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Summary: Nice book, well written and absorbing, doesn't finish well
Review: Entertaining and rings true. Golden has a great eye for detail and keeps the plot moving briskly. Very absorbing. I thought the ending was a tad gift-wrapped, but never mind - the book is a nice find.
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Summary: A gripping tale, worth reading.
Review: _Memoirs of a Geisha_, by Arthur Golden, is a gripping biographical novel about the geisha Sayuri. It chronicles Sayuri's life from when she was sold as a child, until the end of her life in New York City. _Memoirs_ is a fictional account of a real geisha, but make no mistake: when you find people named "Mr. Snowshowers" or "Doctor Crab" they were real people, but their names were changed so as not to embarrass their families. This book reveals to the reader the world of the geisha - a universe foreign to western civilization. Even though geisha are sometimes seen as Japanese prostitutes, this is not always the case; geisha means artist, and they are trained in music, dance, and tea ceremonies. The complexities of the ritual, and ceremony associated with being a geisha is mind boggling. For instance: kimonos come in one size. Every time a geisha wears a kimono, it must be tied by a specially trained person, so that it looks as if it were custom tailored, and an ornamental - not to mention complex - knot must be tied with an obi (a long strip of silk) around the geisha to hold the kimono together. The thing that makes this book most desirable to read, is the vividly written passages. The story is told in the first person - through the eyes of Sayuri. The voice is that of experience, but in no way condescends the reader. The narrator keeps a comfortable psychic distance from the reader and feeds a desire in the reader to learn more. Nota Bene: A close psychic distance would be when the narrator talks as if to a friend, and provides an air of familiarity, while a farther psychic distance is when the narrator talks with an air of formality, as an observer outside of the story to a stranger.
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Summary: This is the best book I've read in a long time.
Review: I practically read this book in one sitting; I couldn't put it down. It is one of those great books that really affects and sticks with you. I would classify it as a "must" on anyone's reading list.
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Summary: A Beautifully Told and Wonderfully Written Story.
Review: Memoirs of a Geisha, by Arthur Golden, is a beautifully told and wonderfully written story. It is the story of a young Japanese girl who is innocently and unknowingly thrust into the secretive world of the Geisha. Golden's writing the story in the narration of the main character is so abosrbing, it's as if he he has given us a driect light into the mind and thoughts of the characters he so colorfully describes ...
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Summary: Opening doors to another culture
Review: I took this book to read while on a week-long trip to Santa Fe, N.M. - Although I was in another culture of Native Americana in Santa Fe, I looked forward to returning to our rented house, to resume reading this facinating story. The author manages to hook you from the onset and although you are emersed in historical events, you are transported by the easy and excellent read. Fortunately for me, there is a shop off the plaza in Santa Fe, that had a full kimono on view - they really are as long as the book described and as lovely!
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Summary: An entertaining and well-researched novel.
Review: This well written book is a compelling read. The author's communication of a geisha's emotions throughout her life seemed honest and believable -- quite remarkable in a work of fiction where the main character's experiences would seem to have little resemblance to actual experiences of the author.
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Summary: Prose into poetry
Review: The voice of Sayuri captivates me right from the beginning of the book. The poignancy of the tale of an innocent girl sucked into a world that is totally alien is touching but well written so that it does not become melodramatic. Sayuri's courage to face her adversaries and her quiet acceptance of her destiny is remarkable. I empathise with her, cry and laugh at her sometimes funny annecdotes of the men she meets and her acute observations of life. Golden could have done better during the wars years by giving us greater insights into the bombing of Hiroshima for instance. The war that spanned over four years seems too short and surely there is a lot more suffering than what is potrayed. The ending too is a bit disappointing, it reads more like a Harlequin romance. But the last paragraph did echo the sentiments of the first half of the book. Thank you for the good read !
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Summary: The voice of a woman, the pen of a man
Review: Arthur Golden ably exemplifies that one needn't be either a woman, or Japanese to capture the life of a Geisha. What a wonderful book.
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Summary: Miraculous!
Review: Mr. Golden has performed a miraculous feat in becoming the voice of Sayuri, a Japanese geisha who, the age of nine, was sold by her elderly father into a life as remote from her childhood as could possibly be imagined. In a novel which brought to mind such American classics as Dreiser's Sister Carrie and Mitchell's Gone With the Wind, Golden brings Memoirs of a Geisha to us through the ears of a silent but rapturous professor of Japanese history in New York City shortly before the end of Sayuri's life. She in turn brings us, spellbound, from her native fishing village in the 1920's, to the Gion section of Kyoto in the 30's where she is carefully and strictly trained to become one of the city's top geishas-a word many Westerners, including myself, have misinterpreted. World War II interrupts her life once again and she loses most of what she has built up for herself over the years. Sayuri survives the war, however, and rebuilds her life once more. This is a book, a first novel no less, is too remarkable to adequately describe. All I can say is: read it!
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Summary: A Wonderful Armchair Journey into the Japan of Yesterday
Review: It was like meeting a dear friend and be entrusted into the confidences of her struggles and history that brought her to the person she is. Golden delicately unfolds the mysterious and secretive world of the Geisha like nurturing a forbiddin rose to bloom and reveal its center. The characters are endearing, the description vivid, and the story line facsinating. I could hardly put it down and was sorry when it ended.
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