Good Scribes Only #68 🧮 The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yoko Ogawa (2003)
About the Book
He is a brilliant mathematics professor grappling with a unique challenge - following a traumatic head injury, he retains only eighty minutes of short-term memory.
She is a perceptive young housekeeper, raising a ten-year-old son, and she is hired to provide care for him.
Each morning, as the Professor and the Housekeeper reintroduce themselves to each other, a remarkable and touching relationship unfolds. Despite his limited memory span (his mind erases itself every eighty minutes), the Professor's intellect is alive with intricate mathematical equations from the past. These numbers, with their precise order, reveal a captivating and poetic world to both the Housekeeper and her young son. The Professor possesses a knack for uncovering connections between the most mundane details, such as the Housekeeper's shoe size, and the vast universe, drawing their lives closer together even as his memories slip away.
"The Housekeeper and the Professor" is a captivating tale that explores the essence of living in the present and the intriguing equations that can forge a sense of family.
About the Show
Hosted by novelists and entrepreneurs Daniel Breyer & Jeremy Streich, Good Scribes Only is a podcast for curious minds to explore, challenge, and think differently through books. In Season 5, we’re traveling through 2000-2010, year by year, because Dan couldn't remember what the world was like before ChatGPT.
Episode Notes
0-10 min — Dan’s interesting medical history
10-15 min — Intro to the novel
15-20 min — Plot begins
20-25 min — Broader message of the book
25-30 min — The Professor as a character
30-35 min — Why the novel works
35-40 min — Chosen and given families
40-45 min — The power of relationships in fiction
45-55 min — Mathematics as a theme
55-60 min — Conclusion and ratings