Arthur Golden

a novel

Memoirs of a geisha

A fisherman's daughter in 1930s Japan rises to become a famous geisha. After training, Sayuri's virginity is sold to the highest bidder, then the school finds her a general for a patron. When he dies, she is reunited with the only man she loved.

Memoirs of a Geisha

Seemed unbelievable in a lot of places but was annoyingly impossible to put down.

I now have to read the book that this was plagiarised from..

Geoff norgrove-humphries

Seemed unbelievable in a lot of places but was annoyingly impossible to put down.

I now have to read the book that this was plagiarised from..

Ivy X

[Reread]
I am aware of the controversy behind this book (about how one of the geisha Golden interviewed sued him for basing so much of the book on her and mentioning her name despite her wishes). I also recognize that there are aspects of the book that are not necessarily historically accurate (such as mizuage) 

However, I thoroughly enjoyed reading this and following Sayuri's journey. Golden's poignant, descriptive writing made it easy for me to immerse myself in the book. 

I want to point out that while this book has a "happy" ending for Sayuri and the chairman, Nobu deserved better. 

 Quotes  
- Was life nothing more than a storm that constantly washed away what had been there only a moment before, and left behind something barren and unrecognizable? 

-Flowers that grow where old ones have withered serve to remind us that death will one day come to us all. 

-This humble person has been alive long enough to see two generations of children grow up, and knows how rare it is for ordinary birds to give birth to a swan. The swan who goes on living in its parents' tree will die; this is why those who are beautiful and talented bear the burden of finding their own way in the world. 

-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. 

-All we can do is flow where the landscape of our lives carries us.

-You must learn how to find the time and place for things. A mouse who wishes to fool the cat doesn't simply scamper out of its hole when it feels the slightest urge. 

-We human beings are only part of something very much larger. When we walk along, we may crush a beetle or simply cause a change in the air so that a fly ends up where it might never have gone otherwise. And if we think of the same example but with ourselves in the role of the insect, and the larger universe in the role we've just played, it's perfectly clear that we're affected every day by forces over which we have no more control than the poor beetle has over our gigantic foot as it descends upon it. What are we to do? We must use whatever methods we can to understand the movement of the universe around us and time our actions so that we are not fighting the currents but moving with them. 

-We all know that a winter scene, though it may be covered over one day, with even the trees dressed in shawls of snow, will be unrecognizable the following spring. Yet I had never imagined such a thing could occur within our very selves. 

-At the moment, beauty itself struck me as a kind of painful melancholy.

-I had to wonder if men were so blinded by beauty that they would feel privileged to live their lives with an actual demon, so long as it was a beautiful demon. 

- Grief is a most peculiar thing; we're so helpless in the face of it. It's like a window that will simply open of its own accord. The room grows cold, and we can do nothing but shiver. But it opens a little less each time, and a little less; and one day we wonder what has become of it. 

-After all, when a stone is dropped into a pond, the water continues quivering even after the stone has sunk to the bottom. 

-It may seem odd, but when I realized that the shape of my own face was a surprise to me, I had the sudden insight that nothing in life is ever as simple as we imagine. 

-"...We don't become geisha so our lives will be satisfying. We become geisha because we have no other choice."

-"Young girls hope all sorts of foolish things, Sayuri. Hopes are like hair ornaments. Girls want to wear too many of them. When they become old women they look silly wearing even one." 

-An en is a karmic bond lasting a lifetime. Nowadays many people seem to believe their lives are entirely a matter of choice; but in my day we viewed ourselves as pieces of clay that forever show the fingerprints of everyone who has touched them. 

-I learned that year that nothing is so unpredictable as who will survive a war and who won't. 

-Her nostrils were flared, her face consumed with anger like a burning twig. It was as though the spirit of Hatsumomo had been living trapped inside her all these years, and had finally broken free. 

-"Sometimes," he sighed, "I think the things I remember are more real than the things I see." 

-Whatever our struggles and triumphs, however we may suffer them, all too soon they bleed into a wash, just like watery ink on paper.

Trish

I'm finding it quite difficult to write a proper review for this book. I gave it four stars because there were two major flaws in the narrative/writing in my opinion. Firstly, reading this book is like listening to my dad tell a story - whether relevant or not, he always starts at the very beginning and tells every little subplot and detail of his life until he reaches the point of the story. I felt that way a lot of the time while reading Memoirs of a Geisha. There were many conflicts and characters who lost their significance near the end of the novel when the real character responsible for Sayuri's success is revealed. Secondly, the ending seemed too conveniently crafted at bringing the two main characters together. After a whole lifetime of struggling and fighting, the idea of how to acquire her "one true love" just comes to her absentmindedly and despite a plot-twist, she ends up with the happy ending after all. I'm happy for her character in the end, but it was all just very quickly tied together to make ends meet, almost. To be quite honest, with all the little details in the story, this has got to be the longest 446 pages I've ever read. It was tedious and even borderline boring at times but my curiosity kept me going and, while I'm glad that I read this book, I didn't truly appreciate how long it took to get there.

Kathy Jedrzejczyk

I really enjoyed reading this book. I love to learn about other cultures. I was originally worried that not all of it is very accurate. However, I've done some research on the subject and it seems that the author has done quite a bit of research. 
I went through various emotions throughout this book. I was sad at first, then happy and later frustrated. When I finished the book I felt all of the emotions at the same time. 
I think the book is infinitely better than the movie. It is a lot more personal, and the reader can see why the things that happen happen.

"A seductive and evocative epic on an intimate scale, that tells the extraordinary story of a geisha girl. Summoning up more than twenty years of Japan's most dramatic history, it uncovers a hidden world of eroticism and enchantment, exploitation and degradation. From a small fishing village in 1929, the tale moves to the glamorous and decadent heart of Kyoto in the 1930s, where a young peasant girl is sold as servant and apprentice to a renowned geisha house. She tells her story many years later from the Waldorf Astoria in New York; it exquisitely evokes another culture, a different time and the details of an extraordinary way of life. It conjures up the perfection and the ugliness of life behind rice-paper screens, where young girls learn the arts of geisha - dancing and singing, how to wind the kimono, how to walk and pour tea, and how to beguile the most powerful men."

Gayathri Jinesh

At first I thought, the topic of interest of this book was so misogynistic to the core, that I'd have to wash it down with some Atwood or Woolf. But then I realized this is just women 'manipulating' men for financial gain; that men were just clients, and now I'm comfortable.
This book is dripping metaphors all over. It is beautiful, that at the low points in the novel, they were the flimsy rope I caught on to, and prevented this from falling into dnf.
The first half is beautiful, has a strong storyline, puts us inside the head of the lead character. We feel what she feels, hopes what she hopes and it hurts when she gets hurt. Somewhere along the lane she abandons us; leaving us in some corner of her tea party room, to watch her from afar. This didn't make me feel like dropping the book though. The whole thing was like a TV drama, with jealousy, passion, betrayal (and plenty of horny men); just more sophisticated and prettier with all the cute little metaphors.

Kirsten Simkiss

I think this one deserves a solid 3 stars for me. Bear in mind, I had seen the movie first.

It's a lovely book to read, but having seen the movie first, I think the world of the Geisha is very hard to pull across without visuals. It was something I found the book lacked. You can describe the beauty of something until you're blue in the face, but to someone who hasn't seen it with their own two eyes, it's forgotten almost the next moment. In a world as visually striking as the world of the geisha, I thought it was a bit unfortunate. I'm sure the kimonos Golden was attempting to describe were lovely, but ultimately quickly forgotten despite all his best efforts. As I read the book, I did think that it would have been better suited as a screenplay or a stage production. (Actually, I feel a Stage version would be an excellent thing for it, since so many of the stages are reused over the course of the story. The tea houses, the okiri, and the market place, for instance.) Really, I just wished he hadn't forced so much visual detail on the reader. It slows the book down a lot and makes Sayuri sound vain and superficial way more often than I'd hoped.

Over the course of the book, I did also find the language to be very simple. I know it's intended to be a story about a woman trained in the arts, and Golden likely wanted to give the impression that it was translated simply into the English language, but it reflects on Sayuri as well, being that it is her autobiography, fictional though it may be. Sayuri is often stated to be a smart and clever person. Certainly her vocabulary was not nearly that simple in truth. I can fully expect she'd speak simply to her clients, but introspectively I would expect her to have more sophisticated thoughts than what I was reading. It comes off as Golden making his heroine seem like a simple child all the way into her late thirties. Nothing like awkward nature metaphors to make it sound authentic, right? (Wrong.) Sure, it makes sense when she's nine or fourteen, but thirty-five and older? That seems odd. Perhaps it's just a heavy American hand. That, coupled with how quickly he makes it seem that the American soldiers were simply accepted and how well they got along seems a bit off to me.

I do also have to say that the foreword is incredibly misleading, and it makes you think that the person in the story was in fact a real person. Fortunately, the afterword does clarify that it's entirely fiction based on what he'd learned from real Japanese women acquainted with the geisha culture.

Ultimately, it is a good story. From young Chiyo of Yoroido to the celebrated geisha Sayuri of Kyoto who retired in New York running a tea house, her tale is a very interesting story. While I do not envy her life or her choices, I do understand her motivation behind them. I'm not sure that I would have pined after a man for more than twenty years of my life with no indication he had any feelings for me whatsoever, but I am also not Sayuri. Sayuri is not perfect or wonderful or without any sort of blame for the bad things that occurred during the story. She's not an angel. While Hatsumomo is portrayed as the devil in the story, even her position, if seen from the other angle, is understandable. while Sayuri does have her qualities (loyalty, patience, modesty, etc.), she also has just as many flaws as any human would (including vanity and selfishness).

Much of this review has criticisms, but the book is very insightful. I learned some things about the geisha lifestyle that I had not known and about life in that time period in general, but I do know a little bit about Japanese culture on my own, having taken Japanese courses in college and having had a few Japanese family friends during my childhood. Certainly, it's a good introductory piece to the Japanese culture, but if used as a true guide, you would be sorely lacking in knowledge if you went based on this book. Take it with a grain of salt. It's fiction - remember that, and you're just fine. Like a geisha, this book's idea and details are pretty on the surface and not terribly deep. To go deeper, I would suggest you find other works - perhaps ones written by Japanese people translated into English.

Amy Dillon

When I tell you I thought this was non fiction😮
This book was AMAZING. The world building, the immersive storytelling, all the emotions you end up feeling for Sayuri and the other characters. This book was stunning and I'm still reeling. HOW IS THIS NOT A TRUE STORY?!!!
5/5

Missy Zuber 

Jaymie Lemke

Sara Hakkoum

This book has left me speechless, I can't even write a proper review.
All I know is that this is pretty much the most beautiful book I've ever read.

This is a seductive and evocative epic on an intimate scale, which tells the extraordinary story of a geisha girl. Summoning up more than twenty years of Japan's most dramatic history, it uncovers a hidden world of eroticism and enchantment, exploitation and degradation. From a small fishing village in 1929, the tale moves to the glamorous and decadent heart of Kyoto in the 1930s, where a young peasant girl is sold as servant and apprentice to a renowned geisha house. She tells her story many years later from the Waldorf Astoria in New York; it exquisitely evokes another culture, a different time and the details of an extraordinary way of life. It conjures up the perfection and the ugliness of life behind rice-paper screens, where young girls learn the arts of geisha - dancing and singing, how to wind the kimono, how to walk and pour tea, and how to beguile the most powerful men.

Rebeca Keren Nuñez

Independientemente de si contiene imprecisiones, tengo que decir que me resulto fascinante. Ademas de que el relato pudo transmitirme todas las emociones del personaje, miedo, tristeza y dolor, rabia, esperanza, desesperación y amor, porque la historia pasa por todo el rango de emociones posibles. Había visto la película, así que tenia una idea de la historia y hay personajes, que de hecho no puedo evitar, verlos como los actores de la película. La historia se vuelve cada vez más atrapante, a medida que avanza.

Elizabeth Moore

** spoiler alert **
           20 years late to the party but I finally read it! If I could give half stars, this would be a solid 3.5. I actually didn’t care much for the love story and the way it played out; none of my favorite characters’ storylines resolved in a way that made me feel like spending time with the ppl to the very end was well worth it. That said, I couldn’t put it down. The Hatsumomo-Sayuri rivalry was magnificent. Mameha was great. Pumpkin and Auntie and Mother were all delightful and terrible and great. Gion and the Okiya were so well-drawn that when I watched the movie as soon as I finished the book (the movie is lame except for the cinematography), the setting came into focus almost exactly like I read it in my head. And then there was Nobu, who was the most awesome guy of all time and got completely shafted because the protagonist is a naive idiot who is also pretty selfish. Nobu is now one of my all time literary faves, and I’ll remain eternally angry that Mr. Golden didn’t choose to write out a better end for him. 

All in all: Absolutely enveloping, beautifully staged, words that turn into stunning pictures in your head with no effort at all, and an underwhelming ending that annoyed me. Worth the read.

elif sinem

My god... So I liked the prose sometimes, bordering on purple prose but fine, but by god, Sayuri was so so so so so so annoying most of the time, I don't wanna get into how the whole geisha thing (despite being proclaimed as "not being a high class prostitute") was often just used to get to sexual situations that were the only real plot progressions, HATSUMOMO'S CHARACTER AND ARC LIKE L M F A O, and the way the story ended in the most forced, most ridiculous fashion... was so frustrating. I was really hoping I'd enjoy this novel but meh.

Talen Mumford

From the Back of the Book:
A literary sensation and runaway bestseller, this brilliant debut novel presents with seamless authenticity and exquisite lyricism the true confessions of one of Japan's most celebrated geisha.
In Memoirs of a Geisha, we enter a world where appearances are paramount; where a girl's virginity is auctioned to the highest bidder; where love is scorned as illusion. It is a unique and triumphant work of fiction-at once romantic, erotic, suspenseful-and completely unforgettable.

From the Back of my Head:
A book I have read a million times before, and will read a million times again. I have never tired of the story, and I feel the heartache every time. I love so much about this book it's hard to pick something to write about.
The author has wonderful language. The way he writes makes you want to bathe in the words.
The story is remarkable. Starting with her sad childhood, Chiyo grows into a strong woman. Someone she would have never gotten a chance to be if she had remained a fisherman's daughter.

Kim Tarry

It was a bit confusing at times to read the cultural differences but it's really fascinating to read about and the story line is so nice

Elizabeth Morris

** spoiler alert **
           I wanted to love this novel, but the last hundred pages or so was a let down. While the majority of the book was both beautifully written and the plot was well designed, Sayuri's obsession with the Chairman was boring, and felt downright forced to me. It almost turned into a trashy romance novel to me by the end.

Sayuri =

Sophie Hutchings

I read this book when I was only 15, its mature storyline and rich japanese history makes this book one I will never ever forget. I am still waiting for my travels to take me to Japan as it has been a country of much fascination to me since reading this amazing memoir.

Jessica Guht

I spent most of this book completely heartbroken, but it was extremely enchanting and I couldn't get through it fast enough.

Michael Dean

"Captivating, minutely imagined . . . a novel that refuses to stay shut" ("Newsweek"), "Memoirs of a Geisha" is now released in a movie tie-in edition.

Leonie Schölmberger

One of my favourite books, I highly recommend it. It was one of the books that woke my interest in asian culture, it gives great insight on how difficult things really were back then. PLEASE read it. Thanks.

Rucha Phatak

Was sucked in the enchanting and intriguing geisha world from the first page!

Toni Turner

holy cow. I really truly appreciate this book. I love historical fiction as many others do and there just isn't enough based around Japanese or even any Asian culture in general which sucks because it is so interesting! Thank you Janine for letting me borrow the second copy of this that you own haha. It is a fantastic book. Do recommend I learned a lot not only about the life of Geisha and that it is way more than it seems, but Arthur Golden has a certain was with words that makes you find a way to relate to what he creates. His metaphors make so much sense and opened my eyes in a lot of different ways.

Somya

A very beautifully written novel and insight into the alluring culture of Japan's Geisha. The author is an American, though. The story got a little repetitive and slow in the last quarter but picked up soon enough. The ending, however, could be a little more exciting.

Maxime van der Wal

2.5 stars
Ugh, I have mixed opinions on this one. While Golden's prose is entertaining and easy to read, I have a few problems with this novel. As many others have mentioned, Golden wrote this from a Western perspective. As much as he has educated himself on Japanese culture, the Western influence is prominent throughout the story. The faux translator's note at the beginning of the story threw me off as well - it took me a while to realise this was entirely fiction. Historical fiction, sure, but fiction nevertheless. 

I particularly liked the first 100 or so pages. Chiyo is a likeable character and I grew fond of her and her family. When she starts training to become a geisha, I think the story's quality gradually went downhill - especially after she 'became' Sayuri. Sayuri is much more superficial than Chiyo and frankly quite uninteresting. Her attachment to the Chairman and the ending were  very  cliché. Overall, I enjoyed this but it's not as good as other people make it out to be.

Natalie Sypeck 

I thought this book was beautiful in its descriptions. I have to admit that I was worried it would be a little boring when I first picked it up but I quickly fell in love with the writing-style and became invested in the characters story. It’s certainly not fast paced, but I never felt bored either.

Memoirs of a geisha a novel

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