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The Housekeeper and the Professor - Community Reviews back

by Yōko Ogawa, Cassandra Campbell
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Kate Says: "Reading Is Fun!"
Kate Says: "Reading Is Fun!" rated it 9 years ago
The Professor, a brilliant mathematician (who is unnamed), only has eighty minutes of short term memory, due to a traumatic head injury. The Housekeeper assigned to the Professor (also unnamed), is young, astute, and has a ten year old son (nicknamed Root). Each morning, as the Professor and Ho...
Lagraziana's Kalliopeion
Lagraziana's Kalliopeion rated it 9 years ago
The story of The Housekeeper and the Professor is that of the two characters already mentioned in the title plus the housekeeper’s ten-year-old son and the poetry of mathematics. It begins in March 1992 when the narrator takes up her job as the professor’s housekeeper in a shabby back yard garden ...
P. Wish Rants and Reviews
P. Wish Rants and Reviews rated it 9 years ago
The housekeeper and the professor is a simple, slice of life story written by Japanese writer Yoko Ogawa. The book details the strange relationship between a professor who has a strange memory problem, a housekeeper and her young son. The story is well crafted, poignant and short. The book is barely...
mage4mage
mage4mage rated it 10 years ago
A beautiful story that is at once simple yet deep and thought provoking. The translation amazes me, honestly. Many times I've read a Japanese-to-English novel translation that felt stilted, empty of prose, with remnants of Japanese sentence structure awkwardly lurking in the passages. This book is t...
Listening to the Silence
Listening to the Silence rated it 10 years ago
The Professor suffered a tragic accident that left his brain unable to remember anything beyond the date of the accident, in 1975. His short term memory is reduced to 80 minute loops and as a result he had to give up his career as a mathematician to live off the kindness of his brother's widow in a ...
Nicole Reads
Nicole Reads rated it 10 years ago
I had bought this book for one of my best friends on a trip to Germany. It always seemed weird to me that I had bought a Japanese book from a german bookstore but back then it was hard to find Japanese literature. My apprehension about this book grew when I read the back cover. It had to do with num...
Ani's Book Abyss
Ani's Book Abyss rated it 11 years ago
As I suspected, The Housekeeper and the Professor, though beautifully written with an endearing friendship between Root and the Professor, was a bit much for me to handle. I'd mentioned already that I don't normally pick up books that are contemporary human drama pieces. I never really know what to ...
The Boat Was My Friend
The Boat Was My Friend rated it 11 years ago
“My memory lasts only eighty minutes” The Housekeeper And The Professor is a sweet little book about the unique bond shared among a maths professor, his housekeeper and the housekeeper’s son.The Professor is an old man who experiences severe short-term memory loss following a car accident that took ...
sitiwajihah
sitiwajihah rated it 11 years ago
Simple and beautiful.
Book Minx
Book Minx rated it 11 years ago
A sweet tale about a friendship between an aging math professor, a housekeeper, and her son. My biggest issue with this book is that at times, the housekeeper was treated poorly for no real reason. I hated that the son goes off on her and she just accepts that he's right in his perceptions. I seriou...
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