From the Bookshelf of Constant Reader…

The Housekeeper and the Professor

Yōko Ogawa

Start date: February 15, 2013

Finish date: March 15, 2013

Discussion: Reading List

Discussion leader: Emily

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Reading List

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What Members Thought

Aug 21, 2017 Jenny (Reading Envy) rated it it was amazing

Shelves: women-in-translation, translated, location-japan, read2017, around-the-world

Everyone and their mother read this last year for Women in Translation month (August 2016), and I remember finding my own copy at the annual literacy book sale. I set it aside for WIT month this year and was happy to pull it back out.

The housekeeper is a single parent, trying to make enough to live on, and the professor is a mathematician with a failing memory. The story is about connection and care but also MATH and anyone who knows me knows I'm a sucker for math. The professor can't remember p ...more

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Aug 04, 2012 Ruth rated it did not like it

It took me days to slog through this little book. I had to drive myself back to it every time I put it down. The fact that I detest arithmetic and baseball didn’t help. I could barely wade through those interminable explanations. If it hadn’t been so short, I would have thrown in the towel early on. As it was, I kept waiting for the moment when it would jell into something clear and sensible. It didn’t. Another of those “simple” little books purporting wisdom. And failing. It’s better than Jonat ...more

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Jun 21, 2020 Sheila rated it liked it

Shelves: ebooks, japan

The Japanese do love stories like calligraphy, delicate brush strokes full of meaning, subtle yet straightforward, simple yet complex.

In this novella, a single mother is sent by an Agency to housekeep for a "difficult" client, a Maths Professor who lives in a cottage in the garden of a larger home occupied by his sister in law, a widow. After a car accident he has only 80 minutes of memory cycle for events post that time. To aid him getting through the day he wears the same suit, studded with n The Japanese do love stories like calligraphy, delicate brush strokes full of meaning, subtle yet straightforward, simple yet complex.

In this novella, a single mother is sent by an Agency to housekeep for a "difficult" client, a Maths Professor who lives in a cottage in the garden of a larger home occupied by his sister in law, a widow. After a car accident he has only 80 minutes of memory cycle for events post that time. To aid him getting through the day he wears the same suit, studded with notes to help him remember things, like that she is his housekeeper and she has a young son, whom he has nicknamed Root. The three of them develop an unexpected friendship through a love of numbers, mathematics and baseball. Now I'm neither knowledgeable about mathematics or baseball, and that might bog some readers down but for me it didn't matter mucvh because what matters is that the writer conveys the Professor's passion about numbers and about his baseball idol Enatsu as a way of showing the man the Professor was but also still is, a passionate person who cares deeply about children and sees beauty in numbers and the evening sky.

The book is narrated by the unamed housekeep, looking back on her years with the Professor. How reliable a narrator is she? Well the book is her memories, one sided perhaps, but clearly full of tender affection for the man, and for the love, inspiration, attention and praise he showed her son, who ended up being a teacher. She of course does not know and so neither can we as readers what exactly the relationship between the Professor and his sister in law was leading up to the car crash, but we can hypothesis. From a practical point of view the idea of notes pinned to the Professor's suit is a bit unfit for the purpose of remembering, but serves another purpose - it makes him appear ridiculous at first sight, like a jester or fool which he is most clearly not, and as such serves to reflect how society often views and treats people with memory loss, dementia etc . ...more

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Aug 03, 2012 Yulia rated it it was amazing

Shelves: japandemonium

A truly beautiful work with such a poetic rhythm to it. Brava!

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Feb 10, 2013 Jane rated it it was amazing

Shelves: recentfiction

I actually loved this book. As I've often mentioned, my love for books is as much for the right book at the right time as for any intrinsic literary excellence. I am not mathematician, but I am a fifth grade teacher, and the math presented here seemed like perfect math for fifth graders...the way it was for Root. I also loved the passage where the Professor encourages Root to read his math problems aloud, to hear their poetry. This makes perfect sense to me. I plan to share it with my students. I actually loved this book. As I've often mentioned, my love for books is as much for the right book at the right time as for any intrinsic literary excellence. I am not mathematician, but I am a fifth grade teacher, and the math presented here seemed like perfect math for fifth graders...the way it was for Root. I also loved the passage where the Professor encourages Root to read his math problems aloud, to hear their poetry. This makes perfect sense to me. I plan to share it with my students.

I believed the eighty minute memory loss, although I haven't followed up with the sites that Janet and Cecily left for us. Recently I read A Hundred Flowers by Gail Tsukiyama. The novel had the same spareness, the same reticence between characters. There are times when I need to read novels with western characters talking and talking away with and at each other, but this kind of novel, which seems particularly Japanese, is so moving in its quiet. I love how much I have to infer. I absolutely thought that the Professor had lost a child--a sibling, a nephew, a son, someone...because of the way he worried about Root. This kind of gentle kindness moved me so much. Every bit of the math the Professor shared was another kind of love, and that made me want to read it. I have to admit, even while overwhelmed with teaching, I read and savored every single word. I wanted to buy the book for every math teacher I know. Given the response to the book, I am waiting. Perhaps my response had more to do with my own need for and delight in this book.

I just read this book for a second time with a face to face book group. Everyone in the group liked it. A few of us loved it. I have to admit, I loved it even more this time. The restraint of this book, the way so much is said with a small example just blew me away this time. Here's an example of what I mean. There is no sexual relationship between the professor and the housekeeper, but there are scenes in which their love and intimacy is palpable. "The professor leaned back and stretched. His breath smelled faintly of melon. A streak of lightning flashed across the sky and the thunder rumbled louder than ever." The professor and the housekeeper a simply ending a meal in the midst of a thunder storm. That little detail of his breath smelling of melon intimates their physical closeness, but in the context of that scene it is emotional closeness as well. In another scene the professor sits and watches the housekeeper make a meal. He gives the same attention to her hands as she pats the dumplings that he does to his mathematical equations.

Some readers found the math off putting. I loved it. Maybe it's because this is the kind of thinking the children I teach are often asked to do. Some also found the "80 minute memory" unrealistic. I think this is more a fairytale than a scientific explication of how short term memory loss after brain injury actually works. This plot device provides the constraint that creates the tenderness both the housekeeper and her son Root show to the professor. These kindnesses accrue until the story becomes a love story...but not a man/woman love story. It's a math love story, a baseball love story, a love story about children and family and ritual and yes, the love between the professor and the housekeeper.

One thing I had missed on first reading were the small haiku like passages that end a chapter or a scene. They are so beautiful, and again, so restrained. Every work in this lovely book matters. I know I will read it again.

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Jul 03, 2009 Linda rated it it was amazing

Shelves: book-club-appeal, fiction, favorites-2009, top-ten-of-2009

The professor has a note pinned to his suit to remind himself: "My memory lasts only eighty minutes." He can remember events prior to 1975 (when an auto accident injured his brain) and mathematical proofs, but not the housekeeper and her 10-year-old son who return to his house every day. This is an absolutely gorgeous little novel about friendship, caring and the beauty of numbers. Translated from Japanese. Highly recommended. ...more

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Apr 16, 2010 Jennifer rated it really liked it

A lovely little book.

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Jun 19, 2013 Kai Coates rated it really liked it

Shelves: w15-roundtable-challenge

There are few things in life I could care less about than math, baseball, and cleaning, yet I was enchanted by Yoko Ogawa's understated novel. The small cast of characters are known almost exclusively by their roles (the Professor, the Housekeeper, the Sister-in-Law) and the majority of action takes place in a two-room cottage, yet the simplicity of the story allows for expansive themes. What is the role of memory in our lives? Is friendship more than the sum of shared experiences? A lovely shor ...more

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