself every eighty minutes), the Professor’s mind is still alive with elegant equations from the past. And the numbers, in all of their articulate order, reveal a sheltering and poetic world to both the Housekeeper and her young son. The Professor is capable of discovering connections between the simplest of quantities—like the Housekeeper’s shoe size—and the universe at large, drawing their lives ever closer and more profoundly together, even as his memory slips away.
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The Housekeeper and the Professor caught my eye in an airport bookstore recently for one reason and one reason only: it is a Japanese novel, and I was on my way to Japan.
Unlike other Japanese fiction I have read (for example, Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage or A Tale for the Time Being), it is infused with a sense of the Japanese, but not of Japan itself. What do I mean? “The truly correct proof is one that strikes a harmonious balance between strength and flexibility.” That single sentence contains the essence of Japanese culture. Yet, there is no sushi in this book, no Ueno Park, no pulsing Tokyo just beyond, no temples or shrines, nothing more than the Hanshin Tigers and the occasional cicadas.
The Housekeeper and the Professor, it must be said, is a slightly odd book, at least to my American sensibilities. The pages are often filled with theorems and formulas, and the constant chatter of prime numbers, but this is a also a book that I can unironically describe as calm and peaceful – not my typical vocabulary when thinking about a book.
Yoko Ogawa’s style – and here I must state the obvious – at least as it has been translated into English, is simple and understated. The plot is simple: the housekeeper, whose name we never learn, works for an agency, and is assigned to the home of an eccentric professor. He, too, is nameless, and also a brilliant mathematician, but without any memory past 1975, the result of a near-fatal car accident. As a result, he regularly writes himself reminders which he pins to his suit, giving his outward appearance a rumpled and confused look.
Examined apart, the story’s elements make no sense. Together, though, the story is sweet and highly readable, although I will admit to only skimming the densest of the mathematical explanations. Ogawa’s work is one of both mathematical fact and light fiction, an achievement which it its own right surely deserves several stars. Or, as the Japanese would say, this is a highly harmonious book.
(This review was originally published at http://www.thisyearinbooks.com/2017/05/the-housekeeper-and-professor.html.)
Wonderful story, lovable characters, and memorable
One of my favorite things about going to independent bookstores is that they will surely stock and feature books that I might never find in big box stores. The Housekeeper and the Professor is one such offering, found in a recent trip to Owl and Turtle in Camden, Maine. (I can always count on O&T to have selections that are new to me.)
This is a love story, but not one of the romantic variety. It is about that of a mother and son, a son and a mentor, a woman and her employer. Strictly platonic, but just as gripping as the kind where you’d hope they would kiss. It’s refreshing in that sense – it’s love just for humanity – the agape kind versus the eros.
A strong character in the book is mathematics. But don’t be turned off if, like me, anything past Algebra in high school was daunting. The professor is genius level in his love for math, finding something special in almost any number you can throw at him. In fact, he almost made math seem like poetry. And, given that I don’t care for math OR poetry, that’s quite a feat of the author to have made me appreciate both.
Ogawa has written over twenty books as far as I can tell, but very few are translated into English. That is my loss, and the loss of the Engligh-speakers of the world. If all of her books are as surprisingly gripping as this one, we need to read more of them.
The Housekeeper and The Professor by Yoko Ogawa is my first read for Women in Translation Month 2020. It is the story of a single parent housekeeper and her relationship with a former mathematics professor that can not take care of himself after a serious accident a few years prior. The housekeeper has a ten-year-old son named Root that develops a bond with the professor over mathematics and baseball.
Ogawa tells a beautiful, simple story about the relationships amongst the three principal characters and reveals how everyone needs connection to bring out the best we offer as human beings. The professor cannot hold memories beyond eighty minutes long, and how the housekeeper navigates to this peculiar personality issue is handled well.
Also, I liked how Ogawa dealt with the professor’s genius with numbers. She did a solid job of revealing his character beyond his gift and how his relationship with the housekeeper’s son grew over the course of the novel. The author did not present the professor as some kind of freak or object to be gawked at from the wider society.
If you are looking for a gentle, simple story that reveals depth of character, then I recommend The Housekeeper and The Professor. A good start to Women In Translation Month 2020!
This is one of the best books I’ve read recently. The premise is so unique and it’s beautifully written. The characters are rich and memorable. I highly recommend it.
This sweet story is punctuated by charming bits of both math and baseball so, holy cow, how can a writer go wrong with that? A housekeeper is assigned to look after a college professor whose memory is impaired down to a limit of eighty minutes, and yet his mind is wonderfully filled with fascinating ideas from the world of mathematics. Anyone reading this story will painlessly discover new things about prime numbers, Fermat’s last theorem, and a bunch more.
It’s a quick read, with the story unfolding in Japan, which adds to its flavor. It will help all of us appreciate those rare people God has blessed with minds to see the patterns hidden from the rest of us.
This was quite an unusual little book about the relationship between the two main characters. Written rather sparsely, the author still managed to convey the hearts of the characters.
a wonderful, magical novel. i have given copies to all the math teachers i know.
A heartwarming story of a woman taking care of an elderly man who is not related to her but they end up caring for each other as family. A very sweet story
The Professor is someone I knew…the housekeeper and her son are characters I wish I knew! I enjoyed their shared love for numbers. The ending was indeed a surprise! It can easily be labeled Uplifting and Tragic!
This is a love story of mathematics. I have always loved numbers, here they are a main character. One of a kind.
Dementia is one thing but memory loss of that nature is tragic. There are people who care and can see beyond and act on their compassion. Inspirational
Such a lovely story about the power of relationships. You will learn some new things about math, but don’t get phobic about it, and miss this wonderful book.
This book had interesting characters put in an unusual situation.