Review: The Housekeeper and the Professor

 The Housekeeper and the Professor is Yoko Ogawa's novel about a housekeeper who cleans the house for a former math professor who's lost the ability to form new memories a la Memento or 50 First Dates. Like in Memento, the professor solves his problem by writing notes to himself. He still has a good fundamental grasps on Math and loves number theory, so educates the housekeeper (who doesn't have a good math background) on basics like prime numbers, perfect numbers, twin primes, and Euler's identity.

The novel is basically a literary person's idea of what would make a Math person happy with a novel. It's discussion of Math is shallow (for instance, the housekeeper never gets an explication of Euler's identity), and there are lots of little factoids but no real explication of number theory. There's even a discussion of Andrew Wiles and Fermat's Last Theorem, but again, no broader explanation of what it is.

Ultimately, the story is about the housekeeper, her son, and the professor (nobody is named in the novel), and his past history, and it's supposed to be a feel good slice of life novel. Unfortunately, it uses the same schtick as Memento, which is such a superior story that this novel feels dumb instead. Fortunately, the novel is short but despite that I found myself thinking that I wasted my time and should have rewatched Memento instead.