The Housekeeper and the Professor

It was almost exactly 4 years ago that I wrote about Jonathon Cott's On The Sea of Memory, in which he states that “Without memory, it is exactly one’s being that is erased.” Now imagine if your short term memory lasted only 80 minutes. What does that mean for your "being" and for the people close to you?

Yoko Ogawa tackles this question in her extraordinary novel, The Housekeeper and The Professor. A brain injury has left the brilliant Professor of mathematics with only 80 minutes of memory. Each morning when his young housekeeper comes to care for him, she reintroduces herself to him by pointing to a note he has clipped to his suit jacket. The note reads "The new housekeeper," and includes a sketch of the Housekeeper. Another note, the most tattered of the many clipped to his clothing reads "My memory lasts only eighty minutes." It reminds him of his affliction.

The morning routine also includes a series of questions: how old are you? what is your shoe size? etc. Each numerical response elicits some sort of mathematical lesson, about prime numbers, perfect numbers, amicable numbers, etc. The Housekeeper eventually begins bringing her 10-year old son to work with her. The Professor nicknames him "Root" because the shape of his head resembles the sign for square root. The professor shares his love of numbers with the Housekeeper and Root, and they develop a deep, loving relationship, despite the Professor's disability.

"The Professor loved prime numbers more than anything in the world. I'd been vaguely aware of their existence, but it never occurred to me that they could be the object of someone's deepest affection. He was tender and attentive and respectful; by turns he would caress them or prostrate himself before them; he never strayed far from his prime numbers. Whether at his desk or at the dinner table, when he talked about numbers, primes were most likely to make an appearance. At first, it was hard to see their appeal. They seemed so stubborn, resisting division by any number but one and themselves. Still, as we were swept up in the Professor's enthusiasm, we gradually came to understand his devotion, and the primes began to seem more real, as though we could reach out and touch them."

The Professor is also passionate about baseball, a game of numbers and statistics; and it is through baseball and mathematics that he develops an especially loving and sweet relationship with Root.

This is an absolutely fabulous book, not only because it is beautifully written and has unforgettable characters, but also because the passion for math and the ideas about memory are so fascinating.