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He is a brilliant math professor, with a peculiar problem — 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 between them a strange, beautiful relationship blossoms. Though the professor can hold new memories for only eighty minuets, his mind is still alive with elegant equations from the past; and through him, the numbers, in all of their articulate order, reveal a sheltering and poetic world to both the housekeeper and her son. 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 where one before did not exist.
Review:
"Ogawa (The Diving Pool) weaves a poignant tale of beauty, heart and sorrow in her exquisite new novel. Narrated by the Housekeeper, the characters are known only as the Professor and Root, the Housekeeper's 10-year-old son, nicknamed by the Professor because the shape of his hair and head remind the Professor of the square root symbol. A brilliant mathematician, the Professor was seriously injured in a car accident and his short-term memory only lasts for 80 minutes. He can remember his theorems and favorite baseball players, but the Housekeeper must reintroduce herself every morning, sometimes several times a day. The Professor, who adores Root, is able to connect with the child through baseball, and the Housekeeper learns how to work with him through the memory lapses until they can come together on common ground, at least for 80 minutes. In this gorgeous tale, Ogawa lifts the window shade to allow readers to observe the characters for a short while, then closes the shade. Snyder — who also translated Pool — brings a delicate and precise hand to the translation." Publishers Weekly (Starred Review) (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)
Review:
We don't pay much attention to literary news from Japan unless it's bizarre: businessmen on crowded subways reading pornographic manga, teenage girls buying cell-phone romance novels by the millions. But here's an example of Japanese reading habits that's just as curious, if less sexy: Yoko Ogawa's The Housekeeper and the Professor has sold more than 2.5 million copies in the small island nation.... Washington Post Book Review (read the entire Washington Post review) Oprah would have to recommend a book about Harry Potter's dying Labrador to move that many copies in the United States. What about Ogawa's novel has so excited Japanese readers? That's the most curious part.
This is a delicate, unhurried story about the friendship that develops between a brain-injured mathematician and a woman who comes every day to prepare his meals. None of the characters is ever named. Nothing romantic or even dramatic ever happens. And there is a lot of conversation about math.
Can you hear the marketing team in New York starting to cry?
And yet The Housekeeper and the Professor is strangely charming, flecked with enough wit and mystery to keep us engaged throughout. This is Ogawa's first novel to be translated into English, and Stephen Snyder has done an exceptionally elegant job. The story begins in 1992 when the narrator, a home care aide, is assigned to a new client. An elderly woman hires her to look after a brother-in-law who lives in a shabby cottage. Once a world-class mathematician, he hit his head in a car accident about 17 years ago, and the injury left him with a peculiar mental condition: "He has been unable to remember anything new," her employer explains. "His memory lasts precisely eighty minutes — no more and no less." And then she sets down just one rule for taking care of her 64-year-old brother-in-law: "Resolve any difficulties without consulting me."
With that touch of fairy-tale surrealism, Ogawa begins a story about two isolated people who couldn't be more different. Although the professor has already run through nine housekeepers, the narrator is determined to keep this new job. "I prided myself on being a true professional," she says, but what really makes the relationship work is her tender regard for the professor and her willingness to let herself be fascinated by the only thing that fascinates him: numbers.
When she arrives at the cottage on her first day, he greets her by asking, "What's your shoe size?" Unfazed, she tells him, "Twenty-four centimeters." "That's a sturdy number," he says, "It's a factorial of four ... What's your telephone number?" She gives it to him. "That's the total number of primes between one and one hundred million." Needless to say, she has never worked for anyone like this, and at first she has no idea what he's talking about. Every morning he greets her with the same numerical interview because, remember, he has no idea who she is. "I was always a new housekeeper he was meeting for the first time." He wears only one suit, and it's completely covered in scraps of paper — "some yellowing or crumbling" — to remind him of "the things he absolutely had to remember." All these little notes pinned to his clothes make him rustle softly as he moves from room to room. That's as close as Ogawa gets to comedy in this novel. She's more interested in quieter kinds of delight, particularly the pleasure of numbers, which provide a series of metaphors for the friendships that develop. The most touching involves the professor and the housekeeper's 11-year-old son, whom she begins bringing along to work. That's a violation of the agency's policy, but the professor adores her little boy — anew, everyday — and nicknames him Root because his flat-top head reminds him of a square root sign. "He treated Root exactly as he treated prime numbers," the housekeeper tells us. "For him, primes were the base on which all other natural numbers relied; and children were the foundation of everything worthwhile in the adult world." Yes, there are formulas throughout these pages, strings of numbers — real and imaginary — and explanations of primes and logarithms, Fermat's Last Theorem and Euler's formula, but no matter how much you hated math in high school, you can't help but be seduced by the housekeeper's enthusiasm for what she discovers. Solving a little problem the professor sets out for her and Root, she says, "At that moment I experienced a kind of revelation for the first time in my life, a sort of miracle. In the midst of a vast field of numbers, a straight path opened before my eyes. A light was shining at the end, leading me on, and I knew then that it was the path to enlightenment." Ogawa never minimizes the professor's limitations or the difficulty of caring for him, but she has a sublime sense of his value, his enduring capacity for affection and his ability to take delight in the world of numbers. Of course, befriending a man who forgets who you are every day inspires a heartbreaking kind of pathos, but the housekeeper never dwells on that sadness. She's more impressed by the professor's special insight into the mathematical underpinnings of the universe, what she calls "God's notebooks." In contrast to the dreary and drearily common portrayal of older patients, "The Housekeeper and the Professor" is much closer to the quirky and deeply satisfying relationships my wife has told me about from the many years she worked in a Long Island retirement home: the blind woman who knitted us an afghan as a wedding present, the octogenarian who collected everyone's watermelon rinds and pickled them. Perhaps Ogawa's Japanese fans, who are several years ahead of us on the inevitable shuffle toward a geriatric society, are responding to her quiet spiritual wisdom. Ron Charles is a senior editor of The Washington Post Book World. He can be reached at charlesr(at symbol)washpost.com. Reviewed by Ron Charles, Washington Post Book World (Copyright 2006 Washington Post Book World Service/Washington Post Writers Group) (hide most of this review)
Review:
"Highly original. Infinitely charming. And ever so touching." Paul Auster
Review:
"Ogawa weaves a poignant tale of beauty, heart and sorrow in her exquisite new novel. . . .In this gorgeous tale, Ogawa lifts the window shade to allow readers to observe the characters for a short while, then closes the shade. [Translator Stephen] Snyder . . . brings a delicate and precise hand to the translation." Publishers Weekly (starred review)
Review:
"Gorgeous, cinematic . . . The Housekeeper and the Professor is a perfectly sustained novel . . . like a note prolonged, a fermata, a pause enabling us to peer intently into the lives of its characters. . . . This novel has all the charm and restraint of any by Ishiguro or Kenzaburo Oe and the whimsy of Murakami. The three lives connect like the vertices of a triangle." Susan Salter Reynolds, Los Angeles Times
Review:
"Deceptively elegant . . . This is one of those books written in such lucid, unpretentious language that reading it is like looking into a deep pool of clear water. But even in the clearest waters can lurk currents you don't see until you are in them. Dive into Yoko Ogawa's world . . . and you find yourself tugged by forces more felt than seen." Dennis Overbye, The New York Times Book Review
Review:
"Alive with mysteries both mathematical and personal, The Housekeeper and the Professor has the pared-down elegance of an equation." O, The Oprah Magazine
Review:
"This sweetly melancholy novel adheres to the Japanese aesthetic that finds beauty in what is off-center, imperfect. . . . In treating one another with such warm concern and respect, the characters implicitly tell us something about the unforgiving society on the other side of the professor's cottage door. The Housekeeper and the Professor is a wisp of a book, but an affecting one." Amanda Heller, The Boston Globe
Review:
"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
Review:
"Ogawa's disarming exploration of an eccentric relationship reads like a fable, one that deftly balances whimsy with heartache." Kirkus Reviews
Review:
"[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
Review:
"Ogawa's charming fable presents a stark contrast to the creepy novellas collected last year in The Diving Pool, but her strength as an engaging writer remains." Vikas Turahkia, The Plain Dealer (Cleveland)
Synopsis:
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 Professors 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 Housekeepers 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.
Synopsis:
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 Professors 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 Housekeepers 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.
Yoko Ogawa's fiction has appeared in The New Yorker, A Public Space, and Zoetrope. Since 1988 she has published more than twenty works of fiction and nonfiction, and has won every major Japanese literary award.
He is a brilliant math Professor with a peculiar problemever 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 Professors 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 quantitieslike the Housekeepers shoe sizeand 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.
"More than 2.5 million copies of this gorgeous, cinematic novel have been sold in Japan since its publication in 2003. Yoko Ogawa has published more than 20 books; this is the second to be published in English. The first, The Diving Pool, contained three eerie novellas; critics wondered why she hadn't been translated sooner. The Housekeeper and the Professor is a perfectly sustained novel (a tribute to Stephen Snyder's smooth translation); like a note prolonged, a fermata, a pause enabling us to peer intently into the lives of its characters. The housekeeper is young, with a 10-year-old son who loves baseball. The professor is an aging mathematician whose memory lasts for only 80 minutes before it is erased and he must begin again. He can't remember anything after 1975. He and the boy become friends, and he instills in the boy a love for mathematics. 'It's important to use your intuition,' he tells the housekeeper. 'You swoop down on the numbers, like a kingfisher catching the glint of sunlight on the fish's fin.' When he tells the boy that the number two is the 'leadoff batter for the infinite team of prime numbers after it,' the boy worries that two will get lonely. 'If it gets lonely,' the professor explains, 'it has lots of company with the other even numbers.' This novel has all the charm and restraint of any by Ishiguro or Kenzaburo Oe and the whimsy of Murakami. The three lives connect like the vertices of a triangle."Susan Salter Reynolds, Los Angeles Times
"Yoko Ogawa has published more than 20 books; this is the second to be published in English. The first, The Diving Pool, contained three eerie novellas; critics wondered why she hadn't been translated sooner. The Housekeeper and the Professor is a perfectly sustained novel (a tribute to Stephen Snyder's smooth translation); like a note prolonged, a fermata, a pause enabling us to peer intently into the lives of its characters. The housekeeper is young, with a 10-year-old son who loves baseball. The professor is an aging mathematician whose memory lasts for only 80 minutes before it is erased and he must begin again. He can't remember anything after 1975. He and the boy become friends, and he instills in the boy a love for mathematics. 'It's important to use your intuition,' he tells the housekeeper. 'You swoop down on the numbers, like a kingfisher catching the glint of sunlight on the fish's fin.' When he tells the boy that the number two is the 'leadoff batter for the infinite team of prime numbers after it,' the boy worries that two will get lonely. 'If it gets lonely,' the professor explains, 'it has lots of company with the other even numbers.' This novel has all the charm and restraint of any by Ishiguro or Kenzaburo Oe and the whimsy of Murakami. The three lives connect like the vertices of a triangle."Susan Salter Reynolds, Los Angeles Times
"Deceptively elegant . . . The Housekeeper and the Professor tells of the adventures, such as they are, of the remarkable virtual family formed by the professors new cook and cleaner, the single mother of a 10-year-old boy whom the professor calls Root because his flat head reminds him of the mathematical sign for a square root. Nobody except Root really has a name. Every morning the housekeeper, who narrates the story, has to introduce herself and her son to the professor all over again. He, in turn, as he does whenever he is stuck or flustered or has extended his 80-minute window, is likely to ask her shoe size or her telephone number. He always has something amazing to say about whatever number comes up . . . This is one of those books written in such lucid, unpretentious language that reading it is like looking into a deep pool of clear water. But even in the clearest waters can lurk currents you dont see until you are in them. Dive into Yoko Ogawas world . . . and you find yourself tugged by forces more felt than seen. What is the problem with all the men in the housekeepers life? Who is the woman in the photograph buried under baseball cards in a tin on the professors desk? Can the professor love somebody he cant remember? And, of course: Where do numbers come from? The professors answer is that they are already there at the beginning of time, 'in Gods notebook.' This is how he responds when the housekeeper has made a lucky guess about a problem: ‘Good, he almost shouted, shaking the leather strap of his watch. I didnt know what to say. ‘Its important to use your intuition. You swoop down on the numbers, like a kingfisher catching the glint of sunlight on the fishs fin . . . If we all had learned math from such a teacher we would all be a lot smarter."Dennis Overbye, The New York Times Book Review
“Strangely charming, flecked with enough wit and mystery to keep us engaged throughout. This is Ogawas first novel to be translated into English, and Stephen Snyder has done an exceptionally elegant job.”R
Yoko Ogawa's fiction has appeared in The New Yorker, A Public Space, and Zoetrope. Since 1988 she has published more than twenty works of fiction and nonfiction, and has won every major Japanese literary award.
Ellen Pullen, January 1, 2012 (view all comments by Ellen Pullen)
I enjoyed this book because it was so unusual -- it covers memory loss, mathematics, baseball, genuine love between characters, though not sexual. A gentle story about extraordinary people.
It is truly difficult to choose one favorite book from so many good ones!
Was this comment helpful? | Yes | No (3 of 6 readers found this comment helpful)
Kimberly Bissell, September 4, 2011 (view all comments by Kimberly Bissell)
This lovely little gem of a novel was a thought provoking read. The story is told from the voice of a housekeeper assigned to a retired Mathematics professor suffering from short term memory loss. While he can't remember her from day to day, he forms a relationship with her 10 year old son and they all find connection through the in depth knowledge of numbers and their magical relationship to the everyday. I found myself ruminating on both the infinite wonder of number relationships and the emotions tied to our memory. It was a wonderful read.
Was this comment helpful? | Yes | No (3 of 6 readers found this comment helpful)
trevorbarton, November 21, 2009 (view all comments by trevorbarton)
This book is a serendipity, like a flower growing through the cracks of a cement sidewalk. Ogawa's lowly housekeeper, broken math professor, and latchkey kid show the essence of being human - building community in the midst of loneliness, finding hope in the midst of despair, being human in the midst of inhumanity. It also introduces the wonderful worlds of math and baseball. A simply profound book that is profoundly simple!
Was this comment helpful? | Yes | No (12 of 19 readers found this comment helpful)
The Housekeeper and the Professor
Used Trade Paper
Yoko Ogawa
0 stars -
0 reviews
$8.00
In Stock
Product details
192 pages
Picador USA -
English9780312427801
Reviews:
"Publishers Weekly Review"
by Publishers Weekly,
"Ogawa (The Diving Pool) weaves a poignant tale of beauty, heart and sorrow in her exquisite new novel. Narrated by the Housekeeper, the characters are known only as the Professor and Root, the Housekeeper's 10-year-old son, nicknamed by the Professor because the shape of his hair and head remind the Professor of the square root symbol. A brilliant mathematician, the Professor was seriously injured in a car accident and his short-term memory only lasts for 80 minutes. He can remember his theorems and favorite baseball players, but the Housekeeper must reintroduce herself every morning, sometimes several times a day. The Professor, who adores Root, is able to connect with the child through baseball, and the Housekeeper learns how to work with him through the memory lapses until they can come together on common ground, at least for 80 minutes. In this gorgeous tale, Ogawa lifts the window shade to allow readers to observe the characters for a short while, then closes the shade. Snyder — who also translated Pool — brings a delicate and precise hand to the translation." Publishers Weekly (Starred Review) (Copyright Reed Business Information, Inc.)
"Review"
by Paul Auster,
"Highly original. Infinitely charming. And ever so touching."
"Review"
by Publishers Weekly,
"Ogawa weaves a poignant tale of beauty, heart and sorrow in her exquisite new novel. . . .In this gorgeous tale, Ogawa lifts the window shade to allow readers to observe the characters for a short while, then closes the shade. [Translator Stephen] Snyder . . . brings a delicate and precise hand to the translation." (starred review)
"Review"
by Susan Salter Reynolds, Los Angeles Times,
"Gorgeous, cinematic . . . The Housekeeper and the Professor is a perfectly sustained novel . . . like a note prolonged, a fermata, a pause enabling us to peer intently into the lives of its characters. . . . This novel has all the charm and restraint of any by Ishiguro or Kenzaburo Oe and the whimsy of Murakami. The three lives connect like the vertices of a triangle."
"Review"
by Dennis Overbye, The New York Times Book Review,
"Deceptively elegant . . . This is one of those books written in such lucid, unpretentious language that reading it is like looking into a deep pool of clear water. But even in the clearest waters can lurk currents you don't see until you are in them. Dive into Yoko Ogawa's world . . . and you find yourself tugged by forces more felt than seen."
"Review"
by O, The Oprah Magazine,
"Alive with mysteries both mathematical and personal, The Housekeeper and the Professor has the pared-down elegance of an equation."
"Review"
by Amanda Heller, The Boston Globe,
"This sweetly melancholy novel adheres to the Japanese aesthetic that finds beauty in what is off-center, imperfect. . . . In treating one another with such warm concern and respect, the characters implicitly tell us something about the unforgiving society on the other side of the professor's cottage door. The Housekeeper and the Professor is a wisp of a book, but an affecting one."
"Review"
by Anthony Bukoski, Minneapolis Star Tribune,
"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."
"Review"
by Kirkus Reviews,
"Ogawa's disarming exploration of an eccentric relationship reads like a fable, one that deftly balances whimsy with heartache."
"Review"
by Donna Seaman, Booklist,
"[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."
"Review"
by Vikas Turahkia, The Plain Dealer (Cleveland),
"Ogawa's charming fable presents a stark contrast to the creepy novellas collected last year in The Diving Pool, but her strength as an engaging writer remains."
"Synopsis"
by Macmillan,
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 Professors 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 Housekeepers 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.
"Synopsis"
by Macmillan,
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 Professors 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 Housekeepers 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.
Yoko Ogawa's fiction has appeared in The New Yorker, A Public Space, and Zoetrope. Since 1988 she has published more than twenty works of fiction and nonfiction, and has won every major Japanese literary award.
He is a brilliant math Professor with a peculiar problemever 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 Professors 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 quantitieslike the Housekeepers shoe sizeand 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.
"More than 2.5 million copies of this gorgeous, cinematic novel have been sold in Japan since its publication in 2003. Yoko Ogawa has published more than 20 books; this is the second to be published in English. The first, The Diving Pool, contained three eerie novellas; critics wondered why she hadn't been translated sooner. The Housekeeper and the Professor is a perfectly sustained novel (a tribute to Stephen Snyder's smooth translation); like a note prolonged, a fermata, a pause enabling us to peer intently into the lives of its characters. The housekeeper is young, with a 10-year-old son who loves baseball. The professor is an aging mathematician whose memory lasts for only 80 minutes before it is erased and he must begin again. He can't remember anything after 1975. He and the boy become friends, and he instills in the boy a love for mathematics. 'It's important to use your intuition,' he tells the housekeeper. 'You swoop down on the numbers, like a kingfisher catching the glint of sunlight on the fish's fin.' When he tells the boy that the number two is the 'leadoff batter for the infinite team of prime numbers after it,' the boy worries that two will get lonely. 'If it gets lonely,' the professor explains, 'it has lots of company with the other even numbers.' This novel has all the charm and restraint of any by Ishiguro or Kenzaburo Oe and the whimsy of Murakami. The three lives connect like the vertices of a triangle."Susan Salter Reynolds, Los Angeles Times
"Yoko Ogawa has published more than 20 books; this is the second to be published in English. The first, The Diving Pool, contained three eerie novellas; critics wondered why she hadn't been translated sooner. The Housekeeper and the Professor is a perfectly sustained novel (a tribute to Stephen Snyder's smooth translation); like a note prolonged, a fermata, a pause enabling us to peer intently into the lives of its characters. The housekeeper is young, with a 10-year-old son who loves baseball. The professor is an aging mathematician whose memory lasts for only 80 minutes before it is erased and he must begin again. He can't remember anything after 1975. He and the boy become friends, and he instills in the boy a love for mathematics. 'It's important to use your intuition,' he tells the housekeeper. 'You swoop down on the numbers, like a kingfisher catching the glint of sunlight on the fish's fin.' When he tells the boy that the number two is the 'leadoff batter for the infinite team of prime numbers after it,' the boy worries that two will get lonely. 'If it gets lonely,' the professor explains, 'it has lots of company with the other even numbers.' This novel has all the charm and restraint of any by Ishiguro or Kenzaburo Oe and the whimsy of Murakami. The three lives connect like the vertices of a triangle."Susan Salter Reynolds, Los Angeles Times
"Deceptively elegant . . . The Housekeeper and the Professor tells of the adventures, such as they are, of the remarkable virtual family formed by the professors new cook and cleaner, the single mother of a 10-year-old boy whom the professor calls Root because his flat head reminds him of the mathematical sign for a square root. Nobody except Root really has a name. Every morning the housekeeper, who narrates the story, has to introduce herself and her son to the professor all over again. He, in turn, as he does whenever he is stuck or flustered or has extended his 80-minute window, is likely to ask her shoe size or her telephone number. He always has something amazing to say about whatever number comes up . . . This is one of those books written in such lucid, unpretentious language that reading it is like looking into a deep pool of clear water. But even in the clearest waters can lurk currents you dont see until you are in them. Dive into Yoko Ogawas world . . . and you find yourself tugged by forces more felt than seen. What is the problem with all the men in the housekeepers life? Who is the woman in the photograph buried under baseball cards in a tin on the professors desk? Can the professor love somebody he cant remember? And, of course: Where do numbers come from? The professors answer is that they are already there at the beginning of time, 'in Gods notebook.' This is how he responds when the housekeeper has made a lucky guess about a problem: ‘Good, he almost shouted, shaking the leather strap of his watch. I didnt know what to say. ‘Its important to use your intuition. You swoop down on the numbers, like a kingfisher catching the glint of sunlight on the fishs fin . . . If we all had learned math from such a teacher we would all be a lot smarter."Dennis Overbye, The New York Times Book Review
“Strangely charming, flecked with enough wit and mystery to keep us engaged throughout. This is Ogawas first novel to be translated into English, and Stephen Snyder has done an exceptionally elegant job.”R
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