The Housekeeper and the Professor

First, an apology.
Yet again I have taken another name from fellow Blogger users, and made, yet again, a blog which I'll claim, (as always) to regularly update. But alas, I needed somewhere online to share things that are not political, musical, or even as colourful. This blog is dedicated for everything under 'general'. Book reviews, projects, art, music, language... It'll contain a bit of everything that I am too lazy to dedicate an entire blog for, (and thus save some blog names for everyone else) and just feel it needs to go online. It'll be like a rough notebook, bits here and there - nothing too polished, (they'll probably be a 'blog' for that.) so enjoy, hope it's somewhat interesting, but if you're looking for something in particular you might not find it here.

And I do wish that awful music you get while you're waiting for someone to put you through on phones would stop soon. Lady on the phone has been waiting for at least ten minutes now. Distorted classical is most painful on the ears.

The Housekeeper and the Professor

Ah, yes. I came into the library as part of my new routine, to actually err... Read. Here I am with a brand new fiction book by an author named Yoko Ogawa, author of 'The Diving Pool' if you've ever heard of it, I personally haven't. This novel is about a maths professor who, after a traumatic head injury, has lived with only eighty minutes of short term memory. A young housekeeper with a ten year old son has been entrusted to take care of him. Reciting the blurb; "Each morning, as the Professor and the Housekeeper are reintroduced to one another, a strange, beautiful relationship blossoms between them. The Professor may not remember what he had for breakfast, but his mind is still alive with elegant equations from the past. He devises clever maths riddles -- based on her shoe size or her birthday - and the numbers, in their articulate order, reveal a sheltering and poetic world to both the Housekeeper and her little boy." Yadda, yadda. I'm not too keen on maths, but it sounded rather interesting. The blurb goes on, which makes me worry there's not more too the book, but alas, I open and start reading.

Straight away Yoko Ogawa is keen to draw in the maths, which I'll be honest -- almost frightens me. The Housekeeper's 'little boy' is called Root by the Professor - and the Housekeeper who narrates the story is keen to point out that the most important thing she and her son learnt is the meaning of the square root. Oh my word, what have I gotten myself into... I wonder if I get through this, I'll understand everything there is to know about the Pythagorean theorem.

Reading on, the story goes along as expected/dictated by the blurb. A woman who I don't think has actually said her name (or her boy's real name once) gets a job as a housekeeper for the professor, she's immediately asked her shoe size, cue the maths. It is clear, also, that this book was written in Japan, and there are slight, interesting hints throughout the book.

I reach page 18 and 19, and see a double page spread about the numbers 220 and 284. Did you know the sum of the factors 220 is 284 and the sum of the factors of 284 is 220. They're called 'amicable numbers' and apparently they're extremely rare. I like the last sentence on the page, 'I traced the trail of numbers from the ones the Professor had written to the ones I'd added, and they all seemed to flow together, as if we'd been connecting up the constellations in the night sky.'

Looks like my time in the library is up now. I'm not sure if I would continue reading the book, but for enthusiastic mathematicians, this book may really appeal to you.