The Housekeeper and the Professor: ‘a poignant tale of beauty, heart and sorrow’ Publishers Weekly

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Graduate Institute of Taiwan Culture, Language and Literature, National Taiwan Normal University, Taipei, Taiwan

But the Professor didn't always insist on being the teacher. He had enormous respect for matters about which he had no knowledge, and he was as humble in such cases as the square root of negative one itself. Whenever he needed my help, he would interrupt me in the most polite way. Even the simplest request—that I help him set the timer on the toaster, for example—always began with "I'm terribly sorry to bother you, but . . ." Once I’d set the dial, he would sit peering in as the toast browned. He was as fascinated by the toast as he was by the mathematical proofs we did together, as if the truth of the toaster were no different from that of the Pythagorean theorem. Lovely . . . Ogawa's plot twists, her narrative pacing, her use of numbers to give meaning and mystery to life are as elegant in their way as the math principles the professor cites. . . . Ogawa's short novel is itself an equation concerning the intricate and intimate way we connect with others—and the lace of memory they sometimes leave us.”—Anthony Bukoski, Minneapolis Star Tribune The professor believed that the very origins of the universe could be explained in the exact language of numbers. It was like copying truths from God's notebook. A bond of friendship formed when they managed to get the old radio working again and baseball broadcasts could reverberate through the small garden cottage. He became a surrogate father to the boy child, while layers of silence were slowly lifted. It did not matter if they got the answers wrong to his math problems. He preferred their wild, desperate guesses to silence. We have 6 read-alikes for The Housekeeper and the Professor, but non-members are limited to two results. To see the complete list of this book's read-alikes, you need to be a member.For a mathematician, defined by intensity of temperament not level of education, numbers are not simply classified as 'kinds' or 'types'. They are living species with distinctive genetic characteristics, with real family resemblances and lasting relationships, indeed with personalities. Some are rare, some shy, some awkward, some maddeningly unpredictable. Some may be hidden in infinity, some are waiting, desperate to be identified, and some may even be the last of their line, but we can't be sure. The ultimate mathematical accolade afforded to any number is to give it a family name, a formula by which all its relatives can be identified, even those we haven't met yet. Not that kind of love story, but a sad, sweet story about an unlikely friendship between a brilliant mathematician, his housekeeper and her son. There is love just no romance.

I was expecting that the simple everyday interactions and experiences would be impactful and sweet. For their relationship to be heartwarming and wholesome. But I didn’t get any of those feelings and I was a little bored. Though the Professor is undeniably trapped within his own mind, Ogawa pays attention to the creative ways in which people can communicate. Mathematics is so many things to so many people and, to many people, it is a language. And only due to the housekeeper’s willingness to understand this caged mind – and the Professor’s own almost comical love for mathematics – can they find a way to build a sturdy bridge between them. It was March of 1992 when the Akebono Housekeeping Agency first sent me to work for the Professor. At the time, I was the youngest woman registered with the agency, which served a small city on the Inland Sea, although I already had more than ten years of experience. I managed to get along with all sorts of employers, and even when I cleaned for the most difficult clients, the ones no other housekeeper would touch, I never complained. I prided myself on being a true professional.The practicalities and humour of coping with the prof's condition are well portrayed, and the relationships are very touching. Happy Cubs opening day! 2018 has not been the reading year I had planned on so far. Real life and the stress that goes with it have gotten in the way of being able to focus on reading. Hopefully that changes. In the meantime in honor of the Cubs first home game this year, I am reposting my favorite baseball book from last year, a lovely novella that I am fortunate did not fly under my radar. The Housekeeper and the Professor was recommended to me by my Goodreads' friend Diane because she knows that I love baseball. This March, Japan is participating in the World Baseball Classic so I found this slim novel to be a reminder that America’s pastime is now played happily all over the world. Ogawa tells a very different story. Although her mathematics Professor has a blank memory from his early 30's, his emotions are still stirred by the son of his housekeeper with whom he immediately feels an intense relationship of care. Despite the fact that the Professor must re-create this relationship every day from scratch, it in fact deepens on the basis of the mathematical tutorial that he has undertaken with the boy and his mother. His memory is blank, yet he has some level of residual emotional instinct and his capacity for relationship to his past life still exists.

A] mysterious, suspenseful, and radiant fable . . . The smart and resourceful housekeeper, the single mother of a baseball-crazy 10-year-old boy the Professor adores, falls under the spell of the beautiful mathematical phenomena the Professor elucidates, as will the reader, and the three create an indivisible formula for love.” —Donna Seaman, Booklist I was hoping to really connect and for their friendship to hit me right in the feels. I may have gotten that feeling a tad in the end but that's about it. I felt mostly detached, I was being told the story rather than experiencing those moments. Ogawa chooses to write about actual math problems, rather than to write about math in the abstract. In a sense, she invites the reader to learn math along with the characters.As a twenty-something who has, not for a moment, put learning and discovery behind him, I have spent several years now glued quite earnestly to YouTube as a means of studying things that escaped me as a child. Much like the housekeeper of The Housekeeper and the Professor, one of those things I missed out on was mathematics. The Hanshin Tigers, one of Japan’s oldest professional teams, and Yutaka Enatsu (born 15 May 1948) feature prominently in the story. Root and the Professor are fans. The importance of a treasured baseball card collection is part of their friendship.

Consequently, Krauss’s story is one of irretrievable tragedy. Irretrievable because the gap in causality can never be recovered. The gap is a hole into which Samson's existence has fallen. He continues to be in the world but as a fundamentally altered being. That same gap exists for the Professor, and is just as materially unrecoverable. But the number-forms maintain their influence and ‘remind’ his material body on a daily basis of their existence, and his. They evoke the Professor's emotions, particularly love, which are not materially but spiritually-grounded. The Professor is debilitated but his ontology, his mode of being, is what it has always been. A housekeeper, a single mother with a 10-year-old son, finds herself at the cottage of a 64-year-old Math professor who has had nine housekeepers before her. She expects a difficult client, but what she least expects is an affection that develops into a strong friendship. But, I digress, because this not a book about math, it is a book about people; about how they can come to care about one another despite the most challenging of situations. It is a book about compassion, kindness, and love. And, while you might think those elements are flowing in one direction alone, they can come to flow in two directions so easily, and kindness and love can help the givers as well as the receivers.The mutual respect and affection with which the main characters treat each other shine through, as well. The Professor speaks to two friends as if they were real mathematicians. And the housekeeper and her ten-year-old son start, to their own surprise, absorbing his explanations. Baseball is a game full of statistics, and therefore numbers. Discuss the very different ways in which Root and the Professor love the game.