Review: The Housekeeper and the Professor

The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yōko Ogawa
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Have you read a book where the protagonist is not a human? Then try this book, where Mathematics appears to be the protagonist, with all it's mysteties, the unique prime numbers and mathematical formulas. This is the first-of-its-kind book read by me. The characters are few in number, a Mathematics professor who has lost his memory, the housekeeper who looks after him, the housekeepers son and the professor's sister-in-law, who is mentioned very few times. With these few characters, Yoko Ogawa has spun a beautiful tale, whose central theme despite being Mathematics, is very humane. This is my first novel by a Japanese author, and after finishing it, I want to read more writings by Japanese authors. If you hate Mathematics, this book will surely change your perception. If you are already in love with Mathematics, this book will only intensify your love.

The character of the Professor is an intriguing one. I have never read about such a character before. He lost his memory in an accident and can't remember anything new. His memory stops in 1975, but he has a short-term memory of precisely 80 minutes. His appearance is equally weird. "..... the most curious thing about the Professor's appearance was the fact that his suit was covered with innumerable scraps of notepaper, each one attached to him by a tiny binder clip. Every conceivable surface-- the collar, cuffs, pockets, hems, belt loops, and buttonholes-- was covered with notes, and the binder clips gathered the fabric of his clothing in awkward bunches. The notes were simply scraps of torn paper, some yellowing or crumbling. In order to read them, you had to get close and squint, but it soon became clear that he was compensating for his lack of memory by writing down the things he absolutely had to remember and pinning them where he couldn't lose them-- on his body."

The housekeeper is the single mother of a boy. We do not get to know the names of either the housekeeper or her son throughout the story. But the boy is named as Root by the Professor, because of the flat shape of his head which resembles the flat top of the square root sign and mentioned so in the whole story.

Overall, it has a very unusual storyline, which will stay with me for sometime even after finishing the book.

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