The Housekeeper + The Professor (2010) - Plot & Excerpts
A truly delightful, short novel that I couldn't set aside. I may be forced to look into this memory thing that the brilliant math professor had going; after 80 minutes, his tape runs out and he has to re-learn his short-term memory of what had occurred up until then. In any case, the bit of dabbling into the wonders of numbers should engage some as should the wonders of baseball others, even though it is to the Japanese teams the reader is engaged. I shall have to be on the lookout for more opportunities to listen to Ogawa's works. This is my first Goodreads review - to celebrate the first book I have finished since joining.Recommended to me by my usually astute and savvy bookworm sister, this is a beautiful and simply written novel. A single working mother acts as a housekeeper to a brilliant Japanese mathematician who following an accident, only has a recent memory span of 80 minutes. How can that work, especially when you throw in her son who is going on 11 but seems interested only in baseball and playing with his friends and the demands on her own time?Yoko Ogawa's simple storytelling leads you into a world of quiet pleasures and almost zen-like calm. A more meditative and gentle book you are unlikely to read all year. And its message is a clear one - the joys in life often come from observing and participating in the simple acts of living and sharing and loving. And if proof were necessary, then mathematics shows how inner peace is oh so necessary for our lives and in our dealings with others. A glimpse of God's notebook if you like. Clever and profound, inner peace is what you will get from this fine book.
What do You think about The Housekeeper + The Professor (2010)?
Delightful read ! Wish the ending wasn't such a let down.
—Unicornpower
