Week 4: 博士の愛した数式 - The Housekeeper and the Professor 🎓🧮

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博士の愛した数式 - The Housekeeper and the Professor :mortar_board::abacus: Home Thread

Week 4

hakase

Start Date: Oct 10th
Previous Part: Week 3
Next Part: Week 5

Reading:

Week Start Date End Phrase End Page End Percentage Page Count
Week 4 Oct 10th [End Chapter 2] 62 21% 13

Discussion Rules

  • Please use spoiler tags for major events in the current chapter(s) and any content in future chapters.
  • When asking for help, please mention the chapter and page number. Also mention what version of the book you are reading.
  • Don’t be afraid of asking questions, even if they seem embarrassing at first. All of us are here to learn.
  • To you lurkers out there: Join the conversation, it’s fun! :durtle:

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1 Like

I read this week’s part this morning, and we’re getting some backstory about our 家政婦! Also, less complicated grown-up math and more wholesome 小学生 math teaching to ルート. This week’s reading felt really relaxed and more like an observation of daily life, with not much happening. Which is nice. I guess everything kind of felt like that up until now? But now I’m starting to feel the warmth and routine in there. Especially imagining them sitting in the study, the rain outside, 家政婦 sewing and just listening to them chatter about math homework in such a playful way.

But wow, the author really does love letting her character’s relatives die, huh… setting the scene for what is to come, maybe?

3 Likes

setting the scene for what is to come, maybe?

I would honestly be OK if we just sort of float along for the next 16 weeks without any tension. But it does feel like something very sad lies ahead.

4 Likes

To me the narration very much feels like it is told from a point in time where our 家政婦 is not working with the professor anymore. Other than that, it feels like anything could happen. I do hope √ will grow up happy!

4 Likes

Everyone’s probably forgotten by now, but…

At around 20%:

「よし。ここで油断して駄目だぞ。案外大人しそうな顔をして、ハンカチの方が食わせ者かもしれないからな」

I’m lost. I understand all the words but I can’t make sense of it… Is he saying to be careful because the hankerchief is acting obedient when really it’s trying to cheat him?

I think this is the first book club I’ve done after it’s already finished…feels kinda lonely :pleading_face:

3 Likes

Whoa, I have indeed no clue what scene this is :sweat_smile: Could you maybe remind me a little, and also who the speaker is?

1 Like

Root has joined the party, and hakase is helping him with his maths homework (specifically working out the cost of socks and hankerchiefs using simultaneous equations). Mum is sat on the bed sewing.

The speaker is hakase

1 Like

Ah, I see. Had to dig up the passage anyways :sweat_smile: but now I know what it’s about.

Explanation

So you got it pretty much, the one thing that was missing is that they are not talking about the handkerchief as such but about ハンカチの方 i.e. “on the side of” the handkerchief, meaning the maths exercise with the handkerchief.
In the sentence before that, Root says “I could solve the one with the socks quite easily.”
And then Hakase replies “Here you must not let your guard down. The one with the handkerchief comes with an extraordinarily well-behaved face, but maybe there’s a trick to it.”
(Meaning that the exercise looks easy but may actually be hard, but I guess that’s obvious now.)

It’s really cool to get back to that story after such a long time :laughing:

5 Likes

Thanks :blush:

1 Like