Ich glaube, wenn ich hiernach noch mal Memoirs of a Geisha lesen würde, würde ich dem Buch sehr viel weniger Sterne geben, weil ich jetzt so vieles mehr weiß durch diese Autobiographie.

Iwasaki's account of her life as a geisha is captivating. It is filled with interesting information about the trade, and history of Japan as well. I noticed that Iwasaki tells her story with much pride bordering almost to being too self-confident. She clearly speaks her mind and "gallantly" attacks the old -age traditions of Gion Kobu - even the table manners of Queen Elizabeth.

First, I would like to urge anyone who wants to learn more about geisha - READ THIS BOOK INSTEAD OF MEMOIRS OF A GEISHA. The author of that, Arthur Golden, interviewed Mineko Iwasaki and twisted her tales into falsities, making it seem that geisha were high class prostitutes. This is not the case - oiran, a high class courtesan, sold their bodies, not geisha. In fact, Iwasaki was extremely upset when she realized Golden had twisted her facts on the life of being a geisha, and decided to write her factual and realistic account. Her memoir reads as a beautiful balance between her personal recollections and facts on geisha (or the term used specifically in Kyoto, geiko) life in the 60s-70s. I expected a pretty basic factual account, but was pleasantly surprised by Mineko's escapades - hiding in the closet as a kid, working her hardest to embrace her passion for dancing, chasing down the pervy men who harassed her. Put straightforward, Mineko Iwasaki is a bad ass, and I would love to meet her one day if possible. I highly recommend this memoir for anyone interested in personal stories, the lives of geisha or how Japanese society functioned in the 1950s through 1970s. 4.5/5 stars.

Certainly a necessary read after Memoirs of a Geisha for a more rounded history of the geisha community in Japan however I'm otherwise left with a sense that the memoir was lacking.

We are constantly told about Iawasaki's natural success in her new life in Gion, her more or less instant acclimatization to the demands of training to become a geiko. But the narrative lacks the emotional connection and nuance I was looking for. I would've enjoyed reading more about the training and the details of day-to-day of working geiko, rather than the approach Iwasaki took which was more broad.

I certainly enjoyed the little digs on Golden's novel and Iwasaki correcting misconceptions the novel perpetuated. However, the memoir felt like it was missing depth and instead read as a general recount of Iwasaki's life without any emotional poignancy. Unfortunately for Iwasaki, the memoir is loaded with arrogant undertones, and with her being the most successful geiko in Japan certainly lends itself to a level of arrogance, but as a reader I couldn't connect with this, because we're told she's immediately successful, but not shown. We aren't shown her conversational ability with clients, and what made her so unique and so her arrogance seems to simply be an unappealing part of her personality, rather than the confidence of a successful woman who's worked incredibly hard her whole life. I would've liked to have read more about the fundamental changed Iwasaki campaigned for as well, what was she trying to uproot in Gion and why? This wasn't really explored all that much despite being a main theme.

Overall, a well-worth read but not as good as I was expecting. I appreciate the extra context it provided when read with Memoirs in mind. For me, I think both are worth reading together, Memoirs for the excellent writing and wonderfully crafted story, and Geisha for the necessary facts about geisha life.

I started reading this as a memoir and realized my mistake because I was yearning for more emotion, more of an understanding of the narrator. I should have been reading it as an autobiography instead though, because it certainly has the texture of the traditional autobiography (rumors are, it was ghost-written). There is a lot here about the Japanese culture and the pictures really help you place the descriptions.

Mineko Iwasaki tells the story of her life as a geisha in Japan. Written after the famous Memoirs of a Geisha, there is much speculation (even an alleged lawsuit) about the nonfiction being written as a rebuttal to the novel. In an online interview with Golden about his novel, it is alleged that he had a fax that shows how the geisha asked him to put her face out there more, which leads you to believe that once the book became a hit with millions of dollars, she wanted more. Golden created composite characters and different settings and scenarios so that the novel could read like fiction, thus honoring the protection-of-privacy deal he'd had with the real-life geisha. In the end, she seemed to dislike the fictional portrayal.

What I didn't like was the anger and chiding that loomed throughout the autobiography. The author wanted people to know that geishas are not what they seem. Yes, we get it. It was the way in which she wrote it though, that was off-putting: "We are de facto diplomats who have to be able to communicate with anyone. But this doesn't mean we are doormats." Statements like this wouldn't have been necessary to say had she just shown it.

And then there is the chiding: "This is why the whole notion of geisha houses being dens of ill repute is so ridiculous. Men are barely allowed inside..." There were not a lot of scenes of the geisha entertainment; instead, the author and her translator chose to focus on the dancing and dance lessons. Besides talking about her long-term relationship with a married man and some meetings with royalty, she doesn't really go into a lot about the entertaining.

After reading Arthur Golden's well-written, Memoirs of a Geisha, and feeling some sympathy for the orphan girl forced into that life, reading this true story was a bit difficult, since the real geisha insists that it was her choice, at five years old, to leave her parents, that she could visit them at any time, and that she had the upper hand at her geisha house. Really?

4,25 sterren- Nederlandse paperback

Yeeah ... Mineko Iwasaki unfortunately comes off as very unlikeable in this book. The overtone that she is trying to prove something (that Arthur Golden was "wrong" [even though he was writing fiction, which I feel she should understand, since she knows everything about art and all?]) is very, very strong. Like way too strong. Like it kind of made me laugh. It just didn't read well at all.

I would love to have read more about how Mineko challenged the system (like she claims she did, but never says exactly how) instead of about how amazing she was and that everybody loved her and that these the way Arthur Golden portrayed geisha in Memoirs of a Geisha is WRONG. (Even though the ambiguity and mystery of geisha is part of their aesthetic... I wish she would have gone into this more.)

Even from the first few chapters I wasn't sure if I believed that her account is really "true." It just feels so off. Like, she keeps repeating that she insisted on not drinking sake until she was at drinking age, with lots of strange side stories to back this up, and the way-too-detailed and uninteresting story of how she lost her virginity to a man she truly loved of her own free will, and it was wild and beautiful and perfect, and blabla...which was obviously in there to challenge Arthur Golden's statement that she told him her virginity was auctioned for the equivalent of $850,000, which he also claims he has on tapes he recorded when he interviewed her for his book in 1992. Strange.

Anyway. It was way too stilted to feel like a real, genuine account to me. Even if it is, her tone and presentation made it feel like it wasn't.

I loved Memoirs of a Geisha, both the movie and the book. So when I found out that the Geisha on whom the book was based on or rather inspired from, has written an autobiography. Apparently, Ms Mineko Iwasaki was very upset over the way Geisha’s were portrayed by Arthur Golden and that he breached an understanding that her name was not to be mentioned anywhere, but he did, in the book as well as in interviews. She also got death threats from people who thought she had defaced Japanese culture. So she decided to write a book of her own.

Iwasaki’s parents were distraught when she decided to become a Geisha when she was just 5 years old. How a girl so young could make such a decision and how could the parents agree to it is something beyond me, even though she has tried to explain it. She goes to stay in an Okiya (a geisha house) and she is initiated into the trainings and numerous classes when she turns six.

A woman who is training to become a Geisha has a very disciplined life. There is traditional dancing, singing, playing instruments and also studying. Would-be Geisha’s are allowed to study until Junior High, in fact it’s kind of a rule.

Iwasaki excels in dancing and she is introduced as a maiko when she is 15 years old. After a few years of working as a maiko she becomes a geiko at age 21, which are the same names for a Geisha, just different hierarchies. She soon becomes one of the top geisha’s in Gion. In fact, today she almost has a legendary status.

What surprised me most was how systematic and well organized the world of a Geisha is. There is a list of all the girls that are going to come out as maiko’s. There is a Kimono Dealers association. There is a very strict hierarchy which if broken can result in serious consequences. The earnings of all the geisha’s are reported to the Geisha Committee (I think that’s whats it is), so everyone knows who the highest earning geisha for a particular year is.

The Geisha world itself is so complicated or may be I felt that way because I had not heard a lot about it. There is a rule of what kind of and what design a Kimono can have depending on seasons. Same goes for hairstyles and ornaments. It was exhausting just reading about it.

It is very clear that Ms Iwasaki loved and respected what she did and she has tried to dispel all the myth’s regarding geisha’s. She often sounds a bit egoistic and someone that could do no wrong. But we also need to understand the world she lived in, a world when no one, including one’s sister cannot be trusted. She lived by the motto: The Samurai betrays no weakness, even when starving. Pride above all. I can understand how easily pride can be mistaken for ego in the geisha world.

There are lots of minute details on a lot of things like the music school, the dance school, the different kinds of geisha’s, the customs and traditions. There are also descriptions on Kimono designs, hair ornaments and the kind. For e.g take this:
My Kimono was made out of figured satin in variegated turquoise. The heavy hem of the train was dyed in shades of burnt orange, against which floated a drift of pine needles, maple leaves, cherry blossoms and chrysanthemum petals. My obi was made of black damask decorated with swallowtail butterflies. I wore a matching obi clasp of a swallowtail butterfly fashioned out of silver.

There are many passages like these which some people may find dry and boring. But I loved them, it helped me immerse myself in the book more. In fact 2 days after finishing this book I struggled with picking up another that was as engrossing as this one.

If I have to compare this book with Memoirs of a Geisha, I would say both are very different from each other. In Memoirs of a Geisha, we get a young, naive and endearing Sayuri, where as here we get a strong willed, dedicated Mineko. Arthur Golden seems to have picked the main storyline from one of the minor characters and mixed it with Iwasaki’s story to make it more dramatic. If you are looking for a “Memoirs of a Geisha” kind of book, you will be disappointed. But both are brilliant in their own way, one as page turning fiction and one as a real look into the Japanese culture. The simple fact that Geisha, A Life is a true story gives it a different feel altogether.

Quello di Golden era bello ma questo è superiore. Se a Golden ho dato 5☆ a questo metto 5☆ con lode o extra.
Stupendo. Assolutamente stupendo. Non so che dire. Sicuro mi ha insegnato anche cose che ancora non conoscevo. Consiglio. :)

Be careful, the following text may contain spoiled wom- oh wait, spoilers.

"No woman in the three-hundred-year history of the karyukai has ever come forward in public to tell her story." Well, now I think they had a damn good reason for this.

The story is written in simple, almost primitive wording, which is not necessarily a bad thing, in fact it seems to be some form of national tradition, as I have never yet read a Japanese book which had been done in an elaborate, complicated 'nabokovish' manner. So I was okay with the form. The content? Not so much. The book is resembling a geisha pretty well in that regard.

Throughout the reading I was often thinking about how the illusionist should never disclose the secrets behind his tricks. Until now I have always thought about women of this strange profession as some exotic, mysterious creatures, too otherworldly to understand you and to worry about such a fact. And, amusingly enough, that is the exact same thing they intend for you to believe, just like an illusionist. And that's okay, as long as you are not aware of the sheer hollowness and stale artificiality hiding behind it all.

I understand the book is an answer to another story the author was offended by, but I cannot imagine what the poor guy could have written that was deemed more abhorrent than this. Dear Mineko here is saying plain and simply that her fellow comrades were not above sleeping with the clients, which seemed to be her main complain about the Memoirs. The lady geiko's self contradicting nature is punctured throughout the whole story with stubborn frequency.

Mineko is arrogant and stupid, a pair of features that are very dangerous while combined together. Though her personality was solely created by the circumstances and the nurture, but hey. Isn't it so for everyone? So yes, she was arrogant and stupid, and her saving grace happened to be the beauty. I won't even mention all the ridiculous stuff she and the other women of this cohort were constantly doing, I wanted to at the beginning but it seems too troublesome now, because almost every damn page had something silly and ridiculous.

Many times Mineko is repeating for us what a hardworker she was, and it's true, though I can hardly imagine how you can stay bloody well looking when you sleep on the wooden pillow to preserve the hair one hour per day. But all this incredible effort was for all the wrong, hollow reasons, and we can hardly respect her for that as we are apparently supposed to. I really hope that it's true and the karyukai are currently being busy outliving itself.

The culture Iwasaki reveals is more than enough for me to give her a pass on the somewhat stilted writing - she isn't an author by trade, after all.

I especially enjoy the fact that she pretty much wrote this as a big "fuck you" to Arthur Golden, who ignored her request for anonymity when she helped him with Memoirs of a Geisha; it's worth noting that Golden also misrepresented many facts about the life of geisha in general.

I could not handle such a career - the lack of good sleep for such a long period alone is enough to make me cringe sympathy.

Cuando Arthur Golden se estaba documentando para escribir su archiconocida novela “Memorias de una geisha”, entrevistó a nueve geikos de Gion, entre ellas a Mineko Iwasaki, con la condición de que no revelara su identidad. Golden incumplió su palabra e incluyó a Iwasaki en los agradecimientos del libro, pero no solo eso, si no que había moldeado una historia que corría paralela a la vida de Iwasaki, pero a la que dotó de connotaciones negativas y falsas, desvirtuando por completo el oficio de las geishas. Cuando el libro se publicó en 1997, Mineko Iwasaki empezó a recibir amenazas de muerte por no haber respetado el código de silencio de las geishas y, además, se ofendió por el uso que Golden había hecho de su biografía, así que le demandó por incumplimiento de acuerdo, difamación y violación del copyright y comenzó a escribir su verdadera historia, que salió a la luz en 2002 y es este libro del que hoy estoy hablando. El juicio entre ella y Golden, por cierto, se resolvió en 2003 con un acuerdo amistoso.

Yo leí “Memorias de una geisha” hace mucho tiempo, allá por 2005, y me gustó mucho, me pareció una historia muy trepidante y apasionante y la devoré en pocos días. Pero claro, mi visión de las geishas pasó a ser confusa, porque tenía entendido que no eran prostitutas y el libro de Golden afirmaba todo lo contrario. Más tarde investigué, quería tenerlo claro, y resulta que existen grandes diferencias entre lo real y lo que Golden contó, así que mucho cuidado si os aventuráis a leer su libro, porque la trama engancha y el salseo está servido, pero no se puede tomar como un documento histórico veraz.

Lo que hace Mineko Iwasaki en su novela es contar su vida hasta que se retiró y limpiar la profesión de geisha. Nos explica cómo funciona todo, las fases por las que atraviesa una aprendiz (maiko) y las vicisitudes del oficio; cómo se gestiona una ochiya (casa de geishas); habla de aprendizaje, rivalidad y amistad; aclara qué es realmente el mizuage y afirma que lo que contó Golden es falso y que eso de pujar por la virginidad de la geisha se llegó a hacer en algunos círculos reducidos, pero no era la práctica habitual y que se prohibió del todo en 1959, cuando Japón ilegalizó la prostitución. Nos dice que la traducción de “geisha” es “artista” y que en los años en que ella ejerció la profesión (décadas de los 60 y 70 del siglo XX), su trabajo era entretener, servir, tocar el shamisen y danzar en recepciones, tanto de hombres como de mujeres o mixtas, y que no había nada sexual por en medio. Básicamente, un espectáculo o intercambio cultural que incluso las geishas casadas pueden seguir ejerciendo. El tema de los benefactores de geishas, que también fue algo muy criticado en el libro de Golden, tampoco es como él lo contó, porque él daba a entender que un hombre se obsesionaba con una geisha y se ponía en modo baboso, la mantenía, le compraba cosas… y resulta que en realidad los benefactores pueden ser hombres, mujeres o grupos, y sus donaciones van a parar a un fondo de la ochiya que sirve para mantener ésta y a todo el personal que trabaja ahí (maikos, geishas, limpiadoras, cocineras, mantenimiento…). Es una inversión para proteger y sustentar este modo de vida.

Se puede decir que, mientras ejerció, Iwasaki tuvo una vida apasionante, porque conoció a grandes personalidades internacionales, como el director Elia Kazan, Isabel II de Inglaterra, Elizabeth Taylor… O celebridades a nivel nacional, entre los que se incluyen políticos, gente influyente de las finanzas o el actor Shintaro Katsu, con quien mantuvo una peculiar relación amorosa. Su vida en esa época fue un cúmulo de fiestas, viajó por todo el mundo, ganó muchísimo dinero, participó en películas, anuncios, campañas publicitarias… Fue la geisha más famosa de su tiempo y en Japón es toda una celebrity muy respetada aún hoy. Si buscáis una foto suya de cuando estaba en activo, corresponde al ideal de geisha perfecta que todos tenemos en la cabeza. Pero en la novela también cuenta que no todo era tan de color rosa, que era una vida cansada en la que siempre tenía que estar perfecta, sonriente y locuaz; trabajaba todos los días y a diario se desplazaba a cantidad de fiestas y recepciones, además de ofrecer espectáculos en teatros. En varias ocasiones sufrió crisis de agotamiento y ansiedad por las que tuvo que ser incluso hospitalizada, así como afecciones de riñón que casi le llevan a perder uno de estos órganos. También da a entender que conocer a tantos famosos le acabó dando igual, que llegó un punto en que se limitó a hacer su trabajo. Se vislumbra cierta toxicidad, asuntos turbios, invitados que abusaban de las drogas y el alcohol… En fin, que nada era tan idílico como parecía y esa vida que parecía apasionante era en realidad una fachada del agotamiento y la desolación que Iwasaki estaba experimentando. Y en los albores de los años 80, a los 29 años de edad, agotada de todo y habiendo perdido la fe en el sistema de los karyukai, se retiró para formar una familia, creando con ello un gran impacto en la sociedad japonesa.

Lo que más me interesó del libro y me gustó es todo lo que cuenta acerca del funcionamiento de las ochiya y la forma de vida de maikos y geishas, pero en general es una obra que me ha dejado un sabor agridulce y creo que es por cómo está escrita. La narración me ha resultado fría y la transición entre escenarios y momentos es muy abrupta; nada expresa un sentimiento profundo, a veces parece un cúmulo de datos. Algunas cosas resultan un poco repetitivas y, otras, que me parecían muy interesantes, se resuelven en dos líneas. La propia Iwasaki me ha parecido un tanto prepotente en ocasiones; sí comenta algunos errores que comete a lo largo de su carrera, pero en general se pinta bastante perfecta. Por ejemplo, cuando tenía tres años ingresó en la ochiya y en el libro narra conversaciones que tenía con geishas y maikos en ese momento y que me parece extraño que recuerde tan bien y en las que, además, siempre sale victoriosa, con un lenguaje y forma de comportarse que no corresponden en absoluto a una niña de esa edad. Hechos como este me han ensombrecido la lectura porque me cuesta creer algo así. Se nota mucho que Iwasaki escribió esta novela en caliente, con un sentimiento de venganza hacia Golden, y eso le hace un flaco favor, ya que es lo que la hace parecer brusca. O también puede parecer así de fría porque acabó muy cansada de su vida como geisha y por eso tal vez no transmite sentimiento en su novela, donde llega a un punto en que expone más el peso de la fama que otra cosa. O que simplemente no es escritora y la estructura del libro es desigual debido a esto, porque salseo hay, pero es una narradora tan aséptica que no lo parece. También debo decir que los paralelismos que Iwasaki afirma detectar en la obra de Golden entre su biografía y el personaje ficticio de Sayuri, no me han parecido tan evidentes.

El caso es que me quedo así, con esos sentimientos encontrados. Y sé que es un libro que me va a hacer pensar y que probablemente vaya mutando mi opinión sobre él, pero de momento me quedo un poco entre dos aguas.

3,5 estrellas