🍷 Flavour Profile
Primary Notes: Pleasant notes of tender domesticity, undercurrents of patient devotion
Secondary Notes: Undertones of estranhamente agradável¹ and 迷い (mayoi)²
Tertiary Notes: Soft scents of passionate curiosity
📜 Provenance
🍽️ Medium: Book | Pages: 180
👤 By: Yōko Ogawa | Stephen Snyder Translation
📍 Where I Found It: Cousins’ Book Club
🍷 Tasting Notes
In the first chapter, Yōko Ogawa begins by saying, “We called him the Professor.” I start reading with the immediate suspicion that the man in question might not, in fact, be a professor because of the way the sentence is phrased. Having read a blurb on the back of the book that used the word “twisted,” and having seen my sister tear up at the end of it, I suppose I was expecting some kind of gut-punch twist at some point.
Instead, what unfolds before me is a simply sweet story of a woman and her son, and the deep bond they develop with the Professor, at whose cottage she works. I love that the story does not force a romance, but instead focuses on love as expressed through acts of patient devotion. There is a familiar taste here of fondness for the families we choose, and for the transcendental, cumulative impact of simply showing up consistently for the people we care about.
The soft texture of the writing holds the domestic setting of the book tenderly. Yōko Ogawa shows remarkable restraint while also managing to spark curiosity about mathematics in almost anyone. Her mathematical metaphors pair seamlessly with divine imagination and human connection alike.
The last chapter leaves me thinking of my own grandparents, and of the noble act of relentless patience as we care for our elders. The final finish that leaves me happy is the heart of legacy: how we carry parts of the people who profoundly shape our lives in different ways — by talking about them fondly, by doing things they did, and by loving the things they loved.
✨ The Finish
🕯️ What Stayed: “I realised how much I needed this eternal truth that the Professor had described. I needed the sense that this invisible world was somehow propping up the visible one…”
💬 If you asked me: This is a quiet, tender book that reads less like a plot-driven novel and more like a narrative of reverence. It speaks fondly of a man who was loved through small, everyday rituals and through a hundred little moments that, together, amounted to something profound.
🏷️ Vintage
Published: August 2003 | Read: March 2026
📝 Footnotes:
¹ Estranhamente agradável (Portuguese): Strangely Pleasant
² 迷い (Japanese: mayoi): indecision; being unable to choose, which is close to what I felt about the book
Where to Find the Book: The Housekeeper and The Professor
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The Big Smokey Apple 