Arthur Golden

a novel

Memoirs of a geisha

Memoirs of a Geisha

altlovesbooks

A solid four stars. I liked this book a lot, and it was an easy read. I waffled on whether or not I liked the main character throughout the story though, and in the end I was left mildly disappointed. I did like the introduction to geisha life and will probably seek out additional information on the topic from other sources.

too long, but beautiful story. full of hope. full of dissapoitment. full of colourful clothes from Japan.

Alena

I highly enjoyed this book because I felt like I was being taken to Gion; it was an escape from reality for me. The descriptions of characters, places, and most of all, emotions, were beautiful. I felt Sayuri’s pain and her longing throughout the book, and I liked the slow but steady progression of little events that had big meaning and big impact. I felt her nervousness and fear too, the pressure of what was required of her. I also enjoyed learning about what geisha actually do, understanding the eroticism through anticipation of what you aren’t able to see. I find it sad that there aren’t many geisha anymore, because I have much appreciation for how hard their work is; I didn’t understand it before, but it’s complex and layered. One of my favorite things was picturing all the many kimonos described in detail with their colors and patterns. 

When Pumpkin led the chairman to the theater, I hated her more than I ever hated Hatsumomo. I felt pure anger and wanted Sayuri to beat the **** out of her. When it all finally came together and Sayuri was kissed by the chairman, I felt chills,  just ecstatic. Learning he wanted her the whole time, I rethought everything like Sayuri did. I loved the ending of the book, and even shed a little tear hearing about them in older age, how precious.

I do find it unfortunate and highly disappointing that the author explicitly ignored the wishes of his informant for this book, to the point of ruining some of her friendships and her reputation. That alone, I find despicable and so disrespectful of him. I almost wish the book weren’t written considering the harm it caused for a real life geisha.

Grace Mekkes

I highly enjoyed this book because I felt like I was being taken to Gion; it was an escape from reality for me. The descriptions of characters, places, and most of all, emotions, were beautiful. I felt Sayuri’s pain and her longing throughout the book, and I liked the slow but steady progression of little events that had big meaning and big impact. I felt her nervousness and fear too, the pressure of what was required of her. I also enjoyed learning about what geisha actually do, understanding the eroticism through anticipation of what you aren’t able to see. I find it sad that there aren’t many geisha anymore, because I have much appreciation for how hard their work is; I didn’t understand it before, but it’s complex and layered. One of my favorite things was picturing all the many kimonos described in detail with their colors and patterns. 

When Pumpkin led the chairman to the theater, I hated her more than I ever hated Hatsumomo. I felt pure anger and wanted Sayuri to beat the **** out of her. When it all finally came together and Sayuri was kissed by the chairman, I felt chills,  just ecstatic. Learning he wanted her the whole time, I rethought everything like Sayuri did. I loved the ending of the book, and even shed a little tear hearing about them in older age, how precious.

I do find it unfortunate and highly disappointing that the author explicitly ignored the wishes of his informant for this book, to the point of ruining some of her friendships and her reputation. That alone, I find despicable and so disrespectful of him. I almost wish the book weren’t written considering the harm it caused for a real life geisha.

Colleen

** spoiler alert **
           This review contains LOTS of spoilers!

Oh boy. Where to start? I’ve been meaning to read this book for several years now but never quite got around to it. Historical fiction is probably my favorite genre. I am very interested in Asian culture. This book was critically acclaimed and highly recommended by several people I know. It was purported to be a beautiful, rich, and moving novel. So how could I not love it?? Well…

Let me start by saying that this is the type of book that could easily have become culturally insensitive or clichéd. But it did not. Golden clearly did massive amounts of research, so kudos for that. And despite the book being 428 pages of small font and slow moving plot, I did stay interested enough to not be bored or to not finish the book. But given that my short list of “Pros” consists of things the author managed not to do, you can probably guess what is coming in the “Cons” section.

First, the introduction. It is a fake forward written by the fake translator. It is four little pages that felt like forty. This is clearly a faux memoir- not a biography- and that the information in the introduction does nothing to set the scene or enrich the story. The fake introduction was completely extraneous and the most annoying fake background I’ve read since I Am Number Four. It put me in a very sour mood, and I had to sort of reset before starting the actual book. If you can’t set up the story and characters in your writing, then why are you bothering to write it at all?

Second, the geisha subculture is very guarded and secretive. For a story like this to be written not only by a non-member, but also by a Westerner and a man seemed so discordant. Perhaps that is why it never seemed real and why I was never truly absorbed in the story.

Next, I may not know much about the geisha subculture, but I have studied Asain culture quite a bit. I understand how complex it is. My Mandarin teacher was also fluent in Cantonese and Japanese. She liked to not only compare and contrast the languages but also the cultures. While this book was teeming with historical details, I never felt that it captured the depth of the culture. One example of this regards how respect for elders or social superiors is a keystone of Japanese culture. While the books makes mention of this numerous times (such as geishas bowing lower to other geishas who are higher ranking), it is only in a superficial way. In truth, this respect is not only taught from the cradle, it is also engrained into the very language. The words you use to greet an elder are different from the words you use to greet a friend. This complexity just was not captured in Memoirs of a Geisha. 

Another example of cultural syntax falling short is the many, many analogies used throughout the book. They are always used to describe everything by comparing whatever it is to basic natural things such as water, wood, rocks, flowers, etc. There is one reference towards the beginning of the book that alludes that these references are in homage to Shinto. But as usual this relationship is not developed. Instead, you are left with vexingly simplistic analogies such as, “Pretty as a flower.” I suppose you could argue that the main character starts out as a simple daughter of a fisherman and it makes sense that she would only think of such rudimentary comparisons. But considering how often I heard this book described as beautiful and poetic, it was very frustrating. I often felt like I was looking at a pretty view through a very dirty window. I’m sure the view was nice for other people, but I wasn’t able to enjoy it. If there was beauty then it was lost on me through the monotonous writing.

Then there is the main character, Sayuri. I never connected with her. And it was not due to cross-cultural differences! She just did not appeal to me. I never felt deep empathy for her. I never felt sucked into the story like you do with a good book. I was never really invested in whether or not she got what she yearned for. I certainly was not moved to tears. In fact, the deepest emotion I felt for Sayuri was annoyance. From the beginning and throughout the book, she is described as being smart and a survivor. I never saw this. Her survival depends much more on a little luck and a lot of manipulation by the other people in her life. Sure, she works hard. But she is often oblivious to what is happening around her, and her only focus is her childish obsession with the Chairman. The first one hundred pages of this book are how Sayuri starts on the path to becoming a geisha. The remainder of the book is her pining after the Chairman. She wasn’t clever or ambitious. She was a silly girl with a two decade crush on a man who showed her one small kindness. Mostly she is just a pretty pawn used by others. Here is a quote:

“I recall watching the drop fall beneath my arm and roll down the black silk on my thigh, until it came to a stop at the heavy silver threads of the dragon’s teeth, I’m sure most geisha would call it a bad omen that I’d spilled sake; but to me, that droplet of moisture that slipped from me like a tear seemed almost to tell the story of my life. It fell through empty space, with no control whatsoever over its destiny; rolled along a path of silk; and somehow came to rest there on the teeth of the dragon.”

So she is the drop of liquid (it mentions multiple times how her personality has too much of the water element in it), the path of silk is her life as a geisha, and it all leads to her destiny with the dragon aka the Chairman. That may seem overly simplistic, but that does appear to be the point of the whole darn book! Here is another quote:

“Because I’d lived through adversity once before, what I learned about myself was like a reminder of something I’d once known but had nearly forgotten – namely that beneath the elegant clothing, and the accomplished dancing, and the clever conversation, my life had no complexity at all, but was as simple as a stone falling toward the ground. My whole purpose in everything during the past ten years had been to win the affections of the Chairman.”

And then on the very last page:

“I fell toward the Chairman just as a stone must fall toward the earth.”

The last few pages also tie in a few other basic analogies used throughout the book in a “Just in case you missed it!” sort of way. I was truly keeping my fingers crossed throughout the book for a Hail Mary ending to pull this book out of the depths, but that didn’t happen. The last chapter – after she has finally caught the Chairman – is monotonous and slow. (Yes, slower than the rest of the book!) There is the annoying allusion to her suddenly having a son, although it does not outright say it and never even tells you his name or what became of him. Then the story just dwindles out to the anticlimactic conclusion that life is fleeting. I wanted to love this book, but instead I was so disappointed in it!

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.

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.

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!

Memoirs of a geisha a novel

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