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    The Housekeeper and the Professor
    The Housekeeper and the Professor
    The Housekeeper and the Professor
    Audiobook5 hours

    The Housekeeper and the Professor

    Written by Yoko Ogawa

    Narrated by Cassandra Campbell

    4.5/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    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 the Professor.

    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.

    Yoko Ogawa's 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.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTantor Media, Inc
    Release dateApr 15, 2013
    ISBN9781452682891
    The Housekeeper and the Professor
    Author

    Yoko Ogawa

    Yoko Ogawa is the author of The Diving Pool, The Housekeeper and the Professor, and Hotel Iris. Her 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. Her novel The Housekeeper and the Professor has been adapted into a film, The Professor’s Beloved Equation. She lives in Ashiya, Japan, with her husband and son.

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    Reviews for The Housekeeper and the Professor

    4.5/5

    232 ratings115 reviews

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    • 2/5
      A book about a math professor and japan would seem to be right up my alley, but I frankly did not get this book at all. The story is basically about three people who all like each other and get along very well. That's it. No tension, no psychological complexity... the math and the baseball add some pages to the book, but were treated in an extremely superficial way. I have no idea how this book got the blurbs it did. Sure, japanese literature is known for "simplicity", but usually that means exquisite spareness of prose, not conceptual banality.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      I read about this book in the NYT Book Review and happened to see it in a bookstore several weeks later. On a whim I bought it and I'm glad I did. Despite it's relatively short length, this novel by Ogawa packs a punch. The Professor is an endlessly lovable character - and the fact the Ogawa doesn't try to tidily wrap things up and tell you everything at the end was appreciated - by me, at least.
    • 5/5
      I loved this book! So touching, it really melted my heart:)
    • 4/5
      A beautifully translated story about a nameless housekeeper and the math professor for whom she works. He is a genius with numbers, but has only a short term memory of 80 minutes, due to an accident. Their evolving relationship is poignantly described, and very touching.
    • 4/5
      Beautiful writing that seems effortless, although I know it's not. So much math and baseball. The memory issue made me think of the movie Memento throughout. Because of that, I kept waiting for something horrible to happen, but this is a peaceful story. Really, the horrible thing had happened already – the accident that led to the Professor losing his short-term memory.
    • 2/5
      Having heard raves about this book, I was really looking forward to it. But while I enjoyed reading about the relationships of the characters--an elderly mathmatician who had been left with an eighty-five minute attention span following an accident, his humble yet loyal and resourceful housekeeper, and her ten-year old son--, overall, the novel left me cold. Perhaps this is because I skipped over most of the long passages focused on math problems (I found them rather irritating, just as I had math in high school), and because I have no interest in baseball, be it Japanese or American. The supposedly philosophical messages about perseverance, memory, responsibility, the importance of work, and love were nice enough but fairly cliché. I found myself struggling to finish this one.
    • 4/5
      A beatiful novel that reveals the relationship between the universe and life in mathematical form.
    • 4/5
      This book has me torn. On the one hand it is a beautiful story about purity, goodness and friendship - a housekeeper takes a job cleaning for an ex-maths professor whose memory is limited to 80 minutes, and Ogawa wonderfully portrays the warmth of their friendship against the odds of having to meet again for the first time every morning. The selflessness and caring nature of the housekeeper is very moving, and the Japanese culture of respect for the elderly is very evident - I'm not sure that such a premise for a book would work in a western setting where most people are too busy to have the patience and devotion to duty that the housekeeper demonstrates.That being said, I had two negative issues with this book. Firstly, there are two threads of baseball and mathematics running through the book, neither of which I have any significant interest in. I normally love these kind of connecting webs in books, but they just went on a bit at times, and I found myself skipping whole paragraphs in places as a result.Secondly, whilst this book definitely succeeded in developing its characters wonderfully, their polite friendship wasn't quite enough to tug on my heartstrings, and as a result the book fell a little flat overall. I did enjoy reading it, and the pages turned easily enough, but I have a feeling I will forget it fairly quickly.3.5 stars - quiet and sensitive but a little underwhelming.
    • 4/5
      Very good. Man loses short term memory longer than 80 minutes. Brilliant math professor. Housekeeper and son become more than help. Baseball a common thread with son. Interesting math but well beyond my comprehension.
    • 5/5
      A perfect little novel. A housekeeper goes to work for a math professor who, due to a previous head injury, can only remember things for 80 minutes. He can remember everything up to his head injury, but everything that happens after that can be remembered only for 80 minutes, and then it disappears as if it had never happened. He covers his clothes in post-it notes that serve as reminders for him. The most important one says "my memory is only eighty minutes long" and he wears this on his sleeve so that he always knows the reason why he is confused. He is a brilliant mathematician, and that brilliance is still preserved. He has an autistic-like familiarity with numbers and their relationships, and he imbues them with life and personality, and conveys this enthusiasm to his housekeeper and her young 10 year old son Root (nicknamed by the professor, for the square flat top of his head). Every time the housekeeper comes to work, she has to introduce herself to the professor. But they come to form a warm and generous friendship. She accepts his disability and works with it, and doesn't regard him in a lesser light for it. He opens up to her a new world of mathematics and shows her the beauty of it. The book is peppered with complex mathematical theories and yet they don't intrude. The author has presented them to us in the same way as the professor, so in a way she has become the professor, and we the housekeeper.
      Despite the content, the story is never heavy or cumbersome. It always remains airy, evenly paced and quiet, very "Japanese".
    • 4/5
      The professor for whom the housekeeper works has a memory that lasts only eighty minutes. Every day when she arrives for work, it is as if he is meeting her for the first time. Yet, somehow they manage to develop a friendship, based largely on the professor's kindness to the housekeeper's son and his eagerness to share mathematical precepts with both the housekeeper and the son. A delightful read.
    • 5/5
      The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yoko Ogawa is a slim novel about an unusual friendship between a housekeeper, her son, and her employer — a retired mathematics professor who suffers from memory loss. Mixed in with the events of their unfolding friendship, are little mathematical lessons.The Professor survives his day to day life through a long list of notes and annotations because he can only hold recent memories for about 80 minutes. To pass the time the professor works on proof contests hosted by math journals. The point isn't to win (even though there's a cash prize) — it's to keep his mind active. Math is in his blood.The housekeeper who serves as the narrator of the story has a school aged son. He's a quiet boy and often preyed upon by bullies at school. So he comes to the Professor's house after school. The Professor becomes somewhat of a father, or maybe grandfather, figure for the boy whom he nicknames "Root."Anyway, it's a quiet, thoughtful book. I'd recommend it to anyone with at least a passing interesting in the history of mathematics. The math problems while not crucial are fun to solve along with Root and his mother.
    • 4/5
      Cute story about the relationship between a retired math professor, his housekeeper, and her son, and the love of baseball and mathematics. A quick read, very enjoyable.
    • 4/5
      Lots of buzz around the blogosphere about this one. Not the usual hyped book, though. Very quiet story. Very Japanese. Exactly the book I wanted to read this week after the read-a-thon last weekend.
    • 4/5
      A housekeeper and her son tend to an aging mathematician who, because of a car accident, can only remember things before 1975, and the last 80 minutes of the present. Heartfelt, pure, and often as elegant as the mathematical “glimpses of God’s notebook” that the Professor gives us. Lots of feeling in this one, and some baseball as well.Quotes:On knowledge:“Among the many things that made the Professor an excellent teacher was the fact that he wasn’t afraid to say ‘we don’t know.’ For the Professor, there was no shame in admitting you didn’t have the answer, it was a necessary step towards the truth. It was as important to teach us about the unknown or the unknowable as it was to teach us what had already been safely proven.”On math:“The professor reached out to complete the long equation. The numbers unfolded in a simple, straight line, polished and clean. The subtle formula for the Artin conjecture and the plain line of factors for the number 28 blended seamlessly, surrounding us where we sat on the bench. The figures became stitches in the elaborate pattern woven in the dirt. I sat utterly still, afraid I might accidentally erase part of the design. It seemed as though the secret of the universe had miraculously appeared right here at our feet, as though God’s notebook had opened under our bench.”“In my imagination, I saw the creator of the universe sitting in some distant corner of the sky, weaving a pattern of delicate lace so fine that even the faintest light would shine through it. The lace stretches out infinitely in every direction, billowing gently in the cosmic breeze. You want desperately to touch it, hold it up to the light, rub it against your cheek. And all we ask is to be able to re-create the pattern, weave it again with numbers, somehow, in our own language; to make even the tiniest fragment our own, to bring it back to earth.”
    • 5/5
      The Housekeeper and the Professor is about the relationship between the two unnamed characters and the Housekeeper’s son, only referred to by his nickname Root. The narrator, a single mother employed by the Akebono Housekeeping Agency, has just started her new job working for the Professor, a genius in mathematics who, due to an automobile accident, has a memory that only lasts 80 minutes. Every morning, the Housekeeper has to reintroduce herself to the Professor. While the Professor’s memory always fails him, numbers never do. It is the only way he can reach out to the world while everything else constantly disappears.

      The success of this novel lies in the sense that numbers and their relationship to the world are special. I learned so much about math in a nice gentle way and the author was able to make numbers seem magical. The novel also works because of how fully-realized and thoroughly sympathetic the characters are. The deepening relationship between the Housekeeper, Root, and the Professor as they create a temporary family thanks to the power of numbers, the only thing the Professor can relate to, is powerful and poignant despite the failure of the Professor’s memory.

      If you're looking for a warm, touching novel that focuses on relationships and caring attitudes toward your fellow human beings, then look no further. This book definitely fits the bill.
    • 5/5
      This book was one of the most beautiful book that I have read. Yoko Ogawa wove together a touching story with mathematics that truly showed that both complexities and simplicities can be solved and understood from the same place. The professor used to teach mathematics at a university before he was in a terrible accident that made him only remember 80 minutes at a time. The housekeeper is hired to take care of him and every day she has to reintroduce herself to him. The professor keeps little notes pinned to his clothes to help him remember essential facts, but otherwise he needs assistance from the housekeeper to cook, clean and keep him safe in his cottage.The part that I enjoyed the most was the fact that neither the professor nor the housekeeper were named. The technique brought the focus back to the plot and the characters rather than the personalities that come with a name, whether we realize it or not. I highly recommend this book as a short read--something that will keep you searching for the answers in everyday life through something as simple as a mathematical equation.
    • 5/5
      ‘Math has proven the existence of God, because it is absolute and without contradiction; but the devil must exist as well, because we cannot prove it.’Absolutely wonderful — I loved this book!!Have you seen the movie 50 First Dates? It’s one of my favorite movies, and a very similar situation occurs in this book. A mathematics professor has only 80 minutes of short term memory due to a car accident, but he remembers everything clear as a bell that happened before his head injury. He continues to solve mathematical proofs and has an uncanny ability to know exactly where the North Star is in the sky, even when there’s no visibility. He is kind and has a great love for children. But, he remembers only 80 minutes at a time in the here and now. His sister-in-law lets him live in a cottage next to her main house, and she has hired a ninth housekeeper to cook and clean for the professor.The housekeeper does her best to please the professor and works around his disability. She tells him about her 10 year old son, and he insists on letting the son come to his cottage after school, even though it’s against the cleaning agency’s rules. The professor writes notes to himself to help remind him of the housekeeper and her son. The boy and the professor both have a love of baseball, and the professor uses this to teach the boy mathematics. Soon a strong bond is formed among the three of them.There is quite a bit of math in this book, and of course I enjoyed those references tremendously. I have an engineering degree, and mathematics has always been a love of mine. I don’t think you have to know math like I do to enjoy this book, but you will certainly appreciate the beauty of it a bit more if you do.‘Eternal truths are ultimately invisible, and you won’t find them in material things or natural phenomena, or even in human emotions. Mathematics, however, can illuminate them, can give them expression — in fact, nothing can prevent it from doing so.’Very highly recommended!!2003, 2009 for the English translation by Stephen Snyder, 180 pp.5/5
    • 3/5
      Based on the book of the same name, this is the story of a single mother who becomes the housekeeper to a math genius known only as "the professor" who has virtually no short-term memory after an accident. All the previous housekeepers have quit because he's so difficult, but over time the narrator and her son form a bond with the professor through math and baseball.This was interesting and I enjoyed it, but while the professor is well-characterised (more than you usually get from this type of story, I think), it still definitely falls into the "what can disabled people teach us?" genre.
    • 3/5
      Very sparsely and well written. Beautifully formed family of math professor, housekeeper, and her son. Many interesting philosophical thoughts regarding mathematics. Not as interesting as Ogawa's Diving Pool.
    • 5/5
      This was a lovely book...sad but in a way that you could bear to read it again. Overall, a very sweet sadness. Great portrayal of the way you can become so close to someone you never expected to...nice treatment of non-romantic relationships that are just as stimulating and endearing as their sexual counterparts. Perfect length, satisfying ending. Recommended.
    • 4/5
      Loved this sweet, sad book.A Japanese woman with a young son works as a housekeeper to a professor who, due to a car accident, has a memory span of only 80 minutes.Beautifully written.
    • 4/5
      A spare book about memory and math, friendship and family, and how life sometimes gives us just what we need. In this case, the three main characters -- the two unnamed title characters and the housekeeper's 10-year-old son Root (so named by the professor because his flat head made him think of the square root sign) -- complement each other and fill a void in each other's lives.The professor, a man of little short-term memory, but with a limitless affinity for numbers, is befriended by his housekeeper and her son. Until they enter his life, the professor relies on his numbers, prime numbers being his favorites, for solace and companionship. The housekeeper, being an intelligent, curious woman, was astounded and enthralled by his number games. His kindness and concern for Root was touching and sealed the friendship. Just as numbers have surprising relationships, people can be surprised when an ordinary relationship slowly turns into something meaningful and lasting.This book gives much to think about and would be a good one for a book group. Maybe a group discussion would shed some light on the significance of the side story involving the sister-in-law which I thought was unnecessary and distracting.
    • 5/5
      For a short little book, this one really packs a punch! As a math person, I loved how the professor viewed numbers. I certainly learned a thing or two along the way. If you are not a math person, you will learn a lot from a patient teacher!The professor was in a car accident that left him with brain damage. He can only remember the past and the last 80 minutes. This means he meets the housekeeper and her son like new people each day. But somehow the love he has for each of them lasts throughout the book. The housekeeper is so good for him. She works within his systems and cheers him on. She also leaves him alone when he needs that. Her son is very mature for his age and really connects with the professor.If you have a rainy afternoon or a snowy evening, pick this book up - you will not be sorry!
    • 4/5
      I am a mathematician so this influences my reaction to the book. first it has a mathematical idea in it. an honest real one. It presents the idea (how to add the integers from 1 to 100) completely, not merely pointing at it. it does this beautifully. Beyond the mathematics, the book is lovely. I think it is an effort to describe pure affection between humans.
    • 5/5
      This is a beautiful book which ask questions such as "what is the nature of family" and "what is connection" and "how important is memory." A housekeeper and her 10-year-old son care for an elderly man who was once a brilliant math professor. He had a severe car accident in 1975, and while he retains old memories, he can only sustain new memories for 80 minutes. The three develop a friendship and become a "family" through connection. However, because of the professor's memory, he re-meets the mother and son every day as if for the first time. The three bond over math and baseball; the uneducated housekeeper finds she can follow some complex math if she works at it, which enhances her sense of self. The boy and professor love each other, the boy showing heightened maturity in his behavior toward the professor. According to the Washington Post, this book sold more than 2.5 copies in Japan and was made into a movie. Ron Charles writes, "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 " (Washington Post, Feb. 15, 2009).
    • 5/5
      “…the line you drew has a beginning and an end. So it’s actually a line ‘segment’ – the shortest distance connecting two points. A true line has no ends; it extends infinitely in either direction. But of course, a sheet of paper has limits, as your time and energy…” Segments of the housekeeper and the professor’s lives cross resulting in a beautiful story.
    • 4/5
      My favorite part of this book was the beautiful relationship between the professor and the housekeeper’s son. It was a very tender relationship. Also the housekeeper was an honorable and loving person who went way beyond her job description to give the Professor kindness, empathy and a life worth living. Their relationship was more like Father/daughter rather than that normally thought of in a work environment.
      Many lessons can be learned in this book about interpersonal relationships. A wonderful and thought-filled read. I highly recommend this book, especially as an audiobook.
    • 4/5
      Left debilitated by an accident many years ago, the Professor lives the life of a hermit, a situation that is complicated by his memory, which only retains the past eighty minutes of his life. Anybody or any thing that has been apart from him longer than that must be reintroduced as though brand new. To combat this cruel fate, the Professor takes to wearing small bits of paper stuck to his suit with safety pins. The notes he pins on himself have all the information that he needs in order to function. Because of these difficulties and idiosyncrasies, he has been through many housekeepers/care-givers. Most have left unhappily and with many complaints. When the newest housekeeper arrives, she not only sees the damaged man but also sees the beauty and wonder inside of him. As it turns out, the Professor has an incredible propensity for math, and has even won significant prizes and accolades for his work and research on the subject. Soon the Professor begins to insist that the Housekeeper bring her young son to work with her, and from their first meeting, the Professor is enchanted with the boy. The Professor, so overjoyed to be around the young boy, begins to show him the secrets of math and becomes a father figure to him. Soon the boy and the Professor begin to share a powerful affection for each other that manifests unexpected changes in both of their lives. As the boy, the Housekeeper, and Professor learn and teach each other about math, baseball, and each other, unbreakable bonds are formed and lives are impacted. Both touching and emotional, this book seeks to show the way that one person's life, however blemished, can affect the lives of so many others.This was a story that did not disappoint. It was a tale both moving and unique, and the characters really stayed with me. I found myself thinking about the oddness and sorrow that must have been the Professors life, often wondering how I might deal with an eighty minute memory. I suspect not well. In its sparse yet elegant style, the story of the Professor touched my heart and made me consider the power of relationships and their influences in peoples lives. It was enlightening to be able to see how people so fundamentally different could grow to love and depend on each other. Though it cannot be said that the Professor formed lasting attachments, I think it is very debatable to say that the times he spent with the mother and son were both valuable and crucial times for him.I really liked the method of exposition in this book. There was a great crispness to the dialogue and narrative; a tossing out of the old familiar way of storytelling into a new and more refined style. It seemed as though there were great stores of emotion on every page, yet somehow, things didn't overflow or get messy. There was just enough control of sentiment to make this a moving yet tight read. The fluid quality of the writing was very nice as well. I felt the chapters and narrative moved seamlessly along with none of the awkward or jarring shifts in it that I sometimes feel while reading other books. This was a very calm book that belied it's emotions. It dealt with very tragic and sometimes alarming things, but in a subdued and moderated way. I think that this actually served the story well, because it made everything so much more profound and penetrating. There was also a quiet joy suffused throughout the story, something tangible and uplifting that I took away and savored.It was impossible not to love the Professor. Reading about him was both sad and humbling, yet the ways in which he dealt with his problem seemed ingenious and clever. He was never nasty and recalcitrant, never giving someone hell for the life he lost. Rather, he was quiet and subtle. He spent most of his time working on formulas and math puzzles that had stumped other mathematicians. His love for the little boy was something that was stirring and wonderful to read. I loved the sections between boy and man, both accepting the other for what they were, loving each other unconditionally. Watching the little boy grow and change was something great as well. As he begins to really understand the Professor, he begins to look for increased ways to appreciate and care for him. It was obvious to me, and to any who will read this book, that the boy and the Professor shared a common understanding of the heart, a connection deeper and keener than most relationships.Another thing that I thought was nice was the inclusion of math and math problems. Though I have never studied math or been one to enjoy it, the author makes several allegories in the story using math, and uses the math sections as a tool for bridging the emotional divide between the Professor and the others. There are a lot of challenging ideas in this book, but it is one that can be read on several different levels, which I think makes it an even better book. The book also discuses baseball, but not in a way that is alienating to those who have no interest in the sport. Mostly the book discusses what it is like to be a fan and to get excited about your passion. In fact, you could almost substitute baseball in the book for rock concerts, or soccer, or anything that you as a reader have an affinity for.This was a kind book, something that you could easily spend an afternoon with and leave feeling calm, sated and happy. It was also very poignant, in a quiet way. I found that even though I put this book down, I continued to think about it and I kept trying to bring it up in conversation. There is so much in this book about the nature of unconditional love and the beauty of spiritual generosity. I have to say that I really hope that this gentle book will be appreciated by many. A really great read that I definitely recommend.
    • 4/5
      This is a gently, lyrics story that deals with memory, family, and what makes a good life. With only an 80 minute window of memory, the Professor is stuck in a loop of uncertainty. He clings to his numbers, his beautiful mathematics, for security. The Housekeeper, a woman whose life is closed and colorless, learns from him about a wider place for the soul, and his relationship with her son opens the world for both the Professor and the boy. The math, woven like a scarlet thread through the story, adds an interesting tone to the narrative. While I enjoyed this book, it didn’t strike me as deep as others, or perhaps, as I expected. It is a good story: gentle, pleasing, peaceful. It’s an excellent read for a quiet rainy day, with a cup of tea at your side. But I did not find the magic of the narrative that others described. Worth reading, even so.