For people who don't know about Japanese culture maybe geisha for them has 'negative' image.
But it's all wrong. Geisha don't sell their body. They sell arts!
And this book tells the very detail about Geisha and their life.
Geisha really are the real artist! They learn various traditional Japanese culture since they were very young.
And being Geiko (Geisha) is not an easy thing. They have to take so many lessons, performing those arts (dancing, singing, playing traditional music instruments, etc) while wearing heavy kimono. The kimono itself can weigh 30-40 pound!
The author is a really amazing person. I can imagine who hard it is to be a success Geisha like her.
This book is a MUST READ book for people who love Japanese culture.
And I'm so proud of Japan because of those beautiful cultures!
本当に素晴らしい本なんです！(((o(*ﾟ▽ﾟ*)o)))

Mineko Iwasaki’s autobiography GEISHA, A LIFE (GEISHA OF GION in the UK) doesn’t break any new ground in describing the unique and strange way of life of the “flower and willow world” that exists in the Gion area of Kyoto. Iwasaki provides some interesting detail about the daily life, training education and schedule of a geisha (more appropriately called geiko in Gion) and much of it has the authenticity of a first-person account. Iwasaki lived this life and her recollection seems bona fide. The only part that seems creatively written is the beginning – there is nothing as irritating as when an author claims to remember events and conversations from their youth. Iwaskai claims to remember specifics of her childhood from when she was younger than the age of three! The first several chapters seem wildly unlikely.

The story picks up when, at the age of six, Iwasaki is adopted by the okiya and begins her intense training. Iwasaki loves to dance and is determined to accept nothing less than excellence in her performance. Iwasaki’s efforts to master the traditional arts of tea ceremony and dance and entertainment are admirable. Her descriptions of the kimono and other accoutrement required of the geisha are enlightening and demanding. The act of sliding open a door and entering a room has about 12 different and unique steps – screw up one step and the whole evolution is ruined. Iwasaki is determined to be perfect in a highly demanding and exact series of arts.

The problem is that Mineko Iwaski doesn’t come across as a very likeable person. I didn’t feel any affection for this person whatsoever and her constant pronunciation of herself as “the best” and “most famous” and “Number 1” geisha in all of Kyoto gets very tiresome and seems contradictory to the humility that is supposed to characterize the Japanese personality and the geisha culture especially. Iwasaki doesn’t seem to have much insight as to how her actions controvert the principles of obedience and service that she espouses. This whole book is a violation of the geisha code of silence and discretion – Iwasaki tells very detailed anectdotes about celebrities including some very unflattering stories about members of the British royal family. Iwasaki is shocked and offended by the “rude” behavior of Queen Elzabeth at a dinner (she just sat there and didn’t eat anything, which is a terrible etiquette infraction according to Iwasaki). The geisha ends the chapter with the sentence “As far as I’m concerned, there is never an excuse for bad behavior”. The very next chapter is a description of her five-year affair with a married actor and her violent and destructive tantrum when she discovers that he was lying to her about divorcing his wife. Iwasaki doesn’t see her destruction of a fur coat and her lover’s family pictures as an example of her own bad behavior.

Similarly, Iwasaki doesn’t see her abandonment of the okiya and her decision to destroy it and build an apartment building and open a nightclub as anything other than an expression of her independence. Her actions seem hypocritical and selfish.

While reading GEISHA, A LIFEI was reminded of another very similar (fiction) book and movie, MEMIORS OF A GEISHA. Many of the anecdotes and details of life in Kyoto and Gion in particular seemed almost identical between the two stories. Apparently, Arthur Golden, the author of MEMIORS OF A GEISHA interviewed Iwasaki for research and appropriated many of the details of her life into his novel. Iwasaki was reportedly furious that Golden had exaggerated and actually misrepresented some of the elements of her story and sued him for breach of contract and defamation. Golden has listed Iwasaki as a reference for the book, when, according to Iwasaki, she had been promised anonymity. The revelations of geisha life in Golden’s book resulted in a backlash and death threats against Iwasaki.

This autobiography is reportedly Iwasaki’s attempt to set the record straight, yet in my opinion, she comes across as churlish and calculating with no reluctance to expose the secrets and of her clients or other geisha.

Well, I'm now out to read any book that claims to be informative of the geisha life. What I got from this book is the realization that I'll probably never know how it really is inside any geisha district past or present because of the "guarded secrets" of the lifestyle. I'm not so sure I believe Iwasaki's telling the whole truth about things that occur in the karyukai or if she is, I'm not so sure they didn't occur in sometime not so far distant from when she, herself was in Gion. Just because there are laws does not mean people do not disobey them, sometimes almost flagrantly, especially in Japan where a lot of their laws were imposed upon them by the American occupiers after WWII. Anyhow, I find it all very frustrating and would like to just pull a socio-anthropologist move and set myself up there as an impostor geisha to find out just what is expected of me by my house and the community at large and what was once expected or observed by past geisha and up to what point exactly in history. But alas... that's not going to happen. So I'll continue to read the accounts of others.

Das Buch bietet einen guten Einblick in die Geishakultur und einige Aspekte der japanischen Kultur wie z.B. das Verhalten gegenüber Älteren, Musikinstrumente etc. Es soll außerdem Mineko Iwasaki's Antwort auf Arthur Golden's "Die Geisha" sein, da es sie wohl gestört hat das einige Dinge falsch dargestellt wurden. Man erkennt auch immer wieder wie wichtig es ihr war vorallem den Unterschied von Geisha und Konkubine zu erläutern. Jedoch hat mich während des Lesens immer wieder Mineko's Persönlichkeit gestört. Sie wirkt meist sehr arrogant und ignorant, beschwert und beschimpft andere und musste immer wieder darauf hinweisen wie talentiert, beliebt und perfekt sie war in allen Dingen die sie anfing, sodass jeder eifersüchtig wurde.

"Die wahre Geschichte der Geisha" ist allerdings nur für Leute zu empfehlen die sich auch für Japan und insbesondere Geishas interessieren. Denn im Gegensatz zu "Die Geisha" kommt hier kaum Spannung auf, da der Schwerpunkt bei anderen Dingen liegt. Man legt eher Wert darauf Tänze, Kimonos, Haarfrisuren etc. zu erläutern. Unterstützt wird dies durch einige schöne Bilder.

I have read a few books on Geisha's and always found them interesting so when I saw this recommended on a forum I ordered it. I thought it was a really good insight in to the Japanese culture, customs and traditions. What really came across was Mineko's self discipline and work ethic and on reflection of her career how important it was to dispel the myth of a what a Geisha actually does.
I enjoyed this book and read it in two large chunks and the photographs included really added to the images formed. A book I would certainly recommend to anyone who has ever looked at the stunning pictures of these women and just wondered.

I'd give this 2.5 if I could but it doesn't deserve a three. The author is stuck up, spoiled and full of herself. She Disparages both the Queen of England and Prince Charles for trivial things that a normal person would never even consider. She acts like shes better than everyone around her and bosses people around from a young age. She spends the entire book slamming the entire geisha system and is terribly offended that everyone doesn't change and do her things her way instead. If you're reading this because this is the woman that memiors of a geisha is based off of I wouldn't bother, Very little of her life was directly used in the book and most that was has been changed around so you may not catch it anyway. Mineko is nothing like Sayuri in any way. I spent most of this book being kind of disgusted at her holier than thou attitude. At one point when shes a child she takes off her shoe and expects another little girl to scratch her toe for her!!

Parsteidzoši un nedaudz skumji, bet ļoti, ļoti interesanti. Šis bija lielisks ieskats japāņu kultūrā un sadzīvē. Greznie, veselu bagātību vērtie kimono, stingrās dejošanas nodarbības, miega trūkums, plikpaurība, ko izraisījušas tradicionālās geišu frizūras, konkurence, dīvainās japāņu paražas, kas regulē sieviešu un vīriešu attiecības... Mūžīgā cīņa par to, ka geišas nav nekādas kurtizānes, bet sievietes, kas pārdod savu mākslu, nevis savu miesu. Bet pāri visam apliecinājums sievišķajam spēkam.

Es priecājos, ka izlasīju šo grāmatu, jo par šo noslēpumaino pasauli man bija tikai aptuvens priekšstats. Grāmatu papildina arī fotomateriāli no autores foto arhīva, kas ļāva gūt padziļinātāku ieskatu.

Sākumā gan mazliet pieguru no japāņu vārdiem, baidījos ka pazaudēšos visos maiko, geiko, okiju, iemoto terminos un personvārdos, taču beigās viss aizgāja pareizajās sliedēs.

this book is written by the woman that Memoris of a Geisha is partially based on.
I liked this book more than Memoirs of a Geisha as truth is always more interesting than fiction.

MI OPINIÓN PERSONAL

Mineko Iwasaki denunció a Arthur Golden por haber adulterado la información que ella le dió, por eso decidió hacer su propio libro contando su verdadera historia. Permite conocer el mundo de las Geishas tal y como es. Me pareció una lectura muy interesante.

¿Lo habéis leído?

3.5

A prominent geisha breaks a taboo by revealing the lifestyle and traditions of a geisha. The story uses anecdotes to tell all stages of her life from her introduction into the life of a geisha to her success and early retirement.

Completely honest at the expense of herself and various others, the storytelling is witty, courageous and direct. Some stories are so cringeworthy when she reflects back on certain moments of personal growth.

Several preconceived ideas about geishas have been debunked having read this book.

I would recommend this book to anyone who likes culture, autobiographies and stories about experience.

I'd vaguely remembered hearing/reading something (maybe on NPR or 50bookchallenge posts) about Mineko Iwasaki, the prime source & inspiration for Arthur Golden's Memoirs of a Geisha: A Novel, being disappointed with the portrayal of the geisha life in that novel, and therefore, she had written her own memoirs. So I checked this book out from the library and I now see where her concerns lie.

Mineko (born Masako Tanaka) joined the Iwasaki okiya as a child, due to some family issues. She was fascinated by the dance, striving to reach perfection as the only way to make everything right. She debuted as a minarai, or apprentice geisha, at an unusually young age and worked herself nearly to death for the next few years. As she matured, she became one of the most popular geisha of the Gion area. Eventually, she started to burn out and made the decision to end her career rather early. Falling in love may have had something to do with her decision as well.

The two sections of pictures were very helpful to identify certain elements of the dress, as well as get a feel for the flow of her life. The writing style is relatively plain and straightforward, what I would expect of an autobiography, as opposed to a work of fiction. Some of the fine points of the social standings and rituals got a little confusing, however.

It was interesting to read these two books back to back - seeing what small incidences in Iwasaki's life Golden chose to modify into major plot elements, and vice versa. For example, Golden chose to move his story back one generation (Iwasaki was born in 1949), probably in order to add WWII as a dramatic plot point. The attribution of a certain ritual of the oiran (courtesans) to the geishas was probably what made Iwasaki upset. (and I wouldn't blame her!)

Recommended to anyone looking for a more realistic portrayal of the waning "flower and willow world" of the geisha.