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The Housekeeper and the Professor

by Yoko Ogawa, Stephen Snyder (Translator)

3.91 · rating details · 4,134 ratings · 1,164 reviews

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 to care for him.

And every morning, as the Professor and the Housekeeper are introduced to each other anew, a strange and beautiful relationship

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Paperback, 180 pages

Published February 3rd 2009 by Picador (first published 2003)

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Nov 25, 2009

Amanda rated it

Recommended to Amanda by: Kerri

Shelves: translations, world-lit, 2009, the-best

The Professor was once a brilliant mathematician, but an accident in 1975 left his short-term memory damaged. While he is able to clearly remember events prior to the accident, his memories since then are limited to the past 80 minutes. The Housekeeper is the tenth housekeeper the Professor’s sister-in-law has hired to care for him. She comes to work for him in 1992, and soon he’s insisting she bring along her ten year old son, whom he nicknames Root because of the square root shape of his head....moreThe Professor was once a brilliant mathematician, but an accident in 1975 left his short-term memory damaged. While he is able to clearly remember events prior to the accident, his memories since then are limited to the past 80 minutes. The Housekeeper is the tenth housekeeper the Professor’s sister-in-law has hired to care for him. She comes to work for him in 1992, and soon he’s insisting she bring along her ten year old son, whom he nicknames Root because of the square root shape of his head.

This is a very quiet book, so elegant and beautifully written. I’ve seen movies before about this sort of memory loss (Momento, 50 First Dates, etc), but I’ve never seen the subject handled with this much care and precision. The Professor keeps his life afloat the best he can by writing messages to himself and clipping them all over his clothes. In the most prominent area: “My memory lasts only eighty minutes.”

Ogawa makes us see, through the eyes of this housekeeper, how difficult life is for the Professor. All he has left in the world is math, which he resorts to whenever he is nervous or uncomfortable. He opens every day by asking the Housekeeper not who she is, but for her shoe size or her birth weight or her telephone number. He finds relationships between seemingly random numbers, and is always teaching the Housekeeper and Root about math. Or baseball. Both the Professor and Root share a love for baseball, although Root avoids mentioning that the Professor’s favorite player was transferred to a new team after the accident and later retired altogether. Learning such things upsets the Professor – it reminds him how much time he’s lost. Though he knows his memory only lasts 80 minutes, he has no idea how many years has passed since that was true.

I liked math in school, so it was fun to take the little problems the Professor presented to Root and figure them out before reading the solutions. When it got to the more complicated ideas, I just read along and didn’t try to understand so much. You don’t need to have a love of math to love this book, but the Professor does take math and turn it into something beautiful and poetic. Even if you don’t understand, you can see the beauty in it. Ogawa also seems to have done a lot of research on the subject. I’m not a mathematician, and maybe a real mathematician would feel differently, but I thought this book treated the subject with respect. You don’t see that very often when math and mathematicians are displayed in fiction.

One of the things I loved about this book was that the characters were nameless. Other than Root’s nickname, none of them had names. They were just the Professor, the Housekeeper, the Widow (the Professor’s sister in law), and Root. Their names didn’t matter. They could have been any people in any time in any country. Their story, just like math, is universal, and that’s exactly how this was written. It was gorgeous.

The Housekeeper and the Professor is translated from the Japanese. Normally I have a rough time with translations because a lot of the original written elegance is lost, but not so in this book. The translator, Stephen Snyder, does a marvelous job of maintaining the poetic feel that I’m sure was intended in the original. I had no complaints at all about that. Being a translation didn’t detract from the original.

My favorite lines came from early in the book, from the Professor:

Solving a problem for which you know there’s an answer is like climbing a mountain with a guide, along a trail someone else has laid. In mathematics, the truth is somewhere out there in a place no one knows, beyond all the beaten paths. And it’s not always at the top of the mountain. It might be in a crack on the smoothest cliff or somewhere deep in the valley.

This quote helped me to understand how difficult this life was for the Professor. Here was a man who had gone on uncharted expeditions and solved mathematical equations that had never been solved before. Now, because of his short memory window, he could only do 80 minutes of work at a time. He spent his days solving problems for contests in math journals, somehow adjusting for his memory, winning prizes more often than not. It was a great example of his willpower and adaptability, to be able to solve those problems, and yet, to him, this is no accomplishment – the solutions were already known by someone else, and he no longer remembered them the next day anyway. The contests were simply a way of filling his time. The numbers comforted him in his loss.(less)

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Feb 15, 2010

Trish rated it

Shelves: fiction, character-driven

This is a quietly wonderful book. When I was reading it I really liked it. Now that some time has passed I still think of it, and any book that I still remember months after reading is a book that deserves 5 stars. Although there is some advanced math in the story the author doesn't expect the reader to understand all of it. The numbers and math are used more to show the magic of numbers and how math brings an unlikely group of people together to form meaningful relationships.
This is a...more

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Aug 28, 2011

JG (The Introverted Reader) rated it

Recommended to JG (The Introverted Reader) by: Fiona

Shelves: fiction, 4_stars, author_japanese, covers_i_like, read_in_2011, reviewed, setting_japan, translations

The Professor is a brilliant mathematician who suffered some brain damage in an automobile accident years ago. He can remember his entire life up until the accident, but afterwards, he only has a memory of the past 80 minutes. Luckily, his sister-in-law steps in to help care for him. She hires housekeepers to come in to his little cottage and cook his meals. Needless to say, the Professor scares off many of these women. But then The Housekeeper comes along. She's something of a specialist ...moreThe Professor is a brilliant mathematician who suffered some brain damage in an automobile accident years ago. He can remember his entire life up until the accident, but afterwards, he only has a memory of the past 80 minutes. Luckily, his sister-in-law steps in to help care for him. She hires housekeepers to come in to his little cottage and cook his meals. Needless to say, the Professor scares off many of these women. But then The Housekeeper comes along. She's something of a specialist in difficult cases. She is patient with the Professor and introduces herself to him every morning, respects the days when he is thinking, and generally wins him over again every day.

This is an elegantly-written novel. There aren't any wasted words, but it is still beautifully written. Every word seems to be chosen with care.

I can't say that a lot happens in the story itself. There's no big, romantic love, no adventure, no heartbreak. But the story is beautiful too.

These are characters that I learned to care about. The Professor is overwhelmed by the world and seeks solace in his orderly numbers. He obviously has a huge heart. He adores the Housekeeper's son, and really all children in general. The Housekeeper is a single mom doing the best she can and finding the time to care for and about this slightly damaged man. They are both lonely and they find each other and they form their own unique kind of family. It's a beautiful story and I loved it.

Quite a bit of the book revolves around mathematics. Don't let that put you off. The Housekeeper tells the story, and she is not a mathematician. None of that is overwhelming.

I wouldn't change a thing about the book, but I do have to say that I am curious about the Professor's past. The Housekeeper finds an old photo that brings up a lot of unanswered questions. And I just get the feeling that there's some kind of tragedy that led to the Professor's intense concern for children's safety. I'm happy to leave my questions unanswered though. The Housekeeper and her son learn to care for the Professor just as he is, without any concern for his past, so it feels right that the past stays in the past.

The translator, Stephen Snyder, obviously did an amazing job. This kind of writing is rare from authors who write in English. It takes a very talented team of author and translator to produce it in a translation.

For a quiet, beautiful, feel-good book about friendship and families, pick this up. (less)

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Feb 08, 2009

Holly rated it

Shelves: sacramento-book-review

A great story, simple yet complex! The Professor has only eighty minutes of short-term memory, but can remember everything from before his car accident in 1975, including all kinds of complicated mathematical theorems and equations. His new housekeeper is a young woman with a ten-year-old son, who manages to see past his memory problems to the brilliant and sweet old man beneath. She soon comes to dote on him like a father. In turn, the Professor adores her son, whom he calls "Root"...more

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Aug 16, 2010

Fiona rated it

· review of another edition

Recommended to Fiona by: Laura

Shelves: books-i-own, 2010, original-language-japanese, setting-japan

How can I possibly put this book into my own words? I can’t begin to imagine I could capture or convey to any of you, how this book made me feel. It took me two days to read and I wish I could have taken more time to read it – but I simply couldn’t put it down. The pages seemed to turn themselves and I didn’t really feel like I was reading at all.

This book moved me. It is a small ripple that travels a long way across calm waters. It is nothing ground shaking, nothing that makes you t...more

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Apr 28, 2010

Chrissie rated it

Shelves: fiction, japan, kirkus, text-checked, relationships

This book is truly original, not your normal run of the mill. I highly recommend it. What is it about? It is about friendship and the beauty of numbers and baseball. And more..... Where should I start? I will start with the numbers. This is sort of the easiest to expalin. This book made me see and feel the beauty of math, of the laws that govern numbers. The world is so complicated. We understand nothing. Everything is always changing, but then you learn of a mathematical formula that is const...moreThis book is truly original, not your normal run of the mill. I highly recommend it. What is it about? It is about friendship and the beauty of numbers and baseball. And more..... Where should I start? I will start with the numbers. This is sort of the easiest to expalin. This book made me see and feel the beauty of math, of the laws that govern numbers. The world is so complicated. We understand nothing. Everything is always changing, but then you learn of a mathematical formula that is constant, that is always true, and suddenly there is an order to the messy world around us. The author goes even one step beyond this. Three people, of which two are completely normal like you and me, the housekeeper and her son, come to understand the magic of numbers through their contact with the Professor (of math). I wish I had had had a math teacher like te Professor! Did you know that zero is a concept thought up by an Indian mathematician. Before him the Greeks thought this concept didn't need a symbol. You get history, and then the author pulls the mathematical concept into the story so you understand the true consequence of the concept. What it means to you and me. Infinity, a line, zero, amicable numbers. Honestly, math is made beautiful. Occasionaly, I was too tired to follow the full development of a formula, but usually the author never pushed the theoretical underpinings too far. It is definitely worth reading the book just so that you will learn about math, but there is more!

There is baseball. And there is true friendship. And there is a look at how people come to love each other simply by doing things together. Caring for each other. All the blurbs about this book tell you that the housekeeper is taking care of an elderly man who can only remember what has happened during the last 80 minutes. He can also remember everything before 1975, before a car accident. What does this lack if remembrance really mean? It means that every day when she and her son come to his door he doesn't know who they are. It means that when you spend a wonderful afternoon together, it is gone tomorrow. So are the frightful disagreements that can destroy a day. Gone - they never happened! What does this say to the reader? What's the lesson to be learned? You get a beautiful picture of a frail old man, who has three suits - one for winter, one for summer and one for the spring and fall. That is what he wears. He has little pieces of paper pinned all over his suit to remind himeslf of things he must remember. Soon he is not a man dressed in a suit, but a man dressed in fragments of paper. The image is beautiful and clear and wonderful. Why? Bcause you fall in love with the guy! What develops for realationship between these three people is extraordinary. Do you see why I say this book is original? It is NOT melodramatic, it is quiet and beautiful. Heartwarming - definitely. Read it. It's only 180 pages. Take time to read chapter 10, of the eleven chapters in the book, slowly. Savour it. It is so beautiful.

12 pages in and I already love the characters, the housekeeper and the professor! Why is that? Perhaps b/c they are each true to their own selves. They are not what society wants them to be but merely who they were born to be. I cannot help but compare this with the poor souls of Remarkable Creatures. Although both Elizabeth and Mary also followed their inclinations, they spent all their time judging themselves by the moral standards of their times. The housekeeper and the professor are too busy being themselves.(less)

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Feb 24, 2009

Steph rated it

This is a very intimate book. If you have ever dealt with somebody that has memory problems you will feel the connections and how personal those issues are.

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Mar 10, 2009

Ernie rated it

Wonderful story. A housekeeper is hired to care for a mathemathics professor who had been in a car accident 18 years previously, and who remembers everything up to the accident but only the most recent 80 minutes since then. Each day the housekeeper introduces herself to him. Shortly after that, the housekeeper's son joins them. It is an amazing examination of how relationships can be built even in such circumstances. A delightful aspect is the daily activities of the professor who relates to...more

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Jan 19, 2009

Shaindel rated it

I recently read this book so that I could interview the translator, Stephen Snyder, for my radio show, _Translated By_. I read this book and two out of the three novellas in _The Diving Pool_ (also by Yoko Ogawa and translated by Stephen Snyder). I LOVED both books. (The only reason I didn't finish _The Diving Pool_ is that I was under deadline for the show and teaching, and reading two books in two days is tricky business.) I will try to read the final novella in _The Diving Pool_ today.
...more

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Jan 25, 2012

Patty rated it

Shelves: memory, fiction, friendship, contemporary-fiction, japan, mothers-and-sons, disability, family, illness, math, mathematicians, literary-fiction, baseball, 2012

My friend Chris gave this book to be a few years ago and it has been languishing on my shelf. I guess it was waiting until tonight when I desperately needed a diversion.

Imagine trying to live your life when you can only remember everything that happened before 1975 and the last 80 minutes. Seems impossible and improbable to me. However, that is where the professor is when the housekeeper first meets him.

I have no idea how Ogawa came up with this premise and then she ma...more

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Nov 16, 2011

Mom rated it

Baseball is such a game of statistics! Combining the mysterious processes of the mind after trauma, what it retains and what it loses, with a fascination for math and for baseball, the author has written a lovely excursion into relationships. Accompanying me in my reading of it was the experience of an English teacher friend who asked her ninth graders to discuss, " If your friend were to be changed into a frog, what characteristics would enable you to recognize the frog as your friend?"...more

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Nov 13, 2011

Kathleen rated it

Shelves: authors-new-to-me

“The Housekeeper and the Professor” is a book whose beauty and depth overwhelmed me at times and quietly took my reading life over. On the surface, it is the story of a brilliant Japanese mathematician whose short term memory lasts only eighty minutes, the result of a head injury suffered in 1975 when he was 47 years old. His elderly sister-in-law, also injured during the accident, organizes his care but insists that the housekeeper make no contact or demands on her living in a separate home on ...more“The Housekeeper and the Professor” is a book whose beauty and depth overwhelmed me at times and quietly took my reading life over. On the surface, it is the story of a brilliant Japanese mathematician whose short term memory lasts only eighty minutes, the result of a head injury suffered in 1975 when he was 47 years old. His elderly sister-in-law, also injured during the accident, organizes his care but insists that the housekeeper make no contact or demands on her living in a separate home on the same property as his broken down cottage. Enter the 28 year old housekeeper, a single mother of a 10 year old, who closely follows the rule of the agency to ensure her much-needed income and anticipates some difficulty with this assignment knowing she is the ninth housekeeper employed here.

Quickly learning that the professor, whose name we never learn, has developed strategies to bridge his memory loss, the housekeeper intuitively understands his daily questions, “What’s your shoe size?...When’s your birthday?” serve to connect him to others and launch him into his thinking about mathematics, what is familiar and comfortable to him.
When the professor learns the housekeeper has a young son, he insists that she bring him to the house every afternoon and that they eat dinner together every night. Nicknaming the boy “Root” because of the flat shape of his head, the professor welcomes the young boy into his home relishing every moment with him and understanding Root’s need to be out playing with his friends. Later in the novel, when the housekeeper shares her concern for her son’s safety camping in the mountains, the professor consoles her, “The square root sign is a sturdy one. It shelters all the numbers.”

“The professor loved prime numbers.” He believed “the appeal of prime numbers has something to do with the fact that you could never predict when one would appear.” The housekeeper and her son are unexpectedly swept up by his enthusiasm. ”The mere mention of prime numbers made us anxious to know more about their secrets.” The professor gave such dignity to the housekeeper, her son, their life, respecting both of them as real mathematicians, constantly helping them to see something they had never understood before, seamlessly introducing the housekeeper to Artin’s conjecture, the thinking of Euler, and Fermat’s Last Theorem within a walk to the park or their conversations while she prepared a meal. They, in turn, were avid students and respected the pain his memory loss brought to him and labored never to confuse him. And thus, they carved out a family life.

This book is filled with small acts of love that go far beyond the loving care the housekeeper provides the professor…the housekeeper’s attention that the professor’s many notes pinned to his suit are always in order… the commitment the mother and son make to protect the professor from ever discovering his favorite Tiger’s baseball player, Enatsu, is long retired…the professor’s ability to flip syllables spoken to him so effortlessly much to the delight of Root…the professor assisting Root calculating baseball statistics while he is working on a profound mathematical puzzle…the pursuit of a “premier card” made in 1985 using part of Enatsu’s leather glove by Root and his mother to give to the professor…the problem the professor writes, putting an end to an argument with his sister-in-law, which the housekeeper understands and leans on throughout her life…the 11 years of visits by Root and his mother to the professor living in a nursing home until the professor passes just as the 22 year old Root is about to become a middle school math teacher.

The book is also filled with conversations about mathematics that reveal its elegance and true beauty. The reader will begin to stop to consider the importance of numbers (such as years mentioned, ages etc.) in relationship to one another because they play an important role. The professor remains a brilliant teacher able to break concepts down into manageable pieces and makes the characters’ discussion so accessible to the reader. For example, he provides Root with a problem in exchange for the repair of his old radio so they can listen to baseball games. He then challenges Root to extend his thinking, challenging the radio repair, “A problem isn’t finished just because you’ve found the right answer.” The study of mathematics, he claims, is “like copying truths from God’s notebook, though we aren’t always sure where to find this notebook or when it will be open.”… “The mathematical order is beautiful precisely because it has no effect on the real world. Life isn’t going to be easier, nor is anyone going to make a fortune, just because they know something about prime numbers…the only goal is truth”…”For him, primes were the basis on which all other natural numbers relied; and children were the foundation of everything worthwhile in the adult world.”

A beautiful book filled with such grace, I will savor it for a long time.

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Nov 01, 2011

Bill Krieger rated it

This book is a nice, light read. It's almost a "young adult" level of reading.

"Housekeeper" tells a very positive story. It's about a housekeeper and an elderly math professor who, years ago, lost his memory in a car accident. She is (predictably) hard-working and nurturing. He is (predictably) a nutty professor type who is, however, very endearing because of his disability. The whole thing is pretty (predictably) predictable.

There is some real math stuff ...more

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Oct 23, 2011

manuti rated it

· review of another edition

Después de una dosis de basura, un libro que puede ser de lo mejor que acabe en la lista de libros de 2008 – 2009. Delicioso libro que merecería convertirse en un best-seller, mucho mejor que las dos ñoñeces que leí el año pasado (Firmin y El niño con el pijama de rayas).

Una historia simple, unos personajes interesantes y las matemáticas y los números flotando alrededor de ellos. Matemáticas de las que puede entender un niño de 10 años (como uno de los personajes) y que sin hacerse pes...more

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Sep 05, 2011

Zarina rated it

· review of another edition

The Housekeeper and the Professor is a sweet and quirky little novel that I finished for the most part in one sitting. Yes, this is partly due to the fact that it's a small book, but also because it's an easy and interesting read.

A mathematician gets into an accident in 1975 and since then he's had severe problems with his short term memory: he only remembers what happened during the last 80 minutes of his life and anything from before his accident in 1975. We get to know, and love, t...more

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Aug 18, 2011

H.I. Al-Muhairi rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: favorites, vintage-edition, japanese, 2011, fresh, love-the-cover, psycological, touched-my-heart, fiction

We called him Professor. And he called my son Root, because, he said, the flat top of his head reminded him of the square root sign.

"There's a fine brain in there," the Professor said, mussing my son's hair. Root, who wore a cap to avoid being teased by his friends, gave a wary shrug. "With this one little sign we can come to know an infinite range of numbers, even those we can't see."[pg. 1]

I was about to pay for a couple of books at the counter when ...more

We called him Professor. And he called my son Root, because, he said, the flat top of his head reminded him of the square root sign.

"There's a fine brain in there," the Professor said, mussing my son's hair. Root, who wore a cap to avoid being teased by his friends, gave a wary shrug. "With this one little sign we can come to know an infinite range of numbers, even those we can't see."[pg. 1]

I was about to pay for a couple of books at the counter when The Housekeeper and the Professer caught my eye last minute. The cover was simple but attractive and the author was Japanese (I've only been a Japan-fanatic since forever). It barely weighs anything and while I was reading the blurb at the back, I was thinking this would be the perfect light summer-read and it turned out to be more.

Now that I've just finished reading the book, I'm wondering how life would've been if my yesterday existed seventeen years ago and my memory was outdated. And how lost I'd be if I knew I couldn't remember people and things that happened only eighty minutes ago.

But this is the sort of thing the Professor has been going through ever since the car accident in 1975 that permenantly damaged his brain.

The Housekeeper and the Professor is a character-driven story narrated by the Housekeeper herself. We never find out her name, or her son Root's name--and we don't know for sure what the Professor was called; but the characters come to life through the days spent in the Professor's small cottage and their names don't matter anymore.

This was a calmly narrated story, the language was beautiful and the way mathematics was shown here made it seem so different from the math I take at school, even though I recognized most of it. Mathematics no longer represented the detested numbers and boring figures that we were forced to learn day by day--it was crafted into a brilliant and magical language with hidden secrets buried under the formulas and equations.

Last note:

I wish the majority of math teachers have some of the passion the Professor had; school would've definitely been much more interesting to students. And the fact that they've studied nothing but numbers for years wouldn't sound as crazy.(less)

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Jul 13, 2011

Charleen Merced rated it

"The Housekeeper and the Professor" by Yoko Ogawa is a wonderful and moving book set in Japan. Its prose and language are simple and yet, they are full of depth and meaning. The author is able to draw and engulf the reader into its world and beautiful storyline. The story makes the reader pause to think about the words contained in this book. Underneath the sadness of the situation, a story of happy times and of hope emerges.

The novel s about a Housekeeper, sent to care for ...more"The Housekeeper and the Professor" by Yoko Ogawa is a wonderful and moving book set in Japan. Its prose and language are simple and yet, they are full of depth and meaning. The author is able to draw and engulf the reader into its world and beautiful storyline. The story makes the reader pause to think about the words contained in this book. Underneath the sadness of the situation, a story of happy times and of hope emerges.

The novel s about a Housekeeper, sent to care for a Professor who has a particular ailment, his memory only lasts 80 minutes. This was a result of an accident a few decades back. The Professor (a Math Professor) lives in a world of numbers as it is the only thing that remains constant and unchanging. Numbers are the only things he knows will not change and he spends his time solving math problems from mathematical magazines. He is often successful at this and is constantly winning money prizes for solving the math problems. Yet, after eighty minutes his mind resets which makes things complicated fr the housekeeper who has to keep reintroducing herself.

The Housekeeper is a single mother who works for a housekeeping agency. She is a very patient and good woman who has struggled to raise her son and is empathetic towards the Professor. When the Professor meets her son, he instantly becomes friendly to him (and every time he meets him again). All of the Professors friendly gestures, care and concern are directed towards the boy he nicknames Root. The Housekeeper comes to appreciate this and her feelings of friendship for the Professor deepen. She is grateful that he is so nice to her son. For Housekeeper, the Professor, in time, becomes someone she can consider a friend and a good influence. She is cognizant of the effect that the Professor has on her and on her son. As the book progresses, the Housekeeper learns of the Professors Past and understands him better. Both the Housekeeper and Root are positively changed through their time spent with the Professor. The are challenged by his math problems, and they know and understand each other better.

This was a very good book and it was great to read it. (less)

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Jul 09, 2011

Jen rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: fiction-general

The book takes place in Japan, and follows the story of retired math professor whose memory lasts only 80 minutes, and his housekeeper who is a lonely single mother, and her son. The book focuses heavily on the bond between the professor and the housekeeper´s son, and the housekeeper´s longing for meaning and fulfillment. The housekeeper lives vicariously through the professors obsession with numbers. She knows little of math but thrives what she refers to as the mysteries of the numbers he ta...more

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Jun 27, 2011

Sue rated it

Three characters inhabit this small and exquisite book. Two are named in the title, and the third is the 10-year-old son of the housekeeper. The reader knows no one’s name, but the Professor names the boy Root because the shape of his head reminds him of the square root symbol. There are occasional intrusions by other characters on their small universe, and one – the Professor’s sister-in-law – later assumes importance.

The Professor is a mathematician who has amnesia as the result of...more

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Jun 17, 2011

Ann rated it

This is a true love story, though not a physical or romantic one. It is the story of love for mathematics, baseball and for those who accept you just as you are. It features the most unlikely of characters; a housekeeper who is a single mom, her illegitimate son and a professor who has lost all but 80 minutes of his short term memory. She cares for him with amazing tenderness and compassion while he and the son form a lifetime bond. Even though he often forgets who they are and why they are ther...more

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Jun 11, 2011

Jenny rated it

Shelves: read-in-2010

The Housekeeper and the Professor is beautifully written and a short read at 180 pages. The characters are so endearing I can't imagine them not growing and finding a place in anyone's heart. This is also a book about numbers and how harmonious they can be; I would consider this the number version of what Ella Minnow Pea did for language and the alphabet. Those who love numbers will find themselves even more engrossed in this book, but those who don't won't find the numbers take from the story.
...moreThe Housekeeper and the Professor is beautifully written and a short read at 180 pages. The characters are so endearing I can't imagine them not growing and finding a place in anyone's heart. This is also a book about numbers and how harmonious they can be; I would consider this the number version of what Ella Minnow Pea did for language and the alphabet. Those who love numbers will find themselves even more engrossed in this book, but those who don't won't find the numbers take from the story.

None of the characters are given actual names, other than the housekeeper's son, whom the professor names Root because of the shape of the top of his head. The lack of names wasn't something that drew away from the story or that I even noticed, although I worried it would. In fact, I think this may have made the story even better because it changed the focus for me; the characters were just as real, though. The professor is an elderly man who has only a short term memory of 80 minutes. At the beginning of every 80 minutes, he believes he's still back in the late 70's when he lost his memory initially. Because of this, he clips post it notes all over his daily suits so he can remind himself of his situation.

Over the years, 9 different housekeepers have been through the home and all have to leave for one reason or another. Then "the housekeeper" starts to work there and is able to acclimate herself to the situation and meet the professor's needs for socialization, while still completing all her work. She then starts bringing Root to work with her. Root and the professor then begin a loving relationship, reminiscent of many loving grandfather/grandson relationships. The professor dotes on Root and they share a love for baseball.

While we don't learn much about the professor's past, or even that of the housekeeper's, for that matter, this story is about how the three characters love each other and are able to care for each other despite all their challenges. They build a family of their own during the day when the Housekeeper and Root are at the home. The juxtaposition of numbers and the harmony they create added an intellectually stimulating dimension to this novel. But the main factor this novel boasts is the beautiful writing and the charming characters. It's short, but Ogawa does an excellent job focusing on the parts of the story that are important to tell so in that short amount of time you really feel like you know the characters and have lived with them through this stage in their life. This was such a beautiful book. It will go on my keeper shelf to read again and again!

Taken from my blog at www.takemeawayreading.com (less)

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Jun 03, 2011

Lisa rated it

Shelves: japanese-literature, novellas, contemporary-writers, baseball, math

For some reason, while only 5 months into the year, I have managed to read two love stories steeped in math. Neither is a love story in the traditional sense, but there is no denying they are about love. The first was 36 Arguments for the Existence of God, and then this one The Housekeeper and the Professor. Both are wonderful books, but this is the one, an elegant, heartfelt ode to friendship, kindred spirits and amicable numbers, is probably the more accessible of the two. I had a hard tim...more

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Apr 26, 2011

Grace Chen rated it

I read this book for the final project of my sociology course on aging and society. Beautifully written and touching story of a young housekeeper, her young son, and an old math professor whom the housekeeper is sent to care for. The professor sustained a head injury from a car accident decades ago, and as a result his short term memory is only 80 minutes long, so every morning it's as if they are meeting for the first time. Ogawa tells of the professor's passion and obsession with numbers; a...more

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Apr 17, 2011

Leslie rated it

The premise of the story is that a mathematics professor in Japan was in a car accident in 1975 and since that time, has only been able to hold things in his memory for 80 minutes. He lives a sad and lonely life in a small cottage and brings in money by solving complex math puzzles.

Enter a new housekeeper and her 10-year old son. The three of them bond in a heart-touching way. They come to truly love and need each other despite the fact that the professor doesn't remember them from day...more

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Mar 10, 2011

Rose rated it

The Housekeeper and the Professor is a simple tale. The Professor is an aging mathematician who lost his memory after an automobile accident in 1975. He has memories from before that time, but since the accident, his memory only lasts 80 minutes. The housekeeper is assigned to clean the Professor's cottage, and each morning she introduces herself anew to her employer. When the Professor learns she has a school-age son, who typically spends his afternoons at home alone while his mother is at work...more

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Feb 26, 2011

Afnizar Mohd rated it

Recommended to Afnizar Mohd by: Rebecca Ilham

A good friend of mine suggested me to read this book, saying that if I can fall in love with Nocturnes by Kazuo Ishiguro I would definitely fall head over heels with one.

And she is correct. It is a thin book, it is, but it must have been the language style, the emotions embedded that kept me reading non-stop on a Saturday morning.

I have never loved Mathematics as a subject, often find myself unable to remember even my PIN, though having been an engineering student number...more

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Jan 20, 2011

Mohd Nazmi Yaakub rated it

Shelves: novel, jepun, sastera

WATAK Profesor dalam The Housekeeper and the Professor hanya memiliki memori yang bertahan selama 80 minit sebelum ingatannya berhenti pada tahun 1975, tetapi novel yang menyelongkar persoalan hubungan kemanusiaan dan puitika matematika itu pasti tidak akan luput daripada ingatan kita.

Matematik dan baseball akan selama-lamanya menyukarkan saya tetapi ia tidak pernah mengganggu saya untuk menyusur hubungan unik yang dibina antara watak utamanya, pembantu rumah dan anaknya dengan majikan...more

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Dec 10, 2010

Tami rated it

Easy read for Bookclub. Interesting premise of using math, memory (or lack of),friendship and baseball to form and sweet story.
Math professor was in a car accident 25 years prior and has no memory after 1975, except for 80 minutes at a time.
Lovey how the housekeeper and her son become his friend where others had forgotten him. The professor's world revolves around math and he teaches the housekeeper and her son what he knows. I loved the tidbits and associations he used, even tho...more

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Oct 11, 2010

Ernest Junius rated it

Recommends it for: Girls

Recommended to Ernest by: Inaccurate New York Times book review

Shelves: books-that-took-overnight-to-finish, tragedy

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Complicated maths subject, memory loss complications, complex human emotions... well... what does this book make me think about Ogawa? Obviously, this is the kind of book that put the importance of the plot before all logics. I never find out what is the meaning of the equation that is able to successfully placate the Widow "who understands the beauty of maths". I never really understand most of the Maths lectures the Professor talks about throughout the book, and I never quite underst...more

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Jul 09, 2010

Laurie rated it

"Amicable numbers" -- loved this -- the weaving of metaphor and theme and character with the wonderful intricacies of mathematics, and though I do not understand all of those intricacies, the author has enabled the reader to appreciate the connections throughout this poignant work. The novel poses questions about not only what we remember and why, but how important are memories -- how are memories held -- especially if one's working memory is only eighty minutes long -- how are relatio...more

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About Yoko Ogawa

Yoko Ogawa (alternate spelling Yôko Ogawa; Japanese: 小川洋子) was born in Okayama, Okayama Prefecture, graduated from Waseda University, and lives in Ashiya with her husband and son. Since 1988, she has published more than twenty works of fiction and nonfiction. Her novel The Professor and his Beloved Equation has been made into a movie. In 2006 she co-authored "An Introduction to the World's M...moreYoko Ogawa (alternate spelling Yôko Ogawa; Japanese: 小川洋子) was born in Okayama, Okayama Prefecture, graduated from Waseda University, and lives in Ashiya with her husband and son. Since 1988, she has published more than twenty works of fiction and nonfiction. Her novel The Professor and his Beloved Equation has been made into a movie. In 2006 she co-authored "An Introduction to the World's Most Elegant Mathematics" with Masahiko Fujiwara, a mathematician, as a dialogue on the extraordinary beauty of numbers.

A film in French, "L'Annulaire" (The Ringfinger), directed by Diane Bertrand, starring Olga Kurylenko and Marc Barbé, was released in France in June 2005 and subsequently made the rounds of the international film festivals; the film, some of which is filmed in the Hamburg docks, is based in part on Ogawa's Kusuriyubi no hyōhon (薬指の標本), translated into French as L'Annulaire (by Rose-Marie Makino-Fayolle who has translated numerous works by Ogawa, as well as works by Akira Yoshimura and by Ranpo Edogawa, into French). (The dockland setting and a significant subplot owe nothing to Ogawa's novella. Interestingly, in conversation with the audience after a showing of the film at the Edinburgh Film Festival, 2006, Diane Bertrand said that she was not sure that she understood the book.)

Kenzaburō Ōe has said, 'Yoko Ogawa is able to give expression to the most subtle workings of human psychology in prose that is gentle yet penetrating.' The subtlety in part lies in the fact that Ogawa's characters often seem not to know why they are doing what they are doing. She works by accumulation of detail, a technique that is perhaps more successful in her shorter works; the slow pace of development in the longer works requires something of a deus ex machina to end them. The reader is presented with an acute description of what the protagonists, mostly but not always female, observe and feel and their somewhat alienated self-observations, some of which is a reflection of Japanese society and especially women's roles within in it. The tone of her works varies, across the works and sometimes within the longer works, from the surreal, through the grotesque and the--sometimes grotesquely--humorous, to the psychologically ambiguous and even disturbing. (Hotel Iris, one of her longer works, is more explicit sexually than her other works and is also her most widely translated.)

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“Soon after I began working for the Professor, I realized that he talked about numbers whenever he was unsure of what to say or do. Numbers were also his way of reaching out to the world. They were safe, a source of comfort.” — 5 people liked it

“He treated Root exactly as he treated prime numbers. For him, primes were the base on which all other natural numbers relied; and children were the foundation of everything worthwhile in the adult world” — 4 people liked it

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