A timeless genre picture of a strong woman making the best out of terrible circumstances.

Not just the personal story of the main protagonist is very well written, it´s how Japans´culture and history are shown in a new perspective one wouldn´t have ever thought of because of the stigmas and prejudices the same men haunting the poor women are imposing on them with their conservative, misogynic policy.

The Asian way
Sexist male dominance manifested in many different forms and how the Japanese culture arranged prostitution has hardly ever been described in such memorable words, metaphors, and pictures. The strange thing is that all that glitter and glamour around it, letting it seem cultivated and less primitive, creates the disturbing impression that it´s not as bad as it is, something so cognitive biasy that it´s hard to stomach, understand, and put in context to the cultural impact, especially when comparing the very different approaches towards it around the world.

Prostituion by region
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prostit...
As so often, the Scandinavians set the best, new policies
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prostit...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prostit...
, with „Neo-abolitionism - illegal to buy sex and for 3rd party involvement, legal to sell sex“ (that´s once a word with Neo that is not evil)
thereby making it illegal for the clients to buy sex and not criminalize the prostitutes. That´s an important approach away from victim blaming and slut shaming, the punishment of the female victims, and offender protection that is law in many other bigoted, conservative, sexist states, towards a more enlightened society. Critics like to claim that this would increase sexual violence and rape, but maybe just every sexual offender should be facing life imprisonment without any chance of probation, maybe including permanent chemical castration so that he can´t all the time happily masturbate to his snuff rape fantasies in his cell.

Traditions and culture of exploitation
According to the stereotypical calm, silent, mindful, and introverted Asian mentality, even the sex business is full of ceremonies, traditions, and elements that couldn´t have developed in other cultures with less focus on elegance and aesthetics. Of course, it´s still sick and disgusting, but at least it goes with the option for women to reach a certain status and adds art, culture, and class to the perverted mix.

Talent and obsession
It´s one of the greatest fiction without fantasy novels I´ve read, one of the rare cases when talent meets the lifelong interest of an author in a topic or culture and is distilled to something so amazing that it isn´t exaggerated to say that there might hardly be ever a similar novel written that has the same intensity in dealing with this theme.

Sociocultural impact of prostitution
What´s more bigoted, letting it all seem shiny, noble, and cultivated, hiding it or making it illegal or the open, direct, strangely still somewhat illegal, Western way? There is so much behind this, parts of it already mentioned in „Prostitution by region“, and it would take far too long to mention all the complexity, and especially misogyny, behind it. And who is causing and promoting it for millennia, and I don´t mean the male sex drive alone, but to what institutions, that make sex and love punished, abolished, or dominated by crazy, stupid rules full of sexism, hate, and misogyny, its degeneracy has mutated. The faithful creating hell on Earth for multi k years since the neolithic, first agricultural revolution to install bloody dictatorships, what a slogan.

Drugs
I don´t know if there are hidden implications and innuendos about Western trade traditions, especially how to get bestselling products into the Chinese market,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opium_W...
I don´t get, but it seems quite probable that there is something deep lurking in the big history meta background. However, even without that, and me overanalyzing and seeing things that aren´t there as if high as heck, it´s always a great trope to get someone insane in the membrane to get the plot started, show ones´ brain on whatever, and how people slowly fall to pieces.
t
Subjective insecurity
This is absolutely not my genre, so my impression and subjective review might be more than incompetent regarding established rating standards, but I definitively like this different, character focused style of storytelling that teaches much about foreign cultures. Hopefully, the writer did his research and it´s accurate, because some reviewers seem to be critical regarding this fact. But, as said, I am an absolute amateur in reading protagonist´ focused stuff and just loved the show.

Tropes show how literature is conceptualized and created and which mixture of elements makes works and genres unique:
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.ph...

”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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I read this many years ago but still remember how the story haunted me for weeks after I finished. My notion of a geisha was completely upended as these women, though trained to be hostesses for men, had extraordinary skills and acumen. I appreciated gaining insight into a facet of Japanese culture that was new to me. I was also unprepared for the emotional punch of the story. Highly recommend.

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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In a small Japanese fishing village of Yoroido, on the coast of the Sea of Japan, a child Chiyo Sakamoto 9, lives with an ancient father, dying mother and older sister Satsu in a dilapidated home, leaning over a cliff the year 1929, things are tough and will get harder, as the Great Depression is about to commence...the impoverished family needs help and the two sisters are sold. Pretty Chiyo with beautiful eyes, to become a geisha after a long apprenticeship and the unlucky, plain Satsu, an abused prostitute....In a house that never becomes a home, in the former royal capital of Kyoto, in the section called Gion where most geisha live, and the tea houses to entertain rich men, there the scared girl is under the complete control of three money- hungry women, who show no pity Granny, (she has coins in her heart) the matriarch and her two adopted daughters, Mother the real boss and Auntie, they love nicknames, both are as unfeeling as Granny. The only genuine geisha in residence is stunning Hatsumomo, as beautiful as she is detestable and takes an odd, instant hatred to the little girl and torments her nonstop. One day while doing an errand, the child starts crying in the streets, her miserable life has no joy, a man known as the chairman , the owner of an important electronics business stops and comforts Chiyo, leaving her his monogrammed handkerchief, it will be the most prized possession the girl has, at last someone cares... she falls in love and this will remain forever. After an aborted escape try with her sister, she falls from the roof of a neighbor's house injuring herself, things become even more dismal, Chiyo is demoted to a lowly maid in the house, no more school to learn her profession, to the elation of cruel Hatsumomo. Still life is cloudy and is never foreseen, even the fortune -tellers, the geisha go to often can't predict accurately... the most successful , glamorous, admired geisha in Kyoto , Mameha, becomes her "Big Sister", a mentor that can help any woman rise to the top, how strange. Her name is changed later to "Sayuri", she returns to school, becomes a fine dancer and does a solo at the annual celebrations in the local theater, her poster is painted by a famous alcoholic artist in town, the career prospers, but the chairman, that Sayuri constantly meets in the tea house parties, ( where the men get drunk on Sake, listen to stories told, watch the singing the dancing and music played by the geisha) is rather distant, and doesn't recognize the grown- up woman ... Gruff Nobu, scarred and disabled in a war, the chairman's best friend and second -in -command at the electronics firm, likes Chiyo/Sayuri , he her love can never interfere, too much respect for his colleague, and they are so close, it is a sad, hopeless situation for Chiyo/ Sayuri ... The years roll by, and war is on the horizon, change is coming, it always is...the now renowned geisha, awaits...The most famous, popular, geisha Mineko Iwasaki, now retired, ( one of the characters is based on her, in the novel) greatly helped Mr. Arthur Golden , in research, revealing to him in confidence, the secrets of the mysterious life of these women for the first time much to her later regret...

"I didn't know it at the time..."
"I didn't know it at the time..."
"I didn't know it at the time..."
"I didn't know it at the time..."
"I didn't know it at the time..."
"I didn't know it at the time..."
"I didn't know it at the time..."
"I didn't know it at the time..."
"I didn't know it at the time..."
"I didn't know it at the time..."
"I didn't know it at the time..."
"I didn't know it at the time..."

Kill me.

رواية جميلة ومؤثرة، رغم أنها طويلة ومليئة بالتفاصيل، إلا أنها تفاصيل ممتعة، خصوصًا فيما يتعلق بأسلوب حياة فتيات الغايشا. فالغايشا المتدربة تكون للرقص ولصبِّ الشاي والساكي، أما الغايشا تصبح متوفرة للرجال لخدمات أخرى!. والغايشا تصبح مشهورة ويرتفع اسمها ونجمها عاليًا وتكون مطلوبة في الحفلات عندما يكون لديها دانا يصرف عليها وبذلك تصبح عشيقته. الغاي في كلمة غايشا تعني الفنون، لذا كلمة غايشا تعني الحرفيّ أو الفنّان. فمهنة الغايشا هي الفن والموسيقى والرقص وتسلية الرجال.

رواية عن عبودية المرأة ماديًا وجسديًا وعن عبودية الحب للقلب والروح، بالرغم من أن بطلة الرواية سايوري بيعت هي وأختها لتصبح غايشا، وكذلك يحصل مع أغلب الفتيات الفقيرات في اليابان، إلا أنّ الحب أيضًا استعبد قلبها ومشاعرها لسنين. فلا تدري هل تشفق عليها من الرق الجسدي أو من الحب المعنوي الذي استعبدها!

أسلوب الكاتب سهل سلس وشيق، وصفه الشاعري للأماكن والملابس، والتعبير الذي رسمه للوجوه والمشاعر الإنسانية المختلفة شكّل لوحة جميلة وفريدة استولت عليّ أثناء القراءة.

سيرة مفعمة بالأسى والألم والأمل وبالحبّ والجمال والرومانسية.




اقتباسات



“نحن نعيش حيواتنا كالمياه المتدفّقة على الهضاب في اتّجاه واحد إلى حدّ ما، حتّى نصطدم بشيء يدفعنا إلى أن نجد مسارًا جديدًا”.

“أنّى لنا الهرب من البؤس الكامن فينا!”.

“أجمل لحظات العمر حين يمر فيها شخص، أو حدث، يجعل حياة أحدنا ذات معنى، ويثبت أنّ شيئًا آخر غير القساوة موجود في هذا العالم”.

“حين يختبر أحدنا أمسية أكثر إثارة من غيرها في حياته، يحزن لرؤيتها تنتهي؛ ومع ذلك يشعر بالامتنان لأنّها حدثت”.

“حين تمشي المرأة، عليها أن تترك في من يراها انطباع الأمواج المترقرقة على الرمال”.

“تذكّري أنّ الغايشا المتدرّبة التي تكون على وشك الحصول على “الميزواج” تصبح كالوجبة المقدّمة على المائدة. ولن يرغب أيّ رجل في تناولها إن سمع أنّ رجلًا آخر حصل على قضمة”.

“الحزن أمر غريب، وليس بأيدينا حيلة لمواجهته. إنّه ببساطة كالنافذة التي تُفتح بكامل إرادتها، فيسيطر البرد على الغرفة وتعجز عن الحدّ من الرّجفان. وبرغم ذلك، يتقلّص حجم فتحتها مرّة تلو الأخرى، حتى تصبح غريبة علينا، إلى حدّ لا نعرفها، ونتساءل عمّا حدث لها”.

“القدر ليس دومًا كحفلة في نهاية أمسية ما. وأحيانًا، لا يكون سوى الكفاح في الحياة من يوم إلى آخر”.

“لا نصبح غايشا حتى تكون حياتنا مُرْضية. نصبح غايشا لأنه ما من خيار آخر لدينا”.

“من المؤلم أن نرى أسرارنا قد كُشفت وهُتكت فجأة”.

“صاحب المتجر الذي يترك شبّاكه مفتوحًا لا يحقّ له أن يغضب من المطر الذي قد يُتلف سلعه”.

“أنا لا أسعى إلى هزيمة الرجل الذي أحاربه، بل أسعى إلى أن أهزم ثقته. فالعقل الذي ينشغل بالشّك لا يستطيع التركيز على النّصر”.

“سأتذكّرك كلّما احتجت إلى أن أذكر أنّ في العالم جمالاً وطيبة”.

“المحن هي كالريّاح القوية. لا أعني بذلك فقط أنّها تمنعنا من الوصول إلى أماكن نريدها، بل تقوم أيضًا بتمزيق كلّ الأشياء إلا التي لا يمكن تمزيقها، حتّى نرى أنفسنا في ما بعد على حقيقتنا، وليس تمامًا كما نرغب في أن تكون”.

“الآن، أصبحت أدرك تمامًا أنّ عالمنا ليس ثابتًا أكثر من موجة ترتفع في البحر. مهما كان حجم كفاحنا أو نجاحنا، ومهما عانينا بسببه، سرعان ما سيتلاشى كلّه، كما يتلاشى الحبر المائيّ على الورق”.

I read this book for the Goodreads' book club Diversity in All Forms! If you would like to join the discussion here is the link: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

This is a realistic-fiction story about geishas in Japan. The book is based off of a lot of research the author did and what their lives were like. The book was very good and detailed their everyday experiences. Geisha's whole purpose was to be trained to beguile the most powerful men. Their whole life as a geisha is to be surrounded by men.

Absolutely stunning and flawless.
Promoted to one of my all-time favorite books.

I've no clue how the author wrote this, being that he is not a geisha, not Japanese, not a woman, not from the World War II era, etc., etc.... but it is absolutely incredible.

کتاب فوق العاده ای بود حتما ��یشنهاد می کنم که بخونید

9.4.2020 EDIT:

Okayyyyy so it's horribly embarrassing that I once liked this book but I was also in high school and didn't know anything so I take back all my praise. This book is an awful example of a white man writing an Asian woman's perspective, benefiting financially from doing so, and contributing to the silencing and fetishization of Asian women. T.J. describes it very well in his review: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

This article also does an excellent job of going in-depth about how problematic this book is: https://kyotojournal.org/culture-arts...

I wonder if this book was published today if people would have spoken out about it more like they did about American Dirt. I hope so.


Original review from 2011:


People were skeptical when Kathryn Stockett wrote in the voice of two black women in The Help. Arthur Golden took it to another level when he, a white, middle-aged man, narrated as an orphaned Japanese girl on her way to becoming a geisha.

It worked, though. Even without knowledge of Golden's extensive experience studying Japanese culture and history, the reader is led to believe that the protagonist is telling the story herself. Memoirs of a Geisha transported me to a different era, where superficiality and beauty were more important traits for a women than practicality and intelligence.

I enjoyed the writing style Golden utilized with this book, especially the analogies. Here are two I marked:

"For it's one thing to find your secrets suddenly exposed, but when your own foolishness has exposed them... well, if I was prepared to curse anyone, it was myself... A shopkeeper who leaves his window open can hardly be angry at the rainstorm for ruining his wares."

"Her skin was waxy-looking, and her features puffy. Or perhaps I was only seeing her that way. A tree may look as beautiful as ever; but when you notice the insects infecting it, and the tips of the branches that are brown from disease, even the trunk seems to lose some of its magnificence."

A great read - I am so thankful for my friend who bought me this as a birthday present. Recommended to anyone remotely interested in Japanese culture or the life of a geisha.

*cross-posted from my blog, the quiet voice.

The world of Geisha is a secret and forbidden world. The shell is beautiful and seems to be a life of luxury, but the core is pure suffering. Geisha do not love, they do not choose their fate, and their life is owned by the men they entertain. They are not meant to feel. The very word geisha means moving art. That’s all they’re meant to be. Not humans but paintings. Like a sculpture, beautiful but cold as the stone their made of. Memoirs of a Geisha is a book that is based on a true story and let’s us catch a glimpsetof the world where the women paint their faces and don’t deserve to love.
Based in the 1920’s in Kyoto, Japan a young girl named Chiyo lives with her sister Satsu, in a poor town called Yoriodo along with her sick mother and elderly father.
Her father sells Chiyo and her sister to Mr. Tanaka to be taken to an office where they decide that Chiyo will become Geisha for her good looks and blue eyes but Satsu will be taken to a prostitution house in the pleasure district. Chiyo is taken to the Nitta okiya (Geisha House) to become a Maiko (apprentice geisha). She breaks her leg from trying to run away and her training is stopped. Chiyo is then told that both of her parents have died. She meets the Chairmen of Iwamura Electric Company and falls in love with him. She dedicates her life for him to become her danna (not a husband but similar, the danna gives geisha kimono, and money to afford an apartment. Danna are usually wealthy men). Hatsumomo is the lead Geisha in the Okiya and is jealous of Chiyo’s good looks and the attention she gets. Thus, she treats Chiyo like the dirt she walks on. The only person in the okiya kind to Chiyo is Pumpkin, an aspiring geisha the same age as Chiyo. Her dream is to be adopted by oka-san (owner of the okiya) and be the lead geisha of the okiya. Mameha, a renowned geisha, comes to the okiya to offer to be Chiyo’s onee-san (older sister). She teaches Chiyo all of the secrets to becoming a great geiko or geisha. She is no longer known as Chiyo but, Sayuri. Sayuri meets Mameha’s danna, the Baron. He takes an unusual interest in Sayuri, and when she goes to the cherry blossom festival held at his estate he brings her into his quarters. He presents to her, a beautiful kimono. He offers to give the kimono to her if she merely would take hers off. Sayuri panics and the Baron starts removing her obi. He did not violate her, just merely looked at her. Rumors spread that Sayuri is now a worthless Meiko (Meiko must be virgins for their mizuage; their first sexual experience which is sold to the highest bidder). With her debut not far away Sayuri has to mend all wounds with the patrons who heard the rumors that Hatsumomo spread. The bidding begins and Dr. Crab, one of Sayuri’s patrons, wins her mizuage. Sayuri then becomes a geisha, and unexpectedly is adopted by oka-san and is the head of the okiya. Pumpkin is extremely upset for that was her dream. Sayuri is given yet another name, Nitta Sayuri (taking the name of the okiya is a custom in the geisha world). She then obtains a danna, a general in the army whom she doesn’t really like.
War is declared on Japan. Sayuri’s danna leaves to fight in the war and is killed. Nobu, a patron and good friend, takes Sayuri into hiding in northern Japan. She lives there for years working at a dye factory owned by Nobu’s friend. Nobu comes for her and offers to become her danna. Sayuri, still in love with the Chairman, doesn’t know what to say. Nobu says that before she answers Sayuri and Pumpkin need to entertain a party with an American general to try and make peace. She accepts and tries to look like the geisha she was years before. Nobu clearly doesn’t like the General so Sayuri uses the general to make Nobu hate her. Sayuri tells Pumpkin to bring Nobu to the warehouse later at night. Sayuri brings the General with her and starts to be intimate with him. The door opens and instead of bringing Nobu as Sayuri asked, Pumpkin brought the Chairmen! The Chairmen sees and walks away. Sayuri runs to Pumpkin and asks why she would bring the Chairmen. Pumpkin says that Sayuri stole the one thing that she wanted, to be adopted by oka-san. She took what Sayuri wanted as vengeance.
Sayuri is depressed. She almost certainly lost the one she loved. She gets invited to a small get together and is surprised to find that the only person in the tea house is the Chairmen. He begins by saying that Nobu was supposed to come but heard about what happened and now is livid at her. He continues that he was the one who told Nobu because he understood Sayuri’s intentions. He says that Pumpkin explained and begins to kiss Sayuri. He confesses his love to her and offers to become her danna.
A danna is not a husband. Danna’s are usually married and have a geisha as a mistress. No matter how much she would like to marry the Chairmen she can’t. Sayuri moves to America because of a feud with who would inherit the Iwamura Electric Company, the Chairmen’s son-in-law married to the daughter he had with his wife or a rumored son with his mistress, Sayuri. She moves to New York and the Chairmen visits regularly.
The book ends with Sayuri saying that the day Mr. Tanaka took her away was the worst and best day of her life. She says, “As a young girl I believed my life would never have been a struggle if Mr. Tanaka hadn’t torn me away from my (house Yoriodo). But now I know that our world is no more permanent than a wave rising on the ocean. Whatever our struggles and triumphs, however we may suffer them, all too soon they bleed into a wash, just like watery ink on paper.”
I would highly recommend reading this book. It’s a window into a different world and makes you admire but pity the geisha. ‘Memoirs of a Geisha’ is an empowering novel that every person should read to appreciate what they have.