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The Housekeeper and the Professor [Paperback]

Yoko Ogawa (Author), Stephen Snyder (Translator)
4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
RRP: £7.99
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Book Description

Publication Date: 1 April 2010

He is a brilliant maths professor with a peculiar problem - ever since a traumatic head injury seventeen years ago, he has lived with only eighty minutes of short-term memory.

She is a sensitive but astute young housekeeper who is entrusted to take care of him.

Each morning, as the Professor and the Housekeeper are reintroduced to one another, a strange, beautiful relationship blossoms between them. The Professor may not remember what he had for breakfast, but his mind is still alive with elegant equations from the past. He devises clever maths riddles - based on her shoe size or her birthday - and the numbers reveal a sheltering and poetic world to both the Housekeeper and her ten-year-old son. With each new equation, the three lost souls forge an affection more mysterious than imaginary numbers, and a bond that runs deeper than memory.

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Product details

  • Paperback: 192 pages
  • Publisher: Vintage (1 April 2010)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0099521342
  • ISBN-13: 978-0099521341
  • Product Dimensions: 19.6 x 12.7 x 1.5 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 17,069 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Product Description

Review

Highly original. Infinitely charming. And ever so touching. (Paul Auster )

A perfectly sustained novel (a tribute to Stephen Snyder's smooth translation); like a note prolonged...a pause enabling us to peer intently into the lives of its characters...has all the charm and restraint of any by Ishiguro and the whimsy of Murakami (Los Angeles Times )

Beautiful...the extraordinary Yoko Ogawa casts her spell. Never before has the beauty of maths been so lovingly explored...a tender, gentle book...Ogawa is an original and establishes a world in a paragraph..This is a tale which will leave the reader gasping...Hopefully more of her exciting, thoughtful fiction is heading our way. (Irish Times )

Its unnamed characters suggest archetype or myth; its rapturous concentration on the details of weather and cooking provide a satisfyingly textured foundation (Guardian )

Alive with mysteries both mathematical and personal, this novel has the pared-down elegance of an equation (Oprah magazine )

Review

`fable-like... poetic descriptions'

`it is so funny and sharp'

'This hilarious romp through modern culture by the Guardian columnist highlights the bizarre reach of hollow fame these days... Shudder-inducingly funny' --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Customer Reviews

4.4 out of 5 stars
17 reviews
4.4 out of 5 stars
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
23 of 24 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Poetry from Euler's Identity 16 Feb 2009
By Thomas Paul
Format:Paperback
How do we develop relationships with people? What does our memory mean in these relationships? Is it possible to form a relationship with someone who can not remember that he ever met you even though you see him every day? Yoko Ogawa has written a perfect, poetic story that tries to explore these questions.

The book is written from the point of view of a woman hired to be a housekeeper for a retired math professor. The professor was in a car accident that damaged his brain, destroying his short term memory. Every day she arrives to do her job and the professor has no memory of her ever being there before. When the professor finds out that the housekeeper is a single mom with a young son, he insists that the boy come to his house every day and even though he has no memory of the invitation, the professor is thrilled to see him each day. What brings the three together is the professor's love of mathematics and his ability to share that love along with the love of baseball that they all share.

The result is a simple, beautiful story and at 180 pages, it is long enough to make you think without dragging out the story beyond its need. The author even creates poetry from discussions of prime numbers and Euler's identity. I can strongly recommend this book.
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19 of 20 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars An endearing story that stays with you 22 Jun 2009
By Julia Flyte TOP 50 REVIEWER
Format:Paperback
Set in Japan, this short novel is the story of a 28 year old housekeeper who goes to work for a former maths professor. She is the 10th housekeeper to be sent by the agency, none of the others having lasted long. He has two characteristics that make him difficult to work for. One is that he is obsessed with maths, talks maths constantly and equates everything in the world to a mathematical formula (he refers to her son as `root" because his flat head reminds the professor of the square root symbol). But more significantly, the professor suffered a head injury 25 years ago that damaged his memory. He can remember everything that happened to him before the accident, but otherwise his memory only lasts 80 minutes. So although she grows increasingly fond of him, she needs to re-introduce herself to him when she arrives each day and their relationship starts anew.

It's an interesting premise and quite a moving story. As she grows fonder of the professor, she also learns to communicate with him in his "language" - ie by relating everything to maths - and to develop a love of maths all of her own.

Ultimately I felt that the story was almost too sparse and could have been further developed, but it's still an endearing book that stays with you after you finish it.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Short and Sweet - the perfect palate cleanser 7 May 2012
By Craig Lam TOP 1000 REVIEWER
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
I've recently been reading either dry non-fiction books or hefty fantasy novels that would probably serve quite well as ballast on ships. I felt like reading something different, and having heard that The Housekeeper and the Professor was a quick, easy read, I decided to try it.

The first person narrator is a conscientious housekeeper who is given the job of taking care of an ageing, brain damaged mathematician. His brain damage takes the form of extreme memory loss: he can only recall the last 80 minutes before his memory reverts to 1975. Since the book takes place in 1992, this is a pretty big problem.

This is a small novel with a small cast. Only three characters are well represented: the housekeeper and professor of the title, and the housekeeper's son. It's a quiet, tale, too. Yet Ogawa's characterisation of these three sucked me in completely, and soon I was fascinated by the mundane joys and sorrows of their lives. The narrator's voice is consistently likeable and imparts a subtle bittersweet nostalgia to the tale that fits perfectly.

Alongside the character focused story, there runs a thread of mathematics. The narrator discovers a love for maths from the professor, and there are many passages where she (along with the reader) attempts to puzzle out some problem the professor has given her. Rather than feeling intrusive, these passages end up feeling absolutely necessary for understanding the Professor, as well as the narrator and her son. Mathematics provides ways for people to order and understand the world around them, and I found it refreshing to see characters in a novel find comfort in this understanding.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars A sensory reading experience
I confess to have been afraid that I was going to be confused by mathematical equations but the reality is I felt like the housekeeper; loving every connection the professor found... Read more
Published 1 day ago by JuJuDollie
4.0 out of 5 stars Too much maths but worth persevering to the end!
For someone who is not the most numerate , the mathematical references were a bit tedious at times, however the writer's skill is to draw the reader in and make him/her card about... Read more
Published 20 days ago by Elle
5.0 out of 5 stars The Housekeeper and the Professor
What a beautiful book. Most unusual and to be enjoyed by all whether mathematically minded or not. Just a nice treat to read
Published 2 months ago by Margaret O'Neill
4.0 out of 5 stars Gentle, Sensitive Beauty of a Book
"The Housekeeper and the Professor" is a remarkable book, by the Japanese author Yoko Ogawa, (The Diving Pool) sensitively translated by Stephen Snyder, who also translated the... Read more
Published 3 months ago by Stephanie DePue
5.0 out of 5 stars An easy read !!!!!!
A very good book about relationship between three people. We read it in our book club and most of the people really liked it.
Published 5 months ago by MRS N VALIZADEGAN
2.0 out of 5 stars A sentimental vehicle for a nerdy idea
Pretty quickly into starting this book it became clear that the author is more inspired by mathematics than by literature or the human condition. Read more
Published 6 months ago by David Stormer
4.0 out of 5 stars So good on so many levels!
This was such a comfortable read for me and touched me at many different levels.

Firstly, it is a very engaging story, involving just a small number of equally engaging... Read more
Published 11 months ago by Lance Mitchell
5.0 out of 5 stars "Highly original. Infinitely charming. And ever so touching" - Paul...
This beautiful, haunting novel touched me in ways I can never begin to express or describe. The way I feel towards this book, towards the characters, towards Yoko Ogawa even - it... Read more
Published 18 months ago by S. Shamma
2.0 out of 5 stars A nice read, but falls short
Yoko Ogawa has written a novel called The Housekeeper + The Professor. At least that's what it says on the front. On the back it's title replaces the + with "and". Read more
Published 22 months ago by Philip Spires
5.0 out of 5 stars Warm, short novel about the charms of mathematics
Amazing story about a young single mother of 28, working as a daytime housekeeper, her 10-year old son nicknamed "Root" by her client, a former Professor of Mathematics. Read more
Published 22 months ago by P. A. Doornbos
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