February 1st, 2009
The Housekeeper and The Professor
The Housekeeper and The Professor
by Yoko Ogawa
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.
