Ogawa Yoko “The Housekeeper and the Professor”
What is Japan in this novel?
-Japan in this novel was 1992, in the suburban area, and in novel it says it is small city on the Island Sea. It seems like it is far from everywhere, but it is modernized in terms of society.
Comparison with Oe Kenzaburo’s “A Personal Matter” and Kawabata Yasunari’s “Snow Country”
-“A Personal matter” and “The Housekeeper and The Professor” is kind of similar in a way that both stories kind of happen in domestic space. However, “A Personal Matter” dealt with the depression and people’s anxiety about their future which was big issue in 60s which this story was based on.
-“Snow Country” and “The Housekeeper and the Professor” is similar in terms of the relationship between characters. In “Snow Country”, Shimamura did nothing in the story but just being there relaxing his life while Komako was working and taking care of Shimamura. In “The Housekeeper and the Professor”, the Professor just lived his life without doing any special things except thinking about mathematics, but the Housekeeper was taking care of everything for the Professor. Both stories were also in domestic place.
Relationship between characters
-The Housekeeper and the Professor’s relationship seem to be like a familial relationship rather than couple or lover. This is probably because the Housekeeper did not have father when she was born and the Professor could play a role of father for her. Also, existence of Root made their relationship even closer since they both have intimacy to Root. However, relationship between the Professor and his sister in-law was not clear at all. It is clear that their relationship is brother in-law, but there seems to be something more between them. The Professor had his sister in-law’s picture and he seems like he loved her. They were even together when accident happened. And when the Professor wrote a note of his equation and put it on the table when the Housekeeper and the Widow arguing, the Widow became quiet. It is certain that there is something secret between them.
Yoko Ogawa’s The Housekeeper and the Professor (2003) is a compassionate and contemporary examination of the fortunes and hardships surrounding human’s fundamental need for companionship. Challenging the crucial role of temporary memory in building relationships, Ogawa’s character, simply named “Professor,” suffers brain damage after a car accident and does not recall any newly gained information after an exact eighty minutes. Each eighty minute cycle forces him to relearn any information and reestablish any relationship he had just created. Nonetheless, Ogawa rarely turns the situation into a daunting and stressful one for the professor, housekeeper, and her son. Each of our three characters is truly selfless companions to one another, frequently making decisions with the other person “in mind.”
Both the housekeeper and her son, nicknamed “Root,” share their familial, unconditional love with the professor even though he is cursed with a fleeting memory of anything they ever do for him. The three share their spare time with each other; the three help each other in any way they can; the three benefit from each other. What begins as an elderly man complacent and isolated from the rest of mankind and a struggling single mother slaving away to an apparently careless introvert becomes the tale of happenstance father-mother-son relationship that turns their lives around. The mother learned about the grand mysteries of life, the son learned of the many possibilities life has to offer, and, conversely, the professor was able to learn what it was like to have a family, albeit thousands of times over. However, what is most important is that they were able to soak in each moment together, which was what arguably made the professor’s dementia so insubstantial to their bonding.
I would argue Ogawa strives to portray others as the fuel of our lives. Many of our relationships with others come and go, but family bonds live on (even past work hours). Moreover, one question she leaves lingering for us is: if not memory, what universality grounds each one of our relationships to each other? Perhaps it is Euler’s identity?
Personally I loved this story. The whole fact that the professor can only remember 80 minutes at a time, and has to replace od memories with new memories makes me feel empty inside. My great-grandmother was also like this, in a way. So to read such a touching story really makes me remember her, even made me tear up a bit.
The only real “name” that ever pops up in this story is Root, who is the housekeeper’s son. He got his name from the professor who named him ‘Root’ because of his flat shaped head, which reminded him of the symbol for square root. Because the professor can only remember things 80 minutes at a time, he sticks notes to his jacket so that he won’t be surprised by anything he doesn’t remember. What he can do with numbers is amazing. The professor is able to remember the number engraved on the back of a watch he was given in college and somehow relate that back to the housekeeper’s birthday. What stood out the most to me was that the professor was able to build relationships up over and over each day, without remembering who his housekeeper or her son were. He would ask the same questions over and over; what’s your age? what’s your shoe size? when’s your birthday?- always something related to numbers.
This novel is more about an emotional journey more so than a plot-related one, as nothing exciting ever really happens in the book. Though it was an easy read, I wish there was more to it.
In her novel The Housekeeper and the Professor, author Ogawa Yoko successfully synthesizes the disciplines of mathematics and art. Though the two areas appear as complete opposites, Ogawa is able to utilize math as a method of expression for the Professor. Throughout the novel, the Professor connects with the Housekeeper and Root through his discussions of mathematics. When talking to Root about the addition of numbers, the Professor says, “A problem isn’t finished just because you’ve found the right answer. There’s another way to get to 55; wouldn’t you like to find it?” (Ogawa 49). According to the Professor, simply having the answer is not enough. He wants Root to understand how to get the answer and think of other methods to solve problems. In a way, math becomes the Professor’s metaphor for life. In this sense, the journey to find answers to life’s complexities becomes more important to a person’s growth than merely having an answer. Through his discussions of mathematical formulas, the Professor is able to share his insights with the rest of the world.
Furthermore, math in this novel becomes an art form. Though it may seem odd to compare a scientific discipline with art, in this book, it becomes a kind of poetry. When the Professor’s sister-in-law reprimands the Housekeeper for her visitations, the Professor writes down a formula: eπi+1=0. When analyzing this equation, the Housekeeper narrates, “π had descended from somewhere to join hands with e. There they rested, slumped against each other, and it only remained for a human being to add 1, and the world suddenly changed…Euler’s formula shone like a shooting star in the night sky, or like a line of poetry carved on the wall of a dark cave” (127). Her simile to light describes the Housekeeper’s enlightenment of the Professor’s message. The idea of adding one changing the world suggests that one person has the ability to make a difference in a person’s life. In this sense, the Housekeeper and Root have had a major effect on the Professor and vice-versa. This incident ties into the aforementioned idea that the journey for answers is more important than having the answer. Though the Housekeeper has the answer before her, she is able to uncover the true meaning through looking for further meaning. Math, to the Professor, becomes his unique way of conveying his emotions. Thus, math becomes his ultimate artistic expression.
“The Housekeeper and the Professor” is, in my opinion, the best novel we have read this semester. While other novels may have the art aspect to them or the historical perspective, this novel just has a lot of heart that I don’t see very often in works these days. This could be due to my own inability to find books that really jive with me in this way, but this this novel does. I love it for this.
While once again, I haven’t finished reading it yet, I do have some thoughts about where I have been so far. The best thing about this book so far is the relationship between the titular characters of the housekeeper and the professor. I find it interesting that nobody is ever named in this book, they are all known by their professions or what other characters see in them. Such as the professor was never a professor, but just an extremely intelligent person so he is referred to as such by the housekeeper. The most interesting is the “Root”, the name the professor gives the son of the housekeeper.
Speaking of Root, the math in this novel does not put off the reader whatsoever. I am the first person to say that I hate math. I’m like the housekeeper in that I wanted to never look at a math textbook. The math presented in this novel is friendly and inviting, just as the professor makes it for the the housekeeper and her son. I find it to be really fun to read as I’m actually learning mathematical concepts in a non-hostile environment.
So really, the novel is good for these few reasons, but they are marvelous reasons. When a novel presents a complex subject in a simple story, there will be love from me. I have to say that I love this novel for these myriad reasons.
The first review on the back of the novel, to paraphrase, is that it’s a story about love, not a love story. I couldn’t agree more and that’s why I love it so much. There is a simplistic love here that’s hard to describe, but it just makes you feel good. I feel good while reading it. I don’t see how anybody could not feel good while reading it.
The memory span of 80 minutes was all it took for the housekeeper to know that no one else was better at maintaining well-being of the Professor than she could. It is a difficult task, I would think: to introduce yourself every time you see each other, to hear the same thing about the same topic over & over again from the same person, to filter everything you say with precision so that you would not hurt the feelings of that person. However, it is shown in the book that the housekeeper and her son develop a bond for the Professor by his passion for mathematics (which they shortly began to find interesting). The concept of the 80 minutes that the author explained to me was interesting to me because I questioned how this specific but important point would affect the progression of the story. As far as the mathematics was concerned, the author did a great job of making the math presented in this book easy to understand. Although I had to look up some of the theories on the internet, I did learn a little more about the subject.
When I finished reading the book, I tried to recall the name of the main character to write this blog entry. However, I became aware soon after that the main character had no name, neither did the Professor, the widow, and the only hint of a name was the nickname given to her son, Root. So, why were there no names given to the characters of the book? I could imagine that the son was named Root to give room for the establishment of a deeper bond between the Professor and the Housekeeper. Regardless of the fact that names were given in the story, I was still able to follow the story and become moved by the characters in many parts of the book.
We realize that mathematics for the professor was an infinite thing in his life, unlike his memory. The relationships that he made with people would end, because he would forget; yesterday would have never existed to him unless it was from before his accident… after that period he can never remember etc… Despite this fact, the Housekeeper felt her duty was to take care of the Professor. We can also see that along with mathematics, the bond that was developed between the Housekeeper, Root, and the Professor would remain until his death. When his 80 minute time clock was failing him and he was sent to the hospital, the Housekeeper and Root would still visit him every month. The scar between Roots fingers, the concepts of mathematics that linger about in the Housekeeper’s mind, even Root’s future job… the Professor’s values and his knowledge in mathematics were shared to the mother and the son to live on in their lives, even after the Professor’s death.
A quote in the book from page 107:
“And to be honest, what bothered me most was knowing that he would have no memory that we had ever been there. He could never ask his sister-in-law why I had quit or what had become of root; and he would never remember us as he sat watching the evening star from his easy chair, or when he paused in the middle of a math problem. It was painful to think about. I was sad, but also angry with myself for having broken something that could never be fixed.”
Among many things, the novel explores the idea of what the elderly still have to offer, and what we can learn from them even in the twilight of their life. It does this through the relationship between the Professor and Root. A secondary theme, though of no less importance, is how children are often the key to bringing the elderly back into the world. Often times elderly people engage best with children, as opposed to adults, and this is seen throughout the novel as the Professor begins to come out of his own world and re-engage the world around him only with the introduction of Root into his life.
When the housekeeper first begins to work for the Professor, she initially finds his behavior and his idiosyncrasies to be enormously frustrating. The turning point, however, comes when the Professor, realizes that she is leaving her son at home until late every night so that she can take care of him. Infuriated, he tells her to bring him to his house with her, and thus his relationship with Root begins; and it is through his interactions with her son that the housekeeper begins to see the Professor differently. She sees the kindness that he shows towards her son, and realizes that his disinterest in the world and everything in it is born out of a lack of understanding in how to interact with it.
As the narrator of the story, as the housekeepers view of the Professor changes, so does ours, and by the end of the novel we see the Professor in a completely different light. Rather than being difficult and frustrating we begin to feel almost sad for him, as we see his true self brough out by his relationship with Root. In closing I would like to posit that this in of itself is the heart of the novel. Sometimes people can only be reached through children because of they are not jaded, nor are they tainted by the judgmental mindset of adults. Rather they are innocent, and through that they are able to make withdrawn individuals feel more at ease.
Yoko Ogawa’s The Housekeeper and the Professor was a very interesting book to read because of the trivial comparison of using mathematical equations to define a way of life. I believe the layout of this story was beautiful in bringing an ordinary housekeeper to care for an elderly man and in the process know more about her life through him. The housekeeper, who is unnamed takes care of the Professor, who is also unnamed and suffered from a car accident and has an eighty-minute only remembrance, comes into contact with not only learning more about the mechanisms of mathematics but using them to establish a connection with the Professor and herself. A perfect example can be shown with how the Professor links the housekeeper’s birthday and the number on the back of his watch, 220 and 284. He says they are “amicable numbers” and extremely rare to factor out as they do. I can interpret this as a sort of bittersweet bond between them as later in the story, the housekeeper and the Professor establish a close relationship even though the Professor cannot remember her after eighty minutes had elapsed.
Another important factor is this story is the housekeeper’s son, known as Root (also unnamed). As the professor names him Root due the shape of his head being flat like a square root symbol, they also build a strong relationship with the Professor teaching him the inter-workings of a mathematical world. I didn’t come to a conclusion on why the Professor had such a protective and fatherly-like persona to Root as the story didn’t give an explanation on why this came to be. I felt like the Professor, being older and wise, just had a simple duty to care for a child and teach him what could be used in his life as it actually did later; Root had become a mathematics middle school teacher.
One more interesting detail was the fascination of baseball. Due to the Professor’s memory problem, he could only remember one baseball player named Yutaka Enatsu. Root, also having a liking for baseball, shared his excitement of it with the Professor as well. For this story, I think baseball served as a kind of time ripple where the Professor only knowing the year 1975 and nothing afterwards and Root keeping up the present day baseball. Even though it was difficult to dissect the interpretation of math in this story, I treasured the way how these unique equations came into relation of the life of these three characters.
In Yoko Ogawa’s The Housekeeper and the Professor, memory (or its lack thereof) acts as the primary catalyst for the story’s events, as the housekeeper and her son develop a complex and meaningful relationship with the professor despite his inability to remember anything for more than 80 minutes at a time. Ogawa challenges our preconception of memory as a necessary prerequisite for human relations and interactions—the professor’s character is fleshed out through snippets of information discovered by the housekeeper that allow her to look into his past, and her and her son’s love for the man continues to deepen as their perception of him changes. All the while, the professor is left to remember them only by the notes clipped to his suit, yet despite this he almost instinctively responds to them both in a kind and familiar way, at times filling the gap of father (and perhaps husband) figure for the housekeeper and her son. This complex interaction renders the standard model of relationships useless, asserting that the “moment” and all of the information that is instantly transferred via direct human action is more relevant and important in its immediacy than the fragments of memories we all hold that will eventually fade.
In some ways, being limited only to the perspective of the housekeeper forces the reader to understand the professor’s memory predicament in her romanticized, unpretentious terms, leaving ample room for speculation on the inner-most thoughts of the suffering man. The housekeeper’s affection for the man, while it can be at times vague, can be read as a coping mechanism for the missing men in her life: her mother’s husband and the father of her own son. The professor, vis-à-vis his unconditional love for Root (given that every meeting with the boy is essential a new experience for him) and his genius in math is, for the housekeeper, filling the role of father-figure for her son. Had the story been told from the Professor’s perspective, the potential for a post-modern, non-linear narrative might have been greater, though problematic in its own right given the stylistic and technical difficulties of adjusting the narrative to his resetting memory.
“The Housekeeper and the Professor” by Yoko Ogawa was very interesting books in many ways. This is the story about the life of one housekeeper and her son “Root” and professor. Professor has memory disorder and his memory only lasts for 80 minutes and after 80 minutes, his memory will be erased.
My favorite scene was when he started to talk about the number 220 and 284. I was simply surprised when I saw the formula that the sum of the factors of 220 is 284 and the sum of the factors of 284 is 220, but what I surprised about was how few “amicable numbers” are in this world. I also liked it because amicable number is in Japanese kanji “友愛数” which first kanji stands for friendship and second kanji stands for love. Another scene I liked is when he talked about the perfect number and he said perfect number shows the truth meaning of perfect. Thus, in this story there were lots of scenes that Yoko Ogawa connects math with our life.
Interesting thing about this book is that author did not named character at all. There are Root, professor, I, professor’s sister in-law, but none of them had the name. I thought this is very interesting and that made this story more mysterious but in a way this made story more beautiful.
I would say this book was simply good for people who does not like math, but there were obviously something else that made this story very interesting. I would say that is the connection between the real world and the world of mathematics. Math is not made to do something in the real world but still has a huge connection between them. For example when the housekeeper started to find some formula in her life or maybe her phone number has different meanings, there will be another meaning of life for those numbers to exist. I think this book showed this connection really well.
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