- Paperback: 464 pages
- Publisher: Vintage Classics; Limited edition edition (1 Sep 2005)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0099497026
- ISBN-13: 978-0099497028
- Product Dimensions: 13.2 x 19.8 x 3.2 cm
- Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 857,897 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Description
Review
"* 'Intimate and brutal, written in cool, lucid prose it is a novel whose psychological empathy and historical truths are outstanding' - Mail on Sunday * 'Endless and fascinating - a narrative that is both gripping and beautifully paced - a wonderful read' - Observer * 'This is a high-wire act. Rarely has a world so closed and foreign been evoked with such natural assurance' - New Yorker * 'Memoirs of a Geisha' is the sort of novel that novel-lovers yearn for, which is to say, so convincing that while reading it you become transported to another time, another place, and feel you're listening and seeing with someone else's ears and eyes' Margaret Forster"
Book Description
One of 15 limited edition Vintage Future Classics published to celebrate Vintage's 15th birthday. The 15 titles were voted for by reading groups all over the UK as being books that would still be read in 100 years time.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
This book is a very sad story about the selling of children into the sex trade.
Arthur Golden doesn’t dodge the essential points of the geisha business: the investors in human beings (‘education’, kimonos, make-up) want their money back with a profit and this end justifies all means (torture).
In this book, a big chunk of this investment is paid back by selling the geisha’s mizuage (her deflowering) for the colossal sum of more than a year’s earnings of a labourer.
Arthur Golden doesn’t dodge the essential points of the geisha business: the investors in human beings (‘education’, kimonos, make-up) want their money back with a profit and this end justifies all means (torture).
In this book, a big chunk of this investment is paid back by selling the geisha’s mizuage (her deflowering) for the colossal sum of more than a year’s earnings of a labourer.
Poor parents were forced to sell their daughters for sheer survival: ‘We become geisha because we have no other choice.’ A geisha’s life is governed by resignation and fatalism: ‘we viewed ourselves as pieces of clay that forever show the fingerprints of everyone who has touched them.’
The main goal of every geisha is to become a kept woman, the mistress of a wealthy man (her danna), for without a danna ‘a geisha is like a stray cat on the street without a master to feed it. ‘
But, ‘a geisha who expects understanding from her danna is like a mouse expecting sympathy from a snake. Geishas have to keep their true self concealed.’
The central issue is ‘sex for money’. The central member is a man’s ‘homeless eel’. Geishas are there to be ‘consumed’.
Of course, there is fierce competition between them. They all have to pay back their huge debts.
This book says also a lot about the Japanese society, where wealthy people pay a fortune for deflowering virgins, who are sold out of necessity by their poor parents.
Arthur Golden wrote a realistic and moving story using expertly thriller elements.
Not to be missed.
I also recommend highly the memoirs of a top geisha (Mineko Iwasaki’s ‘Geisha of Gion’) and of a ‘normal’ one (Sayo Masuda’s ‘Memoirs of a Geisha’).
For a more general view of the Japanese ‘water trade’, I recommend Nicholas Bornoff’s ‘Pink Samurai’, the works on Japan by Ian Buruma and the deeply moving document about child prostitution by Tomoko Yamazaki ‘Sandakan Brothel #8’.
20 of 22 people found the following review helpful
I used to laugh at people who would say "god i cant put this book down" but when i read this i honestly couldn't. The book practically transports you into this magical world of Japan where you get a vivid insight into the world of geisha's. I have never felt so passionate about a book before and after this my whole aspect on life changed. I may sound really over the top but;Oh my god what a read!!!
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
The novel is a fantastic, enchanting read. The author's narrative is flows easily and never fails to amaze with its sheer poetry, vastness and breath of feeling. Golden tells an enchantic tale, a novel that is definitely one of my favourites. It is colourful, vivid, passionate, mysterious and almost magical in the sense that it completely absorbs the reader into a story that no one else could have told so well. Definitely worth reading!
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