The Housekeeper and the Professor in Crazy Challenge Connection

Nov 22, 2014 Book Concierge rated it it was amazing

Shelves: audio, literary-fiction, book-club, family, concierge, strong-women, library, friendship, poetry, japan

Audiobook performed by Cassandra Campbell.
5***** and a ❤

A housekeeper is sent by her agency to the home of a problematic client. A blue star is stamped on the client’s card each time a housekeeper has to be replaced, and the Professor’s card already has nine stars. But she prides herself on her professionalism. The Professor lives in a small cottage next to a larger mansion occupied by his brother’s widow. A few years before he suffered a brain injury in an automobile accident and as a result hi Audiobook performed by Cassandra Campbell.
5***** and a ❤

A housekeeper is sent by her agency to the home of a problematic client. A blue star is stamped on the client’s card each time a housekeeper has to be replaced, and the Professor’s card already has nine stars. But she prides herself on her professionalism. The Professor lives in a small cottage next to a larger mansion occupied by his brother’s widow. A few years before he suffered a brain injury in an automobile accident and as a result his memory is limited to 80 minutes. His suit coat is covered in small notes to help him remember things he would otherwise forget. Each morning he asks the Housekeeper for her shoe size, her birth date and the age of her son, Root. Yet, despite having to introduce themselves anew each morning, they develop a unique friendship.

I’m not sure what I was expecting, but what I got was a beautifully elegant gem of a novel. The slow way in which the Housekeeper, Root and the Professor get to know one another is framed by his lessons on the poetry of mathematics. And it IS poetic the way he explains it. His love of the subject and the elegance of perfect equations is evident, as is his love of teaching. As limited as his memory is, the Professor’s ability to find the beauty in numbers (and to share that sense of awe with his companions) seems without limit.

I liked how Ogawa used the Professor’s and Root’s love of baseball to frame their growing friendship. And I liked the sensitivity Root showed when he refrained from correcting the Professor’s assumption that the great Enatsu was still playing (rather than having actually retired more than a dozen years previously). Root taught the Professor to enjoy the game for the camaraderie and joy of watching the team and cheering them on, while the Professor taught Root the wonder of statistics and the beauty of the numbers involved. ”His joy had little to do with the difficulty of the problem. Simple or hard, the pleasure was in sharing it with us.”

I could not help but remember my father and his great love for and natural ability with math. He taught me so many little tricks when I was a child and made solving problems fun. I’m sure that is partly why I had such a positive emotional response to this book.

Cassandra Campbell does a fine job narrating the audio book. She has a gentle quality that is perfectly suited to this book. There is a scene where the Professor praises the way in which the boy has read aloud a homework problem: “You make a boring problem sound just like a poem.” That is a perfect description for Campbell’s performance; even when she is reading equations, she makes them sound like poetry.

UPDATE 12June16 - I re-read this in preparation for my F2F book club discussion. This time I read the text and find the writing just as poetically beautiful as when I listened to the audio. ...more

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Jun 30, 2016 Rachel N. rated it really liked it

Shelves: read-in-2016, family, japan, friendship, baseball, math

A housekeeper begins working for a former mathematics professor who due to ana ccident can only remember the past 80 minutes. The two of them plus the housekeepers son, nicknamed Root, eventually form a friendship. A sweet story of friendship and family. There is a lot of math in the book which bogged the story down a bit in places for me. Otherwise I enjoyed the story and the characters.

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Jan 17, 2022 Avigail rated it it was amazing

Shelves: challenges, 5-stars, own, physical-book, 2ns-hand-bookstore, 2022, mytbr-co

My thirteenth book for the year is also my first five-star book. Wow, how many prime numbers are in a sentence?
It is interesting because one of the main characters is a mathematics professor.
The Housekeeper and the Professor I got suggested by TBR.co, and I am happy that I picked up.
Yōko Ogawa managed in a short novel to combine broad themes of reason and poetry with an exploration of family intimacy. Set in contemporary Japan, the book features three nameless characters and their relationshi ...more

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Dec 09, 2014 Sue rated it really liked it

Shelves: asia, library, late-20th-century, natalie-bk-club

This book had much to say in very simple ways about love and family. The Housekeeper learned from the Professor about the beauty of mathematics and numbers, much of which was over my head, but I enjoyed reading of her love for the numbers and the equations. She is profoundly touched by a man who can't remember anything for longer than 80 minutes, so she must constantly reintroduce herself. Even with all that, she is touched and changed by him along with her ten-year-old son. A family is what you ...more

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Aug 17, 2018 Michele rated it it was amazing

This is my second book this year that had a lot of math interspersed in the story. Again, I didn’t mind it-someof it was very fascinating. This was such a wonderful story. It is not long but the pages are filled with thought provoking ideas.

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