Wednesday, March 10, 2010

Thoughts at the half way point of The Professor + The Housekeeper

At the start I thought this book was going to fairly cold and unemotional about the relationship between a maths professor and his housekeeper.

As a result of an accident the professor can only remember things for 80 minutes and is covered with notes top jog his memory. But he manages to build a relationship with the housekeeper and introduces the single mother of a ten-year old boy to the wonderful world of numbers.

The professor takes refuge in numbers but also believes that to understand them is to get a glimpse of what is written in God's notebook. I'm finding, even as a completely non mathematical person, that the relationship between the two is starting to become compelling as the son becomes the professor's friend.

You want it to have a happy ending but because of the problems with the memory that seems to be very unlikely...