Memoirs of a Geisha: A Novel

This book feels like a dictated biography . I knew nothing of this culture. Excellent

It's been many years since I first read this book - when it debuted and then was made into a movie. Long enough that I had forgotten much about it. So it was like coming to read it with new eyes. With life experiences also came a new understanding and appreciation for all that Sayuri endured while keeping a very private dream alive . Artfully written, this is still a wonderful story that all will enjoy.

This book has been sitting on my "to be read" shelf for a long time, mainly because the teeny tiny little print that fills the pages to within half a centimeter of the edge filled me with trepidation at the apparently insurmountable task ahead. Fortunately, I took the coward's way out and watched the movie first, and this gave me the boost I needed to get started. Watching the movie first allowed me to put faces to the names, and to witness almost firsthand the intricacies of the rituals that are so intimately described in the book.Suffice to say that I was completely captivated from Chapter one, and was even reluctant to put it down at the end. The novel tells the story of a young Japanese girl named Chiyo who is taken from her village in the 1930s and sent to Gion, to an okiya or geisha house. Her sister Satsu is also taken, but lacking Chiyo's striking beauty, she is sent to a house of ill repute. At first Chiyo dreams of finding Satsu and running away from Gion, but later realizes that this is never going to happen.The resident geisha at her okiya is a jealous and arrogant woman named Hatsumomo, who sabotages Chiyo's progress towards becoming a geisha herself, leaving Chiyo in the unenviable position of being a maid for the rest of her life. Fortunately for Chiyo, a chance encounter with a wealthy businessman (known as the Chairman) opens new doors for her and this brief meeting changes the course of her life forever.Soon, Hatsumomo's rival, an extremely popular and successful geisha named Mameha decides to take Chiyo under her wing as her little sister, and after the usual haggling over fees and royalties is completed, Chiyo finally gets her chance to continue her geisha training. An intense and vicious rivalry develops between the geisha "tag teams" of Hatsumomo and her trainee Pumpkin, and Mameha and Chiyo, who then assumes the geisha name Sayuri.With the threefold purpose of defeating Hatsumomo, winning a wager, and paying off Sayuri's debts, Mameha orchestrates a bidding war between rich men for the apparently acceptable privilege of deflowering her young apprentice, the financial results of which set a new record in geisha history at the time.Just when things seem to be settling down nicely, two events shatter the relative calm, and Sayuri finds herself torn emotionally by the reappearance of the Chairman, and then later, mentally and physically by the outbreak of World War II. After the War, she goes back to being a geisha, but has to choose between following her heart and following what seems to be the obvious path.The film and the novel are different in several sections, even down to the ending, but of course the book provides a lot of important background information that could not be captured in the movie version, even though I'm not sure of the historical accuracy. I would strongly recommend them BOTH to anyone who is not familiar with the amazing gilded world of Geisha.Amanda Richards, April 14, 2007

If you look at this book and think that “I would never read that kind of book”… I just want to tell you that of course there are parts in it where sex is part of her life but it is written in such a way that I did not find it offensive at all. Sex isn’t the main part of this story. The way that the story was woven together I couldn’t turn the pages fast enough. It was riveting!

This book contains a story that can be split into three parts. The first part is the story of young Chiyo, who is sold with her sister when their mother is too ill to care for them. Coming from a small fishing village, they are sent to Kyoto. Whereas Chiyo is seen with potential and educated as geisha, her sister is directly sold into prostitution. This part was really touching for me and made me think about the situation in my home country, where around the same time, children might also, if not sold, then at least be send to farmers, who had not enough children of their own to help them on their farms. Often, these children would be treated much worse than their own children. Both my grandfathers had to endure such a fate and one of them consequently never ate cheese, as this was all he was given to eat while there.The second part is then Chiyo’s education to be become a geisha. In order to do so, she has to get around Hashumomo, the senior geisha in her okiya. This has to be done with cunning and the way how Mameha can plot around the “evil stepsister” Hashumomo is like a heist story. This part is written humorously, but here, I could also understand why Japanese people will feel insulted by this book. On the one hand, the book says that geisha are no prostitutes, but then it goes on saying that the highest goal a geisha can achieve is a danna.The third part is then a cheesy love story, until Sayuri can finally be together with the man of her dreams. The conclusion of the story was so constructed that it made me happy when it was finally over. Nevertheless, this is an interesting read that I could finish within a week.

Arthur Golden spent a number of years writing this novel, changing and altering it, including major re-writes before he was content with it. Although proving quite popular it has to be admitted that the book has not met without criticism and even a lawsuit, because doing research for this and talking to a number of geisha Golden used parts of the life of Mineko Iwasaki and mentions her in the acknowledgements, which caused her distress and even death threats. She herself did claim that certain elements of this book are fictious, at least for the area that this tale takes place, but then again this is a novel, although it is made to appear as a real memoir, what with a fictional translator’s note at the back.Told in the first person narrative style so we read of the main events in the life of Nitta Sayuri, who was sold by her parents into the life of what is prostitution (though geisha are at the top end) along with her sister and passed on to a person in Kyoto. As our main character finds herself on the path to a career at the top of the ladder, so her sister becomes just a low ranking prostitute, with no expectations as such. As we follow our narrator, so she tells us of the pivotal points as such in her life, with becoming involved with a feud with another geisha, making friends and enemies, and who she loves. There is near the end of this a certain fairy-tale element as we see what happens on the romance and love front, and it does have to be admitted that even if you did not know who wrote this book, you would soon work out that the author was male, and a Westerner.With the feuding and some of the plotting here, this is a story that does hold your attention, but it has to be admitted that this loses a certain amount of the atmosphere and cultural differences that you would have found if this had been written by a Japanese author. It has been years since I last read this, so it was good to re-read it now, but as I am older and have a greater understanding of certain things, such as slight differences in culture, mannerisms and so on, at times this does read as something that is perhaps in places a bit too simplistic, and without the grasp at times of certain features that a woman would automatically bring to something like this. So, at the end of the day I will admit that this is a good read, but it is not great.

One of my favourite books ever. I'm always so jealous of people who are just reading it for the first time. It's not a book that I'd normally choose, but I joined a book club, so was forced to, but I'm so glad I did. It's not often that I find a book that I 'can't put down', but I literally couldn't. I'd still be reading it at about 3am, falling asleep over my kindle! The writing is just exceptional too, it's written in a way that made me completely shocked that it wasn't a true story. Before I found out it wasn't a true story, I was googling things from the book to find out more about them, only to find that they weren't real! I never read a book more than once, but if I did, I would read this one.

Great read. Really enjoyed how Golden both elaborates on the geisha culture and engages with historical events, and how those events shaped both the geishas and Japan as a whole.Not going to lie, I didn’t enjoy the protagonist’s obsession with the chairman (even though he symbolises hope for her), I also thought the chairman himself was a bit of a dodgy character for fancying a child, and essentially having a role in grooming her. But I don’t think Golden hides the fact that a lot of geisha culture was problematic - he presents both the positives (it provided women with independence and financial stability) and negatives (the women were glorified escorts at the mercy of the whims of the men they served) of the culture.This is a classic and I guess worth a read.

Have just finished this book, having read it years after it was first published. When it came out it appeared everyone was reading it, now I understand why. It's a compelling story, and very character rich. It speaks of a bygone era and a bygone mindset. I have always been interested in Japanese culture, so I felt sure this book would appeal. It's a tale of someone turning their life round from the most inauspicious of beginnings, as well as understanding how they arrived at contentment. An undulating story with great characters, told with great compassion and empathy, too.

This is written by a gent, apparently in conjunction with a Geisha (but equally some hooha about it) it is a very femininly written book. Everything from a womans perspective is peppered with things a woman takes for granted. Well written, very gentle, slow moving but never boring, I enjoyed it greatly.