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Summary: Touchingly Realistic
Review: An amazingly authentic voice is being projected here. As a quasi-student of Japanese culture, this seems to me to have all of the flavor of Kyoto and Edo without losing touch with their connections to contempoary Japan.History, story line and characterization evoke a level of empathy which can be felt only by someone who has spent significant time there, in Japan.
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Summary: Husband and Wife Fought Over This Book
Review: My husband checked this out of the library for a weekend trip we were taking. I started reading it aloud to him while he was driving and became so intrigued that I had to start reading it too. We both had it finished before we returned home from our trip. We were amazed that a man could write such an intricate tale about a girl turning into a woman with the emotion and depth that Arthur S. Golden was able to portray.
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Summary: Entertaining piece of Japanese history
Review: Although this is a novel, I felt as thought I was getting history lesson. And it wasn't the boring kind I had in school. It was riveting and quite detailed. The life of an early 20th century geisha was labor intensive. I was shocked to read how much training and skill goes into these women, and that most of the time these women do not voluntarily train. This was the case for the character we delve into, Sayuri. Just a poor fisherman's daughter from a small village, Sayuri (not her given name) is sold to an okiya at the age of nine. Her days are torture, from why all of these things were occuring in her life to the treatment she endured for years from the people in her new life. But then the winds change for her, and she becomes a geisha herself. This however, is not all fun and games. The reader follows her life througout the next twenty years or so. The narration is full of metaphors, which adds to the feeling of hearing straight from a Japanese women's mouth. The research involved in this novel must have been extensive, but well worth the authors (and readers) effort. A great read you shouldn't miss.
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Summary: A Fascinating Look into Japanese Culture; A Joy to Read
Review: As Golden begins his novel narrating as the young girl Chiyo-chan, the reader is immediately drawn into the life of this poverty-stricken Japanese girl. The details are exquisite, down to every description of kimono. Reading this novel is like stepping directly into Japan in the 1930s; the characters, setting, and ideas are presented in a clear and concise manner. It is not like an ordinary novel, but more like a life story.
Although geisha do not exist today to the extent they did in the 1930s they are still quite interesting to study. The things they had to do are shocking at times, and Golden accurately describes these situations with perfect, but not offensive, detail.
I am now reading this book for the second time. The first time I read it, I was getting ready for a trip to Japan, and the novel was suggested to me as a good insight into Japanese culture. After reading it, and visiting the country, I was entranced. Japanese life is so different from Western life, and I now have a great respect for it. This book, if not read for insight, should be read merely for pleasure. There simply are not enough words to describe its elegance.
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Summary: I Need another Fix...
Review: When my sister offered to lend me her copy of Memoirs of a Geisha, I nearly turned it down wondering aloud how good can a book about a Geisha be when it's written by a caucasian man. How was I to know I'd never put the book down?! It's hard to believe that Sayuri is not an actual person. It can't be!! =P Much of her life reminded me of another lady I know who told me her vague story about her life as a dancer in her country and why she gave it up. Very realistic. I only wished all books I've picked up were as interesting and fluid as this one.
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Summary: A man to see through a Japanese geisha's heart--extrordinary
Review: Of course I am not a Japanese geisha. But for being an Asian and exposed to the popular Japanese culture in Taiwan, we were ruled once by the Japanese and imagine how much Japanese culture has influenced our life past, and even now. Young people nowadays are very much crazy about Japanese dramas, the fashion, the music, and the food. Japanese Tv programmes are aired on TV 24-7. I can say that I much understand how exquisite the auther had considered in the details. And the tones, and the way of thinking, that just so overwhelm me. I need not to tell the whole story again but to express how vivid that I saw thorughout the line of words that I can almost translate them right into Japanese and will accurately click. It's unreal! (Too real actually) I would recomand anyone who is interested in finding out a path to the Japanese culture and the art of a geisha ( NOT a prostitute for those who have no ideas whatsoever), a story about grwoing up to strive for the untimate passage of one's life---searching for destiny and not giving up one's hope. But most of all, an affection so strong that changed the course of its own life. Using the forces of nature and observations of our lives to describe the very inner feeling of ourselves, no more words are needed. Just a gentle touch and all is understood. I love this book.
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Summary: great book that leaves you wanting
Review: i very much enjoyed memoirs of geisha until I was struck by how unrealistic it was. why would a successful, independent woman yearn for some guy who ignores her for 15 years? then its all wrapped up neatly at the end and i felt a little cheated. it's like that same thought occurred to Golden and he tried to do something about it. the book is about women in a separated and fairly exoticized world, and their relationships with money/power/men, the tone of the text gives them agency and intelligence but their actions come purely from victimization and captivity. and then i'm supposed to feel good when he tells her he loves her? i don't think so.
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Summary: good for one reading
Review: there are books which one will keep safe and go back fromtime to time--this is not one of them. yes the story on reading it for the first time appears without flaws-it's only when u read again and again and again like i did---you realise that it has not much to offer.
i agree---the description of japan-their social makeup maybe good-but the main flaw is as many ohter readers have pointed out-it's is a women's story told by a man.
sayuri talks about rich frienships with other women-well except for mameha---we hardly hear of any other giesha---and as for the men--well-the chairman is a figure sayuri keeps in the dark-we never really know what he is like,he may be her hero---but he is not ours. it is nobu who steals the show-even from sayuri---there is not doubt that it is he who makes the story what it is.
most of the other charachters seem to have more spirit than sayuri-even pumpkin seems more lively than her.
sayuri-sounds like the good girl in class who is always a teachers pet and is richly rewarded in the end--while nobe-is the class favourite--the guy who gets into all the trouble-and yet is liked by one and all.
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Summary: I stayed up all night
Review: Memiors of a Geisha may be one of the best books that I've read in a long time. It is such an epic sweep of events, trailing a girls life from early childhood, through her time as a geisha, and into her old age. All of that done with tons of rich detailing, in only about 400 pages. Wow! I really loved this book. Still, as others have mentioned in their reviews, there are problems. A main problem is that the book is westernized. As I was reading I had to continually remind myself that this book was full of Japanese people. I just could not seem to set a picture of them as Japanese in my mind. Another problem that I had with this book, is that while it is supposed to be representing how all of these women are oppressed by a male dominated culture, it shows only females doing the dominating. While I am quite sure that there were men taking large doles from the geish houses somewhere, the author simply represents the geisha houses as women using other women. It can't be that simple. Some have criticized this book for being overly simple in terms of the main character waiting to be rescued from her life of bondage by her (in my mind, white, I really could not get the Japanese images fixed in my mind) hero male, The Chairman. I find this to be entirely believable, given the time that this book was set in. Which brings me to my final point about this book. All during the reading I felt partly outraged. Wondering, what is her problem? Why does she not take the man, Nobu, who obviously loves her so much? And why does she not understand her stronger position in the okiya after her adoption and start exerting some pressure for better living, like her rival Hatumomo had? Why was the author insisting on taking this book to such a cheap ending in the arms of The Chairman? Why couldn't The Chairman at least have not been married? Why did I like it so much?
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Summary: Absolutely Amazing!
Review: When I finished this novel, given to me by my mom, I was absolutely shocked to learn that it was not written by Sayuri, or even a woman! This novel describes things that are universal to being a woman, while giving a startling account of a largely unknown subculture of Japan. This is one of the few novels that I have read that has actually changed me. Golden uses words in a way that leaves you physically short of breath when Sayuri is, in physical pain when she is, and blushing along with her when she sees Mr. Chairman. I found myself wondering what happened to the characters in the book, even though I knew they did not exist. An absolute must-read!
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