The House-Keeper & the Professor

The Housekeeper and the Professor by Yoko Ogawa is a tender exploration of the relationship between a housekeeper, her client the maths Professor and her son, Root, who is so-called by the Professor because his flat head reminds him of a square root sign. The Professor suffered brain-damage in a car accident seventeen years previously and lives with only eighty minutes of short-term memory, which is both a problematic and poignant factor in their day-to-day lives together.

Translated from Japanese by Stephen Snyder, The Housekeeper and the Professor is a lyrically touching novel. Very gently told, Ogawa uses maths to create heartfelt connections between the Housekeeper, her son and the Professor. I enjoyed the simplistic style to the story and how it broke down maths to connect these disparate people together; the Housekeeper becomes interested in maths, on working out problems and noticing patterns whilst the Professor sees the world through numbers. Using complex equations metaphorically throughout the novel was effective for me; I didn't think that it was simply a vehicle but was an interesting means of connection between an employer and employee in a subservient role who may have otherwise been unable to communicate. It has been a long time since I studied maths and I liked the refresher course and enjoyed seeing how Ogawa, through her characters, drew links between maths and life.

The Housekeeper and the Professor is a gentle novel, simply rendered with only four nameless characters and an unseen baseball player. It is beautiful meditation on the nature and limitations of memory and also on what can make familial relationships and what they can teach us; it is subtly written and the sadness of the Professor's short-term memory is never overwhelmingly tragic or trite but resonates in its understated form. Culturally, the novel taught me the Japanese fascination with baseball; educationally it made me appreciate maths once more; emotionally it touched me.

Some favourite and/or key passages:

I happened to glance at some of the notes to his suit: " ... the failure of the analytic method...," "... the function of the elliptical curve...." Shuffled in among the fragments of obscure numbers and symbols and words was one scrap that even I could understand. From the stains and bent corners of the paper and the rusted edges of the binder clip, I could tell that this one had been attached to the Professor for a long time: "My memory lasts only eighty minutes," it read.

I don't know what the evening star meant to him, perhaps finding it in the sky soothed his nerves, or maybe it was simply a habit. And I don't know how he could see it so long before anyone else-he barely noticed the food I set right in front of him. For whatever reason, he would point his withered finger at a single spot in the vast sky-always the right place, as I eventually discovered-and that spot had significance for him and no one else.

Euler's formula shone like a shooting star in the night sky, or like a line of poetry carved on the wall of a dark cave. I slipped the Professor's note into my wallet, strangely moved by the beauty of those few symbols. As I headed down the library stairs, I turned back to look. The mathematics stacks were as silent and empty as ever-apparently no one suspected the riches hidden there.

I Am a Cat Vol. II

I have enjoyed Volume II of I Am a Cat as much as I have Volume I, probably more so as I have become immersed in the novel and attuned to its narrator and satirical humour. I Am a Cat is highly amusing with wry perceptions through the eyes of a cat. Volume II has been more episodic -with the setting and premise established in Volume I- with the cat (or Neko, as I refer to him when posting) venturing out to a Japanese bathhouse, spying on neighbours and being the only witness to a burglary in his master's home (of course burglars are also known as cat burglars). The scene were Neko attempts to prove his worth by catching rats -before a visitor to the Sneazes' home takes him to eat- is a moment of high comedy. Neko's commentary is insightful as well as scathing at times but it is always witty; when he is not participating in his own escapades then he is observing the domestic dramas of his owners, their friends and acquaintances. I also enjoyed a cheeky reference to Sōseki and his poetry by Sneaze and his friends, Coldmoon and Waverhouse.

I am finding I Am a Cat immensely readable and enjoyable and have definitely found my stride with Volume II; the characters are more fully-fledged and less annoying than in Volume I (not that they irritated me that much but Mr Sneaze is rather pompous) and the cat, himself, is more humanised, which is a development interesting to follow. The cat is by far one of the most intriguing and compelling narrators I have ever had the joy of reading. The concept of an omniscient narrator that is a character and a cat is awe-worthy and it still impresses me two volumes on; I am very excited -but also disappointed- to read the third and final volume for January 15th.

How are you finding I Am a Cat? I know that some of you have borrowed it from the library on my recommendation and I hope that you are enjoying it as much as I am.

Some quotes from Volume II:

So who the hell is this that has so blithely appropriated the cushion which was destined, sooner or later, to have eased Suzuki buttocks? Had the interloper been a human being, he might well have given way. But to be pre-empted by a mere cat, that is intolerable. It is also a little unpleasant.

But cats, I can assure you, just like anyone else, feel the heat and feel the cold. There are times when I consider that I really wouldn't mind, just that once, soaking myself in a bath, but if I got hot water all over my fur, it would take ages to get dry again and that is why I grin and bear the stink of my own sweat and have never in all my life yet passed through the entrance of a public bathhouse. Every now and again I think about using a fan but, since I cannot hold one in my paws, the thought's not worth pursuing.

I Am a Cat Vol.1

I am a Cat. As yet I have no name.

I Am a Cat by Sōseki Natsume began as a short story, which makes up chapter one of Volume one, but due to its success was extended into a three-volume book that is now a Japanese classic. Highly readable, I Am a Cat is narrated by a nameless stray who observes human nature. Amusing and delightfully originally, the satire and allegory are presently beyond me after only reading Volume one but I am looking forward to delving in deeper and learning more about the history, culture and society of the Meiji era (the installments of I Am a Cat first appeared between 1905 and 1906).

I Am a Cat is a scathing, observed piece that is very much a comedy of manners and intellect. The narrator -let's call him Neko- ingratiates himself into the household of an English teacher and his family with many scholarly friends of the schoolteacher visiting regularly and telling tall tales that the cat recounts. The device of cat as narrator is used cleverly as he is omniscient in his pride of listening place in a lap, privy to household conversations, and also, as a cat, can sneak undetected into other houses to eavesdrop on his light paw-steps.

Of course I am a cat-lover and I love to read about cats. Truth be told, I am a little cat obsessed and I highly enjoy the cat's meanderings and antics. I thought that this book would be the perfect companion read to I Am a Cat and I am coveting it accordingly.

I am enjoying the accessible, gentle and witty style of I Am a Cat and look forward to the subsequent volumes. Discussion of the first volume can be read at the dedicated read-along page at In Spring it is the Dawn.

A particularly favourite quote from this volume:

"He has no secret vices, but he is totally abandoned in the way he buys book after book, never to read a single one. I wouldn't mind if he used his head and bought in moderation, but no. Whenever the mood takes him, he ambles off to the biggest bookshop in the city and brings back home as many books as chance to catch his fancy. Then, at the end of the month, he adopts an attitude of complete detachment. At the end of last year, for instance, I had a terrible time coping with the bill that had been accumulating month after month."

I Am a Cat Read-along

I am joining in Tanabata's first Japanese literature read-along over the coming months. We will be reading the three volumes of I Am a Cat by Soseki Natsume, one volume a month. This is a book that I've been wanting to read for the last couple of years and was intending to read it anyway for Bellezza's Japanese Literature Challenge so this is the perfect read-along for me join in.

The synopsis: Cat lovers will delight in the thoughts of a cat whose particular joy in life is commenting on the folly of human beings. Based on a nameless cat's observations of upper-middle-class Japanese society of the Meiji era, the essence of I AM A CAT is its humour and sardonic truths. Written over the course of 1904-06, this book is full of acerbic wit as it follows the whimsical adventures of a world-weary stray kitten.

For anyone who wishes to join in or wants to follow my progress, the schedule is:

Volume One by November 15th, 2009
Volume Two by December 15th, 2009
Volume Three by January 15th, 2010

These are the corresponding page numbers in the Tuttle Classics edition: Volume One (p. 3 - 156), Volume Two (p. 159 - 355), Volume Three (p.359 - 638).

Do you like the bookmark I am using? This was handmade and sent to me a few months ago by the lovely Nymeth. She knew I was a cat-lover and it is the perfect bookmark, of course, to use for this book!

The Cat Who Walked a Thousand Miles

As a prelude to my reading list for the Japanese Literature challenge I read the novella "The Cat Who Walked a Thousand Miles" by Kij Johnson, which can be read here (it is 64 pages). My appetite is now whetted for reading The Fox Woman by Kij Johnson as well as I am a Cat by Soseki Natsume; cats also frequently figure in the fiction of Haruki Murakami. Does anyone know of the cultural significance of cats in Japan? Is it just that they are a symbol of good luck or a more deep-rooted devotion?

I am a passionate cat-lover and adore reading about cats in fiction and one of my favourite novellas is "The Cat" by Colette. "The Cat Who Walked a Thousand Miles" is set in Imperial China and is about Small Cat who lives in a garden in the capital city with other female felines (Tom-cats visit) and share their lives together:

The cats shared another thing: their fudoki. The fudoki was the collection of stories about all the cats who had lived in a place. It described what made it a home, and what made the cats a family. Mothers taught their kittens the fudoki. If the mother died too soon, the other cats, the aunts and cousins, would teach the kittens. A cat with no fudoki was a cat with no family, no home, and no roots.

Small Cat's fudoki -her sense of self- is the essence of the story; when an earthquake and subsequent fire destroy her home and no other cats are left but her, Small Cat makes a pilgrimage to the North in search of other cats belonging to her fudoki. Her journey of a thousand miles is from the capital (still Tokyo?) to the North, beyond Mt Fuji (which is only 60 miles from Tokyo) to provinces that do not know cats and see them as demons where she encounters a Monk, a Bear Hunter, a Bear, Snow, cats belonging to a different fudoki, and a ferry journey for the first time. At her journey's end Small Cat has made her own fudoki - The Cat Who Walked a Thousand Miles - and realises that stories are not just told and learned but are made by ourselves. Anyone who loves cats, mythology, and the nature of stories will enjoy this lovely novella.

Everyone had a fudoki, Small Cat knew now. Everyone had their own stories, and the stories of their families and ancestors. There were adventures and love stories, or tricks and jokes and funny things that had happened or disasters. Everyone wanted to tell the stories, and to know where they fit in their own fudokis. She was not that different.

Claire from kiss a cloud described the entrancing, "solemnity and the subtlety" of Japanese literature and I think that is a beautiful way of describing the characteristic nature of its canon. The lyrical nature of Japanese literature in translation is beautiful and surreal, like a walk through cherry blossom.

I suspect that this short story is a shorter revision of Johnson's second novel, Fudoki, which Nymeth reviews here. For anyone wanting to read another Japanese short story about cats then this one by Haruki Murakami is good although it is practically identical to the middle section of his novel, Sputnik Sweetheart.

Some favourite passages:

It seemed to snow every few days, sometimes clumps heavy enough to splat when they landed,
sometimes tiny flakes so light they tickled her whiskers. Small Cat didn’t like snow: it looked like feathers, but it just turned into water when it landed on her.

There was not much for them to do but talk and sing, so they talked and sang a lot. They shared fairy tales and ghost stories. They told funny stories about themselves or the people they knew.
People had their own fudoki, Small Cat realized, though there seemed to be no order to the stories, and she didn’t see yet how they made a place home. They sang love-songs and funny songs about foolish adventurers, and Small Cat realized that songs were stories as well.

The Japanese Literature Challenge

With so many challenges on the go just now (this year's Man Booker longlist; the Booker and Pulitzer prize winners; the upcoming Persephone Reading Week; Everything Austen) you would be forgiven for thinking me crazy for embarking on another. However, it just isn't so! Before I was blogging myself I was reading blogs and last year I came across Dolce Bellezza's Japanese Literature Challenge, now in its third year, and knew then that it would be a challenge I would love to participate in if and when I started blogging. There was no way that I wasn't doing this challenge now that I could and, besides which, it is incredibly relaxed and only holds me to read one book of Japanese origin over the next six months, which I probably would have done anyway. Of course, now that I will be reading about lots of fabulous Japanese literature I will of course want to read more and the challenge may distract me some ... oh well.

I love Japanese literature; I love Japanese culture; I love Japanese history; I would love -more than anything- to one day visit Japan; I love sushi and sashimi, miso soup, and green tea; I love cherry blossom -or sakura- so much that one of these days I will have it tattooed on my body; I already love this challenge.

The books that I am considering reading are:

The Fox Woman by Kij Johnson. Nymeth made this book sound amazing in her review. She loved the book so much that she wanted to share it and buy it for one of her readers; I was the lucky recipient and I have been saving it for this challenge.

Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami. I have read four Murakami books (novels and short stories) and have a couple unread on the white shelf (I have one shelf dedicated to white books which happens to be made up coincidentally of only Vintage Books authors: Toni Morrison, Haruki Murakami and Andrey Kurkov). Norwegian Wood was the first Murakami novel that I bought and although side-tracked by his other work along the way I have been very much looking forward to reading it. Influenced by The Beatles, it seems fortuitous that this copy finds itself a home on the white shelf.

I am a Cat by Soseki Natsume. As a cat obsessive (I have a cat, Mandoo, at home with my parents and I miss him so much), I am desperate to share my domestic space and heart with a feline again and this book will allow me to do that figuratively. I think, however, that I will read it a bit at a time as an ongoing reading project, perhaps throughout the duration of the challenge.

Out by Natsuo Kirino is a book that I actually came across through Dolce Bellezza's challenge last year and it is ridiculous that I have yet to read it.

Asleep by Banana Yoshimoto. I really enjoyed Kitchen when I read it and the synopsis for this appeals to me. In addition to that, it's short!

In the Miso Soup by Ryu Murakami (no relation to Haruki). I don't know much about this book but I have seen it around a lot and the title amuses and intigues me!

Will you be participating in this challenge? Do you enjoy Japanese Literature and have anything you would like to recommend? What do you think of my choices?