Elegant book is a good read
Heather Allen ARMCHAIR BOOK CLUB
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Updated: October 02, 2009 10:28 AM
This September students are sitting in clean desks organized with newly sharpened pencils and fresh sheets of paper.
I’ve always loved this return to order, mixed with an air of endless possibility. September is a month of review and evaluation — when spelling tests and math problems are still easy to solve.
It’s the perfect month to pick up our reader-recommended book, The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yoko Ogawa.
Everything about this book — from its characters to its message — is fresh, and centres on that feeling of joy when learning something new.
The professor (of the book title) was once a brilliant scholar, but after a car accident in 1975 he was left without the ability to remember new things. He can hold onto new memories for 80 minutes, and then they vanish. It’s a curious and heartbreaking way to live.
Every morning when the professor answers the door for his housekeeper, he is meeting someone new. He has hundreds of reminders pinned to his suit – even the fact that his memory is short. This memory loss sometimes sets the professor weeping – but only for 80 minutes, after which the worries vanish.
The Professor lives in a world of numbers — they are his only constant. When he is flustered or is coming to the end of his 80-minute window, he will ask the housekeeper about numbers — her shoe size, her birth date, anything. No matter what the number, he’ll find something extraordinary about it.
He is so struck by numbers that he adores the housekeeper’s son, whom he calls Root, because his head is flat and reminds him of the square root symbol.
This is an elegant and quiet book, written by one of Japan’s major authors. Ogawa has penned more than 20 works of fiction and non-fiction, and has won every major Japanese literary award.
It’s her skilful touch that allows the reader to care about a relationship that has no chance of ever advancing.
It seems a terrible tragedy that the housekeeper is constantly forgotten by the professor, but there is much joy in this book for her as well.
The professor constantly talks about numbers and problems, and because of this a whole new world opens up for her. She rediscovers a sense of wonder about learning.
For those of us who don’t live a world of mathematics (regrets to my high school math teacher), this book shows us why it can be captivating:
“You swoop down on the numbers, like a kingfisher catching the glint of sunlight on the fish’s fin,” the professor says when he’s excited that the housekeeper has figured out a math question.
“He pulled up a chair, as if wanting to be closer to the numbers themselves.”
Math lovers will adore this book, and those of us who aren’t may just forget that fact for awhile.
In two weeks, as a compliment to The Armchair Book Club, I’ll be launching a new column called the 100-Mile Book Club, which will feature local authors.
Feel free to send in suggestions, comments or questions for either column.
Happy Reading!
Heather Allen is a writer and reader who lives in Penticton.
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