The Housekeeper and the Professor

The Housekeeper and the Professor caught my eye in an airport bookstore recently for one reason and one reason only: it is a Japanese novel, and I was soon to be on my way to Japan. (Greetings from Kyoto, by the way.)

Unlike other Japanese fiction I have read (for example, Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage or A Tale for the Time Being), it is infused with a sense of the Japanese, but not of Japan itself. What do I mean? "The truly correct proof is one that strikes a harmonious balance between strength and flexibility." That single sentence contains the essence of Japanese culture. Yet, there is no sushi in this book, no Ueno Park, no pulsing Tokyo just beyond, no temples or shrines, nothing more than the Hanshin Tigers and the occasional cicadas.

The Housekeeper and the Professor, it must be said, is a slightly odd book, at least to my American sensibilities. The pages are often filled with theorems and formulas, and the constant chatter of prime numbers, but this is a also a book that I can unironically describe as calm and peaceful - not my typical vocabulary when thinking about a book.

Yoko Ogawa's style - and here I must state the obvious - at least as it has been translated into English, is simple and understated. The plot is simple: the housekeeper, whose name we never learn, works for an agency, and is assigned to the home of an eccentric professor. He, too, is nameless, and also a brilliant mathematician, but without any memory past 1975, the result of a near-fatal car accident. As a result, he regularly writes himself reminders which he pins to his suit, giving his outward appearance a rumpled and confused look.

Examined apart, the story's elements make no sense. Together, though, the story is sweet and highly readable, although I will admit to only skimming the densest of the mathematical explanations. Ogawa's work is one of both mathematical fact and light fiction, an achievement which it its own right surely deserves several stars. Or, as the Japanese would say, this is a highly harmonious book.