3.5 Stars - Great book.

It took me a few chapters to get into the story and the characters – just about everything. The opening is fine but that’s it, just fine. I wasn’t pulled into the story in any way. Mediocre may be too strong of a word for the first three to four chapters but it definitely teeters on mediocre.

There are many different ways to draw me into a book but mostly I have to feel some sort of connection to the characters. I didn’t feel that in the first few chapters here. Honestly, I don’t know why I kept reading but ultimately I’m glad I did.

As for the characters, there’s not one character that I liked but I didn’t necessarily dislike or hate them either (except for Hatsumomo and Mother, those two I despise). Sayuri isn’t even that great of a person, and yet I was rooting for her, even through her stupid mistakes. I think part of the problem with the characters is that the situations they’re in and the culture they’re in are just so different than anything I’ve read before. I must sadly say that my reading experience tends to be heavy on the Western Hemisphere. I think I need to adapt my reading skills to really appreciate characters from other cultures. I say all that, and that doesn’t mean the characters aren’t well written. They are impeccably written and I can see that. I just don’t like the characters as people. I don’t like them but I do respect them, well I respect most of them.

Part of the problem is that the whole subject matter was new to me so I was so focused on grasping certain concepts and understanding the Geisha experience/life that I forgot the little things. So much of the character “issue” is on me. But some of it is on the author because I’m not that terrible of a reader.

One of the good things about the characters were their complex backstories and that for most of them, I could sympathize or at least understand why they were the way they were. For instance, Sayuri’s character development is fascinating to watch. Sure, she isn’t perfect but who is? I can relate to certain feelings of hers and that helps create a bond between myself and the main character. Though, I did always feel a certain disconnect. I will say that the author created someone, in my opinion, that is purely evil - Hatsumomo. I know her circumstances and life may not have always been kind to her but I’m a firm believer that people have choices. They can’t control what happens to them, but they can control how they act. Hatsumomo chose incorrectly. This may be a bit of a stretch but since I just finished Rebecca, I saw some major title characters between the title character and Hatsumomo. Both absolutely beautiful bitches that could fool people into believe they were better people than they actually were - less for for Hatsumomo at the end of the book though.

The writing is fine and really plays to the scenes. By that I mean that when the author needs to be descriptive he uses beautiful, flowery language and when he needs to be more concise he molds his words to do just that. The author really knows how to form phrases and sentences and so on to create scenes. My main issue is that he doesn’t know how to break-up paragraphs. If I was taught anything in school, it’s that you can’t let a paragraph go on for too long because you lose your reader and this book certainly proves that point. It was straining on my eyes and I eventually had to go back over and read some of those arduous passages again.

I thought the ending came up very fast. That is to say, that when Sayuri and the Chairman finally “got together” there were only a few chapters left. And that was even cut short because of Sayuri’s move to New York. I understand that this book is supposed to focus on her life as a Geisha, but I still felt short-changed. When I finished, I can’t say I felt satisfied. It appears that Sayuri is happy, or at least content, with where life eventually brought here but I wasn’t satisfied as a reader. That’s probably because I wanted Sayuri and the Chairman to be together forever, as the cliche goes (even though I never got of the ridiculous age difference. Creeps me out a little) but even as I write it I know that’s just not how the Geisha culture is.

Overall, I can happily recommend this book. It’s a great book and even though I’m not sure I actually liked it I appreciated it and the storyline.

لم يُخلق القبح لحواء ابدا؛لكنها حوصرت بالعبودية دوما
والعبيد هم:الذين يهربون من الحرية؛فاذا طردهم سيد بحثوا عن سيد اخر؛فالعبيد هم الذين يطلبون الحرية اما الاحرار:فيصنعونها

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

So some have issues with this book. Even the former geisha who consulted on it. There was some cultural kerfuffle.

Whatever. It's good. I liked it. Sure, it's no handbook to feminism, but the title is Memoirs of a Geisha, not Memoirs of a Subversive Warrior Lady Light Years Ahead of Her Time.

So. Two very enthusiastic thumbs up. Fine holiday fun.

RTF. I started this before I went on my trip, set it aside and then brought it back out for the long air travel back home. The title is misleading, this is definitely fiction & not a non-fiction memoir, yet the structure of the story was as a memoir as related by the MC to a writer.

I found the Geisha culture pre-WWII to be fascinating and repellant at the same time. As far as the latter, I didn't know that girls were sold to an "agent" to either become a prostitute, maid, or a potential geisha-in-training. In any of those circumstances, it was just another example of slavery as many of the girls had no control over their lives.

This story follows 9 y/o Chiyo/Sayuri as she is taken from her home in a small village to the Gion district and placed in a home (okiya) as a potential future Geisha. Chiyo has unusual eyes and appears to have the right bone structure and facial features to become a successful Geisha. That potential makes the current Geisha in the Okiya fearful of losing her place in the world and she is quite clever & cruel in her machinations to un-rail Chiyo's trajectory in the life. There are quite a few very strong female characters in the story while most of the male characters are relegated to competing for a particular Geisha's time, attention & virginity.

Many reviewers felt the slow pace of the unfolding of the story was a negative; but I thought it brought the reader more fully into the daily lives as the characters which I appreciated.

The Book Report: The politics of the okiya, or geisha house, closely examined through the rise of Chiyo, an unpromising girl sold into slavery by her peasant family, to become Sayuri, a sought-after and renowned geisha in pre-WWII Kyoto.

Chiyo's arrival in the okiya is inauspicious, and her introduction into the horrible world of all-female hatreds and politics comes at a heavy price. She attempts to run away back to the family that sold her into slavery in the first place, which shows that kids don't think in logical patterns; fortunately, she falls off the roof and breaks her arm. Her friendship with a fellow slave, Pumpkin, thus begins, and with it the events that will lead her into rivalry with Hatsumomo, the okiya's lead geisha, and ultimately into her new identity as Sayuri, a full-fledged geisha.

Golden treats us to the full world of geisha, including its roots as slavery and its unpalatable customs, such as misuage, the ritualized and monetized deflowering of barely pubescent girls as a preparatory step to their ascent into geishahood.

Sayuri lives through the tribulations of having only a minimal say in the men she must serve as companion, as hetaira, as whore; she falls in love with one man, whom she cannot, for good reasons, pursue a relationship with; and she uses her wits, her wiles, and her body to survive and thrive during the national trauma of WWII and its aftermath. By the end of the story, Sayuri is a free woman, possessed of a life many many women across the world would envy, and telling us the remarkable and astonishing story of a slave girl's rise to wealth and position.

tt
My Review: Quite a lovely book to read, and really very nicely made. Well, except for that whole missing bit that we like to call “World War Two.” The author spends what, five pages maybe, on the *entire*second*world*war. One whole star off for that, so we're down to four.

Then there's the whole issue of sourcing. Golden interviewed an actual reitred geisha and used her life as a basis for his novel. Nothing untoward there, is there? Well, apparently so...the lady was acknowledged in the book and she was subject to death threats and other reprisals. She sued Golden and the publishers, claiming breach of contract, and got an out-of-court settlement. Then she went on to publish her memoirs! After getting the settlement for having her privacy broached! Oh gross. Greed is a turn-off for me, and so, despite the fact that Golden didn't do jack poop wrong, half a star off. Three and a half, for those counting along.

But the last half star vanished more recently than I read the book (back in 1999). It went away because Arthur Golden's source, Mineko Iwasaki, painted in her memoir a very very different picture of her life and that of a modern geisha than Golden did. Different enough that I felt the novel, representing itself as an accurate portrayal of a geisha's life, was flying false colors. It's fiction, so changing stuff up is normal and acceptable, but the background of the book is what made it interesting, the world of the okiya and its rituals and its rhythms were the *point* of my reading the book...and the source herself, in a polite Japanese way, said “pfui” to it.

And now we're at three stars. All of them, at this point, are for Arthur Golden's pretty, pretty sentences.

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!

Creo que puedo contar con los dedos de las manos los libros que he cerrado con un suspiro de satisfacción, aquellos con un desenlace que roza lo perfecto y, por supuesto, Memorias de una geisha entra en este selecto grupo de mis lecturas.

Lo que entrega esta novela puedo dividirlo en dos aspectos. Por una parte, un acercamiento magnífico a la cultura e historia del Japón de la pre y post Guerra a través de la sufrida vida de una geisha de Gion. El autor nos pasea con crudeza pero también con una exquisita delicadeza narrativa por las casas de té, las casas de geishas y sus abusivos vínculos económicos, la educación de estas jóvenes, la superstición que las envuelve y mucho, mucho más. Me dí cuenta que de este tema no sabía casi nada y lo que sabía... bueno, en su mayoría eran percepciones erróneas. Me enteré también que en su momento este libro causó una fuerte polémica, ya que algunas costumbres no se describían con la suficiente exactitud, pero al menos en mi caso, eso no le quita valor.

Por otra parte, tenemos la novela propiamente tal, con todos los conflictos que rodean la historia personal de Chiyo/Sayuri, desde sus inocentes 9 años, hasta que logra la paz interior (no me atrevo de calificarlo de felicidad) que tanto necesitaba. Con unos personajes antagonistas tan bien dibujados que los llegas a odiar (Hatsumono, sin quien el libro se reduciría prácticamente a la mitad) y a amar (Nobu, quien me causó una profunda pena durante toda la lectura).

Una delicia de libro que recomiendo sobradamente.

n  Reto #44 PopSugar 2020: Un libro ambientado en Japón, anfitrión de los Juegos Olímpicos de 2020n

I am so glad to have re-read this masterpiece.Arthur Golden's exquisite writing effortlessly transports readers to the mesmerizing world of Kyoto's geisha culture. Golden's meticulous attention to detail and seamless interweaving of historical elements into the narrative are commendable. Hatsumomo stands out as one of the most compelling literary villains, embodying pure malevolence. Chiyo’s journey becomes a shared odyssey as she grapples with the hardships of life, tradition, and rivalry. At its core, the narrative is a poignant tale of survival, hope in the face of great adversity, and resilience.
Such beautiful writing! Sheer joy to read.

“Adversity is like a strong wind. I don't mean just that it holds us back from places we might otherwise go. It also tears away from us all but the things that cannot be torn, so that afterward we see ourselves as we really are, and not merely as we might like to be.”

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 is such a beautiful and mesmerising story! Arthur Golden paints a vivid and remarkable picture of the mysterious world of geisha and I'm not surprised it took him six years to write it. Even though the language can get a bit too dramaric in some places, I thought the story was still believable. This book didn't stir so much noise for nothing!

This book was wonderful. I absolutely love the movie, which I now need to watch!



In many ways, this was a sad story for me. I would really like to read a biography of a geisha and watch a documentary to really look into their world.





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We lead our lives like water flowing down a hill, going more or less in one direction until we splash into something that forces us to find a new course.

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Happy Reading!

Mel