The Correct Miscalculation

Like millions of American women, I belong to a book club. Along with the monthly opportunity to share good food, good company and good conversation with a group of extraordinary women, I appreciate my club because it forces me to read literature -- fiction and non fiction -- that has nothing to do with the work I do during the rest of the month. Our selections reflect the wide range of interests and experience of our members, and expand my own understanding of our basic humanity.

This month's book is "The Housekeeper and the Professor" by Yoko Ogawa. The book was originally published in Japanese in 2003. We read the 2009 translation by Stephen Snyder.

"The Housekeeper and the Professor" tells the story of a brilliant mathematics professor who suffered a life-altering brain injury in a car accident. His short term memory is reduced to a precise 80 minute cycle. A young housekeeper is hired to care for the professor, her work made more challenging by the fact that to some degree, her relationship with the Professor must begin anew each day, since he has no ability to remember the previous day's encounters. Even the multiple hand-written reminders that the Professor pins to his suit cannot adequately compensate for his loss.

Despite this deficit, there are certain constants in the Professor's life. Chief among them is his complete love and immersion in the beauty of numbers. Not only can he see patterns and relationships in the formulas and theorems of mathematics, but he has a unique ability to share his understanding with his much less educated housekeeper and her ten-year old son, whom he has dubbed "Root" (because the top of the boy's head reminds him of the square root symbol).

A simple, elegant relationship develops between the Housekeeper and the Professor, perhaps because it is stripped away of the expectations placed by memory or past mistakes. In fact, the housekeeper learns a different perspective about "mistakes:"

"He had a very feeling for what he called the 'correct miscalculation,' for he believed that mistakes were often as revealing as the right answers. This gave us confidence even when our best efforts came to nothing."

And although the Professor's life revolved around the precision of mathematics and numbers, he is completely comfortable with the unknown; perhaps a metaphor for the limitations of his own capacity for learning:

"Among the many things that made the Professor an excellent teacher was the fact that he wasn't afraid to say 'we don't know.' For the Professor, there was no shame in admitting you didn't have the answer, it was a necessary step toward the truth. It was as important to teach us about the unknown or the unknowable as it was to teach us what had already been safely proven."

"The Housekeeper and the Professor" is less than 200 pages. The beauty and efficiency of its prose make it a worthwhile investment.