Memoirs of a Geisha
Ratings637
Average rating4
“Sometimes the smartest remark is silence.”
“The heart dies a slow death. Shedding each hope like leaves, until one day there are none. No hopes. Nothing remains.”
“We must not expect happiness. It is not something we deserve. When life goes well, it is a sudden gift; it cannot last forever.”
“My mother always said my sister was like wood. As rooted to the Earth as a sakura tree. But she told me I was like water. Water can carve its way through stone. And when trapped, water makes a new path.”
Ziyi Zhang portrayed the role of Chiyo/Sayuri so convincingly and beautifully that I decided to read the book years later to see how it really was.
The author's writing is so engaging that after reading it, I feel as if I lived the life of the little girl with the grey-blue eyes myself. For us lay people, the author was able to describe in vivid detail the life of the mysterious geishas and what they had to go through to become the best artists they could be. The deeper I got into the plot, the more respect I had for the geishas.
Although Chiyo's story is pure fiction inspired by a real geisha, it's almost surreal that somewhere in the land of the rising sun, this actually happened and how many of those women could then say they were as lucky as the protagonist.
Let me add an interjection so that the author is not believed every word on the page, because geisha is not a courtesan, but happens to be a very respected artist, even in today's Japan.
I love this book. It's perfect. At times it is touching and heartbreaking, and the love story is poignant. Sometimes I was angry because the main character was not treated well and had a hard time. But I'm glad she found true love, and even if she had to wait for him, she was finally happy with him. I also really like the movie. I recommend the book and the movie.
beautiful writing but it just dragged on and it just wasn't enjoyable. The plot was boring.
Reading about men making sexual comment towards a young teen for most of the book was hard to read, i know its true and should be written about but it was just constant and made me feel repulsed from this book.
I also have a huge problem with a certain paragraph but i'll have to type it all out later as i just got my nails done and can't type properly lol. I'm definitely questioning why the author wrote this book... very bad vibes from him.
Where was the depth in this? To be honest, reading it was nothing but a chore. There are no complex storylines, no character development, no memorable lines, and even the most basic notion of “Show, Don't Tell” was completely missing. All secondary characters are devoid of any personality that goes beyond a defined emotion; a lack of believable human beings was the most noticeable aspect of this story.
With an underwhelming attempt at “poetry” and being artistic, Golden managed to screw up what could've been an intricate story about a Geisha's relationships within a small town. How does someone manage to write a main character to be SO one-dimentional and boring?
Chiyo/Sayuri does not seem to have any goal in life other than to marry The Chairman, like, is that all??? no desire to reunite with her sister, or grow as a person??? what happened??? how is this a successful book?
It is unfair to reduce the entire identity of a woman into “someone who must get married.” Golden tried (and failed miserably) to give life to his main character but it just comes off as ridiculous. Women do not only think of love and romantic partners, or just randomly think about stupid surface level metaphors.
Awful.
I would give this 3.5 stars if that was an option. I can see how the allure of an unkown (to many in the west) culture would be a draw for this book and make it a classic/bestseller. I could tell it was not actually memoir and was written by a man versus written by a woman who lived that life. I did get a bit bored by the end and was ready for the book to be finished. I would still recommend for anyone looking for an enduring book with the caveat to not take this as an actual memoir.
I choose to give a rating based off how I felt before doing research...This book is written very well with an almost poetic flow and I was astonished to find out how cruel eastern civilization is, until I did research and found out that the author fabricated the woman's story to the point where she sued him for defamation. Now I don't know what's the truth and what's fake. Sounds like a Mel Gibson movie.
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.
5 stars for SURE. This was a fantastic book about something that I have no knowledge of. My extent of Japanese history does not extend past an art history class that I took when I was a senior in college. A refreshing change to my usual historical novels, this book was incredibly tragic but summed up in a tone of ‘this is just how life is'. The cultural differences and the absolute resiliency of women in Japan in both the past and present cease to amaze me. The telling of this story was truly a look inside some of the deepest roots. The impacts of actions and how all things are intertwined in this culture, as well as the setting taking place during World War II just magnified the tragedy. It was really heavy to hear the author basically say that her life is not her own. Duty over love, and hiding of emotions. Very raw and intimate. I would highly recommend this book and will continue to seek out the subject matter to learn more in additional research and novels.
The writing is beautiful with its use of different imageries to describe various feelings and situations. It also brings a certain humour and levity to the book.
However, the story itself was disappointing and ineffective.
I may be bringing my own morals to the story, but i felt having Sayuri fixate so much on the Chairman, such that it basically robbed her of her other traits an awful aspect of the story.
Also, I did not like the ending.
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.
I am a junkie of Asian history and stories. I loved this. I don't know how realistic this is but it definitely was an interesting description of a world and society that no longer exists. And yes, there was love larger than life as well as assholes and a mentor. All elements that you get in sooooooooooo many coming of age stories or “bildungsroman”..But I warmed to this one despite all it's cliches. The ending was emotional and really crowned the book. 5/5
Прекрасная, восхитительная книга. Полное ощущение присутствия при разговоре с мудрой взрослой женщиной, которая тихим спокойным голосом рассказывает историю своей жизни.
Полная событий, - разочарований, радостей, удивлений, - судьба научила эту женщину смирению и борьбе, в пропорциях, нужных для того, чтобы стать счастливой.
Многие мысли ее хочется записать, а многому хочется научиться. Словом, книга трогает душу и затягивает в свою реальность; легко читается и это как раз тот случай, когда ее мало.
Очень советую, - уверена, в фильме по ее мотивам показаны события, но не передана мудрость героини, а эту мудрость хочется постигнуть.
I really liked this book until I was half way through and I found it wasn't really going anywhere. There was nothing particularly wrong with it, it was a memoir as you expect, but I just found it a little dull when not much had really happened by the time I had read half of it. I hate giving up on books but so I compromised and watched the film and I didn't find the film that riveting either. Perhaps it just wasn't the book for me, I prefer a bit more drama and I didn't find much drama in the storyline. Having said that, it is absolutely a memoir of a Geisha which I had little to no knowledge of before and I did learn a lot about their traditions and way of life which I found interesting.
Beautiful, descriptive prose. I kept wanting to take breaks from reading to (try to) sketch the imagery in my head.
A fascinating glimpse into a particular world, a particular time and place... and the writing was lovely, very evocative, with the first-person narrative giving it a storytelling cadence that just draws you in.
But, it wasn't always pleasant to read about a woman who never has any control over the events that shape her life, from beginning to end... besides which, the ending seemed a little too pat and really strained my suspension of disbelief. It's also hard to put myself in her shoes, especially when she throws away her friendship with a man she genuinely likes, in order to have a chance with the man she has idolized since childhood but barely knows.
Also deserves a trigger warning for some pretty rape-y scenes, though I suppose if you pick up a book about a geisha, well... Everything about Sayuri's life involves coercion of one sort or another.
In the end, Pumpkin (who I liked for the whole book) unexpectedly betrayed her (a conflict which was never mended), Mameha turned out to have helped her because the Chairman asked her to (though I like to think they were really friends in the end), and Nobu never forgave her the transgression she set up in order to avoid becoming his mistress. So she really had only the man whose mistress she became, and from her description of their interactions, it's hard to think that he really knew her, either.
I just read on Wikipedia that one of Golden's sources later sued him for defamation of character, and wrote her own autobiography. Might have to read that next.
This book is beautiful. Richly described and full of culture. The righting is straight forward, but elegant. It should be a classic. Another one of those books that stay with you. A good read.
There has been a lot of criticism of this book, and the fact that it is penned by a Western male author. Whether Golden's interpretation of geisha life in early 1900s Japan is accurate, I cannot say; but, he certainly had me convinced that these were real memories recalled in the voice of Chiyo/Sayuri.
The first few chapters were very sad, in a heavy, despairing sort of way; towards the end of the book, the sadness evolved into a bitter, regretful sorrow. The overall feel of this tale was romantic and remorseful, highlighted by many beautiful metaphors.
I have no doubt that much of Golden's writing is, as he says, the result of many hours of research, however, I am still interested to read an “insider's” view of the geisha lifestyle. Mineko Iwasaki, who it has been alleged, is the basis of Golden's novel, has written her autobiography which disputes many “facts” that Golden included; her book is published as “Geisha, a Life” (US title) or “Geisha of Gion” (UK title).
Memoirs of a Geisha is the story of Chiyo, a young girl who lives in a small fishing village called Yoroido in 1930's Japan. There she lives with her older sister Satsu, her elderly father and her terminally ill mother. Her father is unable to care for both his girls and his wife, and so gives both daughters to Mr. Tanaka. Mr. Tanaka promptly takes the girls to Kyoto, where Chiyo is sold to an okiya (geisha house) in Gion, where she is to be trained as a geisha. At the okiya she meets Mrs. Nitta (”Mother”) and Granny, mistresses of the okiya, a fellow trainee whom Chiyo nicknames “Pumpkin”, and Hatsumomo, the resident geisha and sole source of income for the okiya.
At first Chiyo wishes for nothing more than to escape the okiya, find her sister Satsu (who was sold to a brothel), and return to her family in Yoroido. After a failed escape attempt results in a broken arm, she is met with more bad news; her sister escaped without her, and both of her parents have passed away. With no place for her but the Nitta okiya, her lot in life becomes a lifetime of servitude as a maid; Mother refuses to invest more money in Chiyo's training, seeing her now as a bad investment.
A chance encounter with the wealthy and kind Chairman gives Chiyo hope; she sees the encounter as a sign that she wasn't meant to become a geisha as a goal unto itself, but as a means toward the Chairman. The rest of the novel follows Chiyo through her eventual geisha training, her debut and early life as a geisha, the closing of the geisha districts due to World War II, her life during World War II, and the post-war re-opening of the geisha districts, with her ultimate goal always being the Chairman.
Despite being a work of fiction, Memoirs of a Geisha was a well researched and relatively detailed novel. In fact, the author, Arthur Golden, was sued in 2001 for breach of contract and defamation of character after publicly acknowledging Mineko Iwasaki, a retired geisha he interviewed for background information while writing the novel. Apparently Iwasaki had agreed to speak with Golden, and violate the geisha “code of silence”, only if the interview was kept confidential.
Of course, part of the reason he was sued also has to do with some artistic liberties he took. The most controversial liberty was with “mizuage”, the coming of age ceremony where the transition from maiko (apprentice geisha) to full fledged geisha is made. In Memoirs of a Geisha it is a portrayed as a financial arrangement, where the maiko's virginity is auctioned off to the highest bidder. As Memoirs of a Geisha was based heavily on the life of Mineko Iwasaki, and parallels her career as a geisha, readers would incorrectly assume that Iwasaki had prostituted herself as a young woman.
I found some aspects of the novel lacking, however. For instance, Chiyo's lifetime dream of being with the Chairman is a little creepy, if you think about it. She spends her entire life plotting to be with a man that she met for maybe 15 minutes, when she was 12? That goes a little beyond infatuation, if you ask me. About halfway through, the novel begins to lose some steam; from World War II on, the story seems a bit more bland and distant. I'm not sure if that was supposed to be an intentional reflection of life after World War II, or if the author started losing interest and was simply trying to wrap up the story.
Overall, I think Memoirs of a Geisha is a decent novel, despite some flaws. While it does take liberties with aspects of the life of geisha, it IS a novel; I would recommend Iwasaki's autobiography, published as Geisha, A Life in the US and Geisha of Gion in the UK for those interested in a more accurate version.
