The Housekeeper and the Professor
by Yoko Ogawa
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Book Reviews of The Housekeeper and the Professor
Book Review: SIMPLE AND UNASSUMING, YET DEEP AND AFFECTING
Summary: 5 Stars
I've been a fan of Yoko Ogawa's since some short stories I read in the New Yorker, and this is her first novel to be translated into English. Her prose is simple and elegant, and the story here reflects that. Actually, it's as unassuming as the title, and yet it is surprisingly deep and affecting.
The basic story is that the Housekeeper is a single mother who works as a maid to care for her ten-year-old boy. One day, she is assigned to a difficult case: a mathematics Professor with special needs. A car accident in 1975 left him with a short-term memory that resets every 80 minutes, so for him it is always the day before the accident. Yet, his mind is still sharp, and his stories and explanations about math reveal to the Housekeeper a whole new way of looking at the world. Numbers connect everything, and they explain everything. The way the math is presented in the story is easy to understand, even to a dunderhead like me. Ogawa makes sure the reason for any particular theorem is clear to the reader. Each idea is essential to the story.
When the Housekeeper first brings her son to the house, she discovers the Professor has an affection for children. The young man and the old man bond over baseball, and there is a particularly good chapter where they take the Professor to his first ever game, a uniquely problematic thing, he rarely leaves his house for a reason. Plus, they have to concoct explanations for why his favorite player won't be pitching that day, because they can't tell him he's retired.
The main throughline of the book is the connection between these people, of the family they form, and the transience of their bond forcing them to savor every moment. Ogawa avoids Western pitfalls--there is no romance, there isn't a cataclysmic accident that transforms them all suddenly--life just eventually takes its course. The difference for them is that they have now become constants, they are corresponding numbers. It's a shame Yasujiro Ozu is no longer alive, he could make a hell of a movie out of THE HOUSEKEEPER AND THE PROFESSOR.
Book Review: Wonderful!!
Summary: 5 Stars
"Math has proven the existence of God, because it is absolute and without contradiction; but the devil must exist as well, because we cannot prove it."
Absolutely wonderful -- I loved this book!!
Have you seen the movie 50 First Dates? It's one of my favorite movies, and a very similar situation occurs in this book. A mathematics professor has only 80 minutes of short term memory due to a car accident, but he remembers everything clear as a bell that happened before his head injury. He continues to solve mathematical proofs and has an uncanny ability to know exactly where the North Star is in the sky, even when there's no visibility. He is kind and has a great love for children. But, he remembers only 80 minutes at a time in the here and now. His sister-in-law lets him live in a cottage next to her main house, and she has hired a ninth housekeeper to cook and clean for the professor.
The housekeeper does her best to please the professor and works around his disability. She tells him about her 10 year old son, and he insists on letting the son come to his cottage after school, even though it's against the cleaning agency's rules. The professor writes notes to himself to help remind him of the housekeeper and her son. The boy and the professor both have a love of baseball, and the professor uses this to teach the boy mathematics. Soon a strong bond is formed among the three of them.
There is quite a bit of math in this book, and of course I enjoyed those references tremendously. I have an engineering degree, and mathematics has always been a love of mine. I don't think you have to know math like I do to enjoy this book, but you will certainly appreciate the beauty of it a bit more if you do.
"Eternal truths are ultimately invisible, and you won't find them in material things or natural phenomena, or even in human emotions. Mathematics, however, can illuminate them, can give them expression -- in fact, nothing can prevent it from doing so."
Very highly recommended!!
Book Review: Simply - A Beautiful Story
Summary: 5 Stars
The Housekeeper and the Professor, by Yoko Ogawa is such an amazing book. The book is only 180 pages but once I began reading it, I was unable to put the book down.
A brilliant mathematician is involved in a car accident in 1978 and is left with a traumatic head injury. The injury has left him with just 80 minutes of short term memory. Despite this, he has never lost his love for numbers and complex mathematical equations.
One day an Housekeeping Agency sends a 9th housekeeper out to cook, clean and care for the professor, since none of the other housekeepers have worked out. The young housekeeper is a single mother of a 10 year old son. When the professor first meets the young boy he calls him: Root because his flat head reminds him of the math symbol for a square root. It's strange, but no one in this book has a name except for Root. The professor before long grows to care deeply care for this fatherless boy, and the housekeeper seeing this soon begins to fall into a routine as the professor's housekeeper. Root comes to the professor's house after school and they work on math homework together and share a fondness for baseball games.
A strange but beautiful relationship begins for these individuals. The story is funny yet bitter sweet. Every morning the housekeeper, has to introduce herself and her son to the professor as if they were meeting for the first time. He asks her the same questions when he does not know what to say: what is her age, her shoe size and her telephone number. When she tells him the numbers he responds with something mathematical and quite profound about the numbers.
The characters in this story are so likable, the writing is beautiful. A wonderful story about unlikely relationships, and how it is really the simple things that make life worthwhile.
Book Review: A glimpse beyond infinity
Summary: 5 Stars
The plot of the book is highly original, driven by extraordinary characters. These characters are so finely drawn that the author does not name them.
The housekeeper is an uneducated single mother with a ten-year-old son. The widow hires the housekeeper to cook and clean for the Professor, her brother-in-law.
Due to a head injury, the Professor possesses only 80 minutes of short-term memory. His memory of the past stopped in 1975. He was an expert in numbers theory at a university.
Housekeepers don't last long in this household, perhaps unwilling to deal with the Professor's obsessive interest in numbers, or the need to reintroduce themselves every 80 minutes. But this particular housekeeper is a quiet, unassuming creature who happily adapts to the Professor's eccentricities.
The Professor is upset when he learns that the housekeeper has a ten-year-old son. How can she leave a child alone for dinner? He insists the boy come to the cottage after school. Thus begins an amazing friendship between the young boy and the 64-year-old man. He calls the boy Root because the top of his head is flat, like a square root.
The Professor is a gifted teacher who introduces the Housekeeper and Root to the pure beauty of mathematics. Their world is enriched by factorials and primes, rare numbers and numbers that cannot be seen. They glimpse an idea of something beyond infinity.
And since baseball is expressed by its statistics, baseball becomes important to the story.
The wonder is that, although I personally loathe both math and baseball, I was completely charmed by this book with its spare prose style, poignant relationships and subtle surprises.
Book Review: Elegant, spare and beautiful
Summary: 5 Stars
The professor is a math genuis who had a car wreck in 1975 which left him with the ability to only remember things in 80 minutes increments. He lives in a run-down cottage at the back of his sister-in-law's house. He wears sticky notes on his suit in order to remind himself of things, i.e., "my memory is only 80 minutes long", and the housekeeper and a crudely drawn picture of her. There are no names given in this book; therefore, the professor is merely called the professor and the housekeeper is merely called the housekeeper. The housekeeper is the narrator of the story and she tells of how she must re-introduce herself to the professor every morning when she comes for work. The housekeeper has a 10-year-old son who the professor calls "Root" because his head is shaped like a square root.
One of the things that happens in the novel is that the housekeeper and her son take the professor to a baseball game. The professor still thinks it's 1975 so he thinks Yutaka Enatsu is still the pitcher for the Hanshin Tigers so he has some trouble adjusting to not seeing Enatsu pitch but he gets so caught up in the numbers, the statistics, and a young, beautiful girl selling concessions, he doesn't notice too much. It's a very sweet and moving portion of the book.
But much of the book is sweet and moving and cleverly written. It certainly is not like the everyday best seller books we are accustomed too. It ties the life of three people together through math and respect and loyalty. It is a wonderful book and I couldn't put it down until I was finished with it.