Words and Numbers

This book is on my list of favorites. I’m not sure what made me pick it as one of my son’s choices for read-aloud, but I’m so glad I did. I loved it so much, I insisted that my daughter and I read it aloud, too. She’s not a math person, so she was hesitant. But neither was the Housekeeper!

Written in Japanese and beautifully translated by Stephen Snyder, the novel tells the story of a retired mathematics professor who, after a car accident, can retain only about eighty minutes of short-term memory. After many failed attempts with others, a housekeeper is hired to care for him, and after a few weeks, at the Professor’s gentle urging, she begins bringing along her ten-year-old son. The Professor affectionately nicknames him “Root,” because the top of his head resembles the square root symbol.

That was all it took for my daughter. The moment the Professor named the boy, she knew what was coming between them, and she was hooked.

It is a wonderful story of connection, caring, math and baseball. The relationship that develops between the Professor and Root is so endearing. The Professor had been a brilliant mathematician. Now, he helps Root with his math homework and proves to be an excellent “teacher” to Root and his mother. He shows them the many ways math problems can be solved. And they discover their mutual love of baseball. They listen to games on the radio, comparing statistics, batting averages, and pitches.

Despite the limits of his memory, the Professor’s world remains expansive, filled with numbers, patterns, and wonder. Through him, both the boy and his mother develop a deeper curiosity about mathematics, not as something intimidating, but as something alive and beautiful.

Root and the Housekeeper, in turn, come to love the Professor as a teacher, a father figure, and a friend. And, at just ten years old, Root can see the Professor’s limits, from his failing memory to his frustrations, yet he still treats him as a man he respects greatly.

One line captures the Professor’s whole outlook:

He treated Root exactly as he had treated prime numbers. For him, primes were the base on which all other natural numbers relied; and children were the foundation of everything worthwhile in the adult world.

I thought of my children’s math tutor as I read The Housekeeper and the Professor. He did for my children what the Professor did for Root. He was young, encouraging, and a self-proclaimed math geek. He could easily work with my daughter—a quiet, soft, brilliant perfectionist—and my son—a sweet, lackadaisical, brilliant smart-ass. He saw each of them for who they were and taught them to their strengths. I’m sure he would say that math is beautiful.

This book is for math lovers and lovers of literature. Our home has both. My husband and son are the numbers people, while my daughter and I are more literary and love the written word.

Whether through words or numbers, we find different ways to understand the world and connect with people we love.