The Housekeeper and the Professor

by Yoko Ogawa

The Professor lost his memory in a car accident in 1975. At present, he is limited to 80 minutes of memory. After that time is up, he starts again. As you may have guessed, it is difficult for him to keep a housekeeper.

But one stays. And she finds a bond with the Professor: numbers. And her ten-year-old son finds a bond with the Professor: baseball. This is their short and sweet story.

The prose is spare and elegant. So spare and elegant that the characters don’t even have names. But that hardly matters. This novel is still wonderful.

9/18/09