The Housekeeper and the Professor

 

The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yoko Ogawa

Fiction

2009 Picador (first published in 2003)

Finished on May 23, 2023

Rating: 4.5/5 (Very Good)

Publisher's Blurb:

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 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.

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.

There was a lot of buzz about The Housekeeper and the Professor a decade or so ago. Many of my blogging friends raved about this thoughtful novel, and when I came across it while browsing in a favorite independent bookstore (Cloud & Leaf Bookstore in Manzanita, Oregon), I decided it was time to finally buy a copy. The book is only 180 pages, and can be read in a day or two, but I chose to savor this quiet novel, which is very readable despite the vast array of mathematical equations and formulas. You don't need to be a math whiz to enjoy this story, nor do you have to care about baseball, the latter of which was unexpected and an added bonus! 

As noted in the publisher's blurb, the Professor suffers from memory loss, living with only eighty minutes of memory. And yet, he is fully capable of solving (and teaching) complex mathematical equations, bringing him joy and comfort. 

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.

In addition to helping the Housekeeper's son with his homework, the Professor shares an interest in baseball with his new friends. None of the three have ever been to a game in person, so the Housekeeper decides to treat them to a Tigers game against Hiroshima. 

As we reached the top of the stairs that led to the seats above third base, all three of us let out a cry. The diamond in all its grandeur was laid out before us--the soft, dark earth of the infield, the spotless bases, the straight white lines, and the manicured grass. The evening sky seemed so close you could touch it, and at that moment, as if they had been awaiting our arrival, the lights came on. The stadium looked like a spaceship descended from the heavens.

I love it when a book forces me to slow down and pause, making me think more deeply about the actions and connections between characters. Not only did I feel this way about The Housekeeper and the Professor, but I noticed that I was reflecting on similar novels such as The Samurai's Garden by Gail Tsukiyama (another lovely, quiet Japanese novel) and The Elegance of the Hedgehog by Muriel Barbery. Perhaps it's the tender bond that develops between strangers, kindness expressed, patience observed, ultimately growing into close friendships, or even love, that links these works of literary fiction. Or, maybe it's the simplicity of beautiful writing, not a single wasted word.

Highly recommend. I loved it.