فیلمش رو دیدم
بر اساس زندگی واقعی یه گیشا در ژاپن
گیشاها برای خودش زندگی نمیکند برای سرگرم کردن مردان زندگی میکند
گیشا از بچگی برای این تربیت می شود
نواختن ساز را یاد میگیرد
رقصیدن
آداب راه رفتن و معاشرت
و همه اینا برای جلب توجه و لذت بردن مردان است
آخر فیلم حرفای تلخی زده می شود:
اون صورتش رو رنگ میکنه که مخفیش کنه
چشم هایش آب عمیقی است
گیشا حق نداره چیزی بخواد
گیشا نباید احساس داشته باشد
گیشا یه هنرمنده در این دنیای مواج
می رقصه،میخونه،سرگرمت میکنه
هرچی که بخوای
بقیه اش سایه اس،بقیه رازه

این کتاب نه سرگذشت امپراطور است
نه ملکه
بلکه سرگذشتی از نوع دیگر است

Like eating fancy dessert at a gourmet restaurant, Memoirs of a Geisha is beautiful, melts lightly off the tongue and will be forgotten shortly after it's done. The language is strikingly lovely, and Golden paints a remarkable picture of a time and place.

If you're looking to learn something deep about the psychology of Japanese culture, or meet nuanced characters, then I'd steer you elsewhere. The story only skims the top of the more complicated aspects of a Japan in decline, focusing mostly on a genteel lifestyle that probably seems more appealing from the outside. There's a way in which the book, written by a man and a westerner, is slightly fetishistic, but less so than you might imagine.

Another reader suggested that perhaps the superficiality of the story is intentional, and that the book, in a way, resembles a geisha. Beautiful and eager to please, yet too distant to really learn much from and ultimately little more than a beautiful, well-crafted object to be appreciated. If that's the case, Arthur Golden is remarkably clever, and I applaud him. If it's not the case, the book remains very pretty and an easy read.

This started so well but then it got more and more boring with each chapter.

I was hooked on this as soon as I started reading. I found myself storming through it and totally invested in the story. Then somewhere, around half-way through, I found myself growing terribly bored. My reading rate slowed down. It started to feel like a chore, and it took me almost five months to finish it.

What happened?

The story seemed to stagnate, and the descriptions felt very similar and reused. Moreover, it didn’t seem to be going anywhere other than the obvious direction. Granted, it picked up towards the but by then I had lost interest and wanted the book to be over. It seems rather trite in a book review to complain about the length of a book, but I’m going to do it anyway: this felt too long. I have no problem with big books if they need to be big. This one felt padded out and like parts needed to be stripped back and the writing made tighter. It waffled on and I grew tired of it.

It was slow, so painfully slow

I’m disappointed because I feel like I should have loved this one and I thought I was going to. I wish I had something more positive to say, but I can’t find anything else I enjoyed about it. It had a good hook but that’s it. Consider me very unimpressed.

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I finally got around to reading this book! I've had it sitting in the bookcase for time, so I'm glad to say I've read it. I was almost afraid it would disappoint, but I'm happy to say, disappoint it did not.
This novel really is quite something. The story is told in such an exquisite style, that it captures your interest from the very beginning. The story tells us of the life of a Geisha, called Chiyo. The setting in which the story is told is beautiful and I felt as if I was with Chiyo, in her story. Japan has always fascinated me, and this has just made me feel like I'd love to learn more.

As the reader, I felt rather connected to Chiyo somewhat, or at least to a certain extent. Many of the choices she made or was forced to make, I could certainly relate to, even if I didn't necessarily agree with them. When she felt pain, the narration was written in such as way, that you, as the reader, could prominently feel that pain too.

The life of a Geisha really interests me, and this book helped feed that interest. I simply cannot imagine what it would be like to be sold as a slave by your own family, just to be trained up, to live a life just pleasuring men. It sends shivers down my spine just to even think about it.
I do disagree with a Geisha not being classed as a prostitute. That may be how it is seen through their eyes, but a Geisha's main income comes from them having sex. I think sex, especially when it involves any kind of payment, is a form of prostitution.

The ending of the story I found to be rather abrupt, and I didn't feel fully satisfied when I'd closed the book. I think I still have a few questions that will remain unanswered. Overall though, it remains a remarkable book and I can understand why it is such a classic.

I loved the romantic parts but I just wished it was more and I also found this book to long and some parts were realy boring , but overall I realy enjoyed it and now I finally know what an geisha is

The book in itself presents an interesting story, and makes for an entertaining read, but what bothers me about this book is that the vast majority of Western readers interpret it as a historically accurate memoir, when in fact it was written by an American author for an American audience, and therefore has achieved its success through appealing to and reinforcing the stereotypes about Japanese culture in America. Another reviewer on this website writes, "It is a wonderful introduction to... Japanese culture," illustrating how many Western readers (including countless personal friends) interpret the lifestyle and culture depicted in Memoirs of a Geisha as absolute historical fact.

In the tradition of Ruth Benedict's The Chrysanthemum and the Sword, Golden presents Japan and Japanese culture as "exotic" and "strange," reinforcing the major theses of the Nihonjinron (which literally means "theories about the Japanese") genre..

When looking at ever-popular images of a lone, white man in a crowded Tokyo street, many Westerners see the surrounding Japanese as identical to one another, and inherently different from that white man and his native culture, a belief that Golden's novel only serves to perpetuate. What disappoints me the most is that Golden holds a degree in Japanese History, and still the inaccuracies and stereotypes that he was raised with win out over historical fact in his writing. In conclusion, Golden presents an interesting story in Memoirs of a Geisha that should only be read if the reader is prepared to believe none of it.

Additional readings: Yellow by Frank H. Wu, Orientalism by Edward W. Said

Two sisters in a poor, remote fishing village are sold off and sent to Kyoto. Thus the epic tale begins, with an abundance of distinct characters influencing the life of Chiyo, the younger sister: there's her age-mate and immediate consoler,Pumpkin, the elderly and grumbling Granny, money-obsessed Mother, and Auntie, a failed geisha with a walking disability. Also living in the geisha house is the famous and ill-mannered geisha, Hatsumomo, renowned for her wickedness and dazzling beauty, and most importantly, Mameha, who becomes her future mentor and guardian. All these characters and their actions form a grand cultural-historical soap opera that spans decades.

The prose is elegant and the character development exquisite. As you read, you become immersed into a world of a different time and place. As Japanese culture is extremely complex, this was no small feat on the part of the author.

The other feature of the novel examines the phenomenon that when women are reduced to slaves and prostitutes in a male-dominated society, i.e. when their livelihood depends solely on appeasing the other sex, they will turn upon each other, trying by all means to destroy one another so that they will be the only one holding men's favor. Women can be as poisonous and merciless as you can imagine when it is a matter of survival. In this respect, the novel reminds me of the story told in Raise the Red Lantern: Three Novellas, which I did not read but saw the movie.

The main source for Mr. Golden's book was Mineko Iwasaki, a retired geisha he had interviewed for background information while writing the novel. Iwasaki later went on to write an autobiography, which shows a very different picture of twentieth-century geisha life than the one shown in Golden's novel Geisha, a Life.

There had been quite a bit of criticism of the book from Japanese readers regarding insensitivity and inaccuracies in portryaing japanese culture, which may be justified, however I gave it 5 stars soley for the reading pleasure. The idea of auctions and geisha's selling their viginity has been claimed to be totally false.

This was the author's first, and I believe, his only novel. I guess he couln't top it and quit while he was ahead. He certainly got enough money from it!

I don't know what to make of this one. I liked the writing, I found the story okay but it was hard to get through. Not that it was bad but just the sexualization of everything had gotten a bit too much.
Apparently, the author made a lot of things up? well ¯_ಠ_ಠ_/¯

There are two distinct schools of thought about this famous novel. One says it’s page-turningly brilliant and the other says it’s pernicious nonsense and dull to boot. Naturally, being very grumpy, I am of the second school of thought. Sophia’s review from 2011 perfectly sums up all the problems

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

So I won’t repeat all her points. I quit on page 138. To begin with I was fairly uneasy about the whole idea of a white Western man writing as an Eastern woman but I still believe an author can’t be confined to their own time & place, that would be absurd. But this was pushing the boat out more than somewhat. In the acknowledgements printed at the back Mr Golden is most respectful of all his great Japanese informants, as well he might be. His main informant sued him for misrepresentation (settled out of court).

SOME OF THE DIALOGUE IS RIDICULOUS

This is a 12 year old girl speaking :

I’m no more a rival to her than a puddle is rival to the ocean.

I’d give anything to undo my mistakes. I’ve waited so patiently in the hopes that some opportunity might come along.

I’m like a river that has come up against a dam, and that dam is Hatsumomo.

Doesn’t sound like any 12 year old girl I ever heard, but maybe they all talked like this in 1920s Kyoto.

BUT MAINLY

Whereas many people in their enthusiastically describe this as compelling, I thought it was really not compelling. I was uncompelled. I was like a river that came up against a dam, and that dam was the remaining 290 pages of Memoirs of a Geisha

”Whatever our struggles and triumphs, however we may suffer them, all too soon they bleed into a wash, just like watery ink on paper. “

n  n
Geisha Mineko Iwasaki basis for Chiyo/Sayori.

Chiyo, with her sister Satsu, and her mother and father live in a shack by the sea on the coast of Japan. The shack leans, and has to be propped up to keep from total collapse. Her mother is sick and on the verge of death. Her father is a fisherman, uneducated, and generally befuddled by anything that doesn’t have to do with his fishing nets. When a businessman from the village comes to them with an offer to take their girls to the city it doesn’t take much to convince the father that nearly any opportunity is better than staying there in the tilted shack by the sea.

He was wrong. Or was he? Without a crystal ball or access to a series of timelines showing the variations created by changing key decisions at critical junctures how can we know?

Satsu, who is fifteen, is promptly placed with a brothel. Not exactly what her father had in mind. I’m sure he was told she would be trained for “domestic service”. Chiyo, who is nine, is deemed young enough to be trained to be a geisha. She is a lovely child with startling rare gray/blue eyes.
n  n
Those Blue Eyes are what set her apart.

The Mother of her geisha house is equally startling in appearance.

”Instead of being white and clear, the whites of her eyes had a hideous yellow cast, and made me think at once of a toilet into which someone had just urinated. They were rimmed with the raw lip of her lids, in which a cloudy moisture was pooled, and all around them the skin was sagging.”

Obvious a bit of a failing liver issue going on here, but wait she is really much more mugly.

”I drew my eyes downward as far as her mouth, which still hung open. The colors of her face were all mixed up: the rims of her eyelids were red like meat, and her gums and tongue were gray. And to make things more horrible, each of her lower teeth seemed to be anchored in a little pool of blood at the gums.”

Okay so Chiyo lets out a gasp. She starts out her new life in trouble.

It doesn’t end there. She is quickly considered a threat to the lovely and vindictive Hatsumomo who is the only fully trained geisha working for the house. Chiyo is accused of stealing (not true). She is accused of ruining an expensive kimono with ink (true but under duress). She is caught trying to escape ( she broke her arm in the process so try and give the kid a break). Well, all of this ends up costing her two years working as a housemaid when she could have been training as a geisha.

She receives an unexpected benefactress, a mortal enemy of Hatsumomo named Mameha decides to take Chiyo under her wing and insure that she has another opportunity to become a geisha.

Chiyo, tired of scrubbing floors and being the do-this and do-that girl of the household realizes her best chance at some form of freedom is to elevate herself.

n  n
The Movie based on this book was released in 2005 and directed by Rob Marshall.

At age 15 her virginity or mizuage is put up for auction. It is hard not to think of this as a barbaric custom, but for a geisha, if a bidding war erupts, she can earn enough money to pay off all the debts that have accumulated for her training. Chiyo, now called Sayuri, is fortunate to have two prominent men wanting to harvest her flower. The winner is Dr. Crab who paid a record amount for the privilege.

”Of course his name wasn’t really Dr. Crab, but if you’d seen him I’m sure the same name would have occurred to you, because he had his shoulders hunched up and his elbows sticking out so much, he couldn’t have done a better imitation of a crab if he’d made a study of it. He even led with one shoulder when he walked, just like a crab moving along sideways.”

Not the vision that any girl would have for her first time, but ultimately it is a business transaction that frees Sayori from the bonds of debt. After the deed is done, the eel spit in the cave, Dr. Crab brought out a kit filled with bottles that would have made Dexter jealous. Each bottle has a blood sample, soaked in a cotton ball or a piece of towel of every geisha he has ever treated including the blood from his couplings for their virginity. He cuts a piece of blood soaked towel that was under Sayori and added it to the bottle with her name.

Ewwehhh! with a head snapping *shiver*.
The cultural obsession, every country seems to have one, with female virginity is simply pathological. Girls can’t help, but be fearful of the process. Not strapped to a table by a serial killer type fear, but still there has to be that underlying hum as the man prepares to enter her. I wonder if men, especially those who avidly pursue the deflowering of maidens, are getting off on that fear? I’ve made myself feel a little queasy now.

Sayori is on her way to a successful career. She is in love with a man called The Chairman and wishes that he will become her danna, a patron, who can afford to keep a geisha as a mistress. There are people in the way, keeping them from being together, and so even though there were many geishas who wished for her level of success she still couldn’t help feeling sad.

”And then I became aware of all the magnificent silk wrapped about my body, and had the feeling I might drown in beauty. At that moment, beauty itself struck me as a kind of painful melancholy. “

It was fascinating watching this young girl grow up in such a controlling environment; and yet, a system that can also be very deadly. One misstep, one bit of scandal, and many geishas found themselves ostracized by the community. They could very easily find themselves in a brothel. During WW2 the geisha community was disbanded, and the girls had to find work elsewhere. Sayori was fortunate. Despite all the hardships I know she was enduring, Arthur Golden chose not to dwell on them in great detail. I was surprised by this because authors usually want and need to press home those poignant moments, so that when the character emerges from the depths of despair the reader can have a heady emotional response to triumph over tragedy.

I really did feel like I was sitting down for tea with Sayori, many years later, and she, as a way of entertaining me, was telling me her life story. Golden interviewed a retired geisha by the name of Mineko Iwasaki who later sued him for using too much of her life story to produce this book. She even had light brown eyes not as striking as Sayori's blue/gray eyes, but certainly light enough to be unusual. I wonder if Iwasaki was still the perfect geisha, keeping her story uplifting, and glossing over the aspects that could make her company uncomfortable.

n  n
Mineko Iwasaki

The book is listed in the 1,001 Books You Must Read Before You Die. It was also made into a film, which I’ve been avoiding, knowing that I wanted to read the book first. I notice some reviewers take issue with Sayori. They feel she did not assert herself, and take control of her life. She does in the end, but she is patient, and waits for a moment when she can predict the outcome. I feel that she did what she needed to do to survive. Most of the time she enjoyed being a geisha. It takes a long time to learn not only the ways to entertain, but also all the rigid traditions that must be understood to be a successful geisha. As she gets older, and can clearly define the pitfalls of her actions, we see her manipulating the system in her favor.

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Very entertaining, but kind of made me gag. Everything was written in this faux-asian "My heart ached like cherry blossom petals floating on the river..." bullshit.

Read as part of The Infinite Variety Reading Challenge, based on the BBC's Big Read Poll of 2003.

There's nothing positive about this book, so let's just go straight in to why it was so bad.

The narrative was unbelievable. And I don't mean "OMGA DID YOU SEE THAT?" kind of unbelievable, I mean it was so unconvincing it was dire. At not point did it feel like a woman, a Geisha, a girl, a human being was telling me a story. It felt so flat and boring and my gosh, she was tedious. She had the emotional range of an egg.

The world description was non-existent. The beginning, when we are in the Japanese countryside, was the only part that was descriptive: we had a lovely house and lovely scenery, and then we moved to Tokyo and all of a sudden it's just grey and stone, and that's it. And oddly empty of people. No atmosphere, no city scenery; it was vague at best. It could have still been happening in the fish factory.

There also needs to be an amendment to the Bechdel Test. 3.1: Two women have a conversation about something that isn't just bitching about other women.

And, whilst I don't agree that "culture" automatically means you forgive something, and I realise it was a different time and a different place, but I don't want to read about creepy old men who creep about pubic hair growing on twelve year olds' vaginas. I just don't.

And I know this is the most unhinged and incoherent review ever, but I also didn't find myself learning anything particular about Geisha. In fact, I'd agree with most other reviewers and say it was far too Westernised and almost Romanticised.

Fun Fact Amendment: All Geisha were originally men. Think about that.



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