Rating: 
Summary: Excellent
Review: This was a book I had bypassed numerous times whilst browsing in bookshops. However, I eventually bought it as it came with such high recommendations from those I knew who had read it.It is superb.
Rating:
Summary: Refreshing Read
Review: This book was refreshingly different than anything that I had read in a while. The book gives a good insight into what it was like to be a "real" geisha in Japan in the early part of the 20th century. Golden's voice as the Geisha seems real and believable.
Rating: 
Summary: memoirs of a geisha
Review: This book was real page-turner. Vivid detailing of the events, the characters, their emotions, & the scenery brought the storyline to life for me very much. It was an interesting read which gave me a peek inside another culture and time period. I felt transported to another time and place as I read. Although somethings are left unexplained, there is enough detail in this novel to satisfy the mind's curiousity about this foreign world. What the reader is left with is a sense of the depth and complexity of human nature and emotion. If youre a reader who likes to learn and be entertained at the same time, this book is for you!
Rating:
Summary: Memoirs of a Geisha
Review: Unbelievably eye-opening book. Gripping right from the beginning. I never imagined that a book about Geisha's would be interesting to me, but from the introduction to the end I couldn't put it down. If there is going to be a movie, I would go with no hesitation. If I didn't read the book I know I wouldn't bother seeing the movie.
Rating:
Summary: Memoirs of a geisha is a masterpiece
Review: I read this book over 6 months ago, and yet it is still alive in my mind.Sayuri just came out of the pages and lived around me. Arthur Golden is probably the best writer I have encountered in a long time. Anyone can get into this book. I will always appriciate geisha from this time on. You learn so much about WWII and what it was really like to be a woman in Japan. I am looking forward now to the movie based on this book. Arthur, I don't know if you can top this wonderful achievement of yours, but good luck.
Rating:
Summary: Beautiful imagery and vivid characterisation
Review: Arthur Golden has revealed a new and mysterious world to us in 'Memoirs of a Geisha'. The book debunks all the popular myths about these women of Japan and provides an insight into the life, thoughts and angst of a geisha in Kyoto. Beautiful imagery and a fine attention to detail brings Sayuri to life for us. Although the thoughts and feelings attributed to the young Chiyo seemed rather adult. It was a pity the book focused so much on her early life and glossed over Sayuri's actual experiences in later years. The sense of yearning and the question of 'Will she really get to be with the Chairman she dreams of so much' kept me engrossed till the end of the book. The characterizations of Hatsumomo, her nemesis, and Auntie, her friend and mentor, were vivid and helped in understanding Sayuri. The reproduction of the Japan of the 30's and 40's was excellent and each minute detail well researched. On the whole, a good book, although the completion of it leaves you wondering about her later years. You are also left feeling sceptical about a teenager having such intense thoughts and profound mental imagery when faced with challenging circumstances in life. A good read, the book draws you in.
Rating: 
Summary: Great but also bad.
Review: This novel rings false among Japanese. The reason is simple: Golden's "exotic" setting is not exotic for Japanese people. While I was reading this, I looked for something beyond the exotic setting because Golden's details in culture are what I'd already known. Yet, I found that it was empty under the skin! Yes, you can think that this novel is quite accurate, but don't think that Japanese people act like Golden's characters. Although Golden did a great job on creating an exotic setting, he failed to capture people who lived through the emperor system, the WWII, and the arival of democracy. This is the prime reason why Japanese people don't like this book. Anyway, I am glad that this book is popular among American people and they are more interested in our culture. There has been an invisible big gap between America and Japan, but Golden seems to have made a bridge inbetween.
Rating:
Summary: I expected more...
Review: Given the hype surrounding this book, I expected to be "wow-ed" by it - but I wasn't. Certainly, I found the historical details interesting and it was enlightening to learn about the life of a geisha. Still, the characters seemed so stereotypical and one-dimensional to me. In addition, I found the the plot, particularly the ending, to be way too contrived and predictable.
Rating: 
Summary: Yeesha! Am I alone here?
Review: I must admit that I'm confused about the appeal of this book. I'm reading it as part of a book club, and never have I struggled so much to get through a single volume. I'm generally open to works outside of my normal interests, but I find this tedious book so overburdened with period detail and misplaced epochal reverence that I don't think I can finish it. While the general subject may be somewhat interesting, the story becomes obscured by the obsessive adoration the author has for the phenomenon of geisha. I'm afraid I'll have to learn the ending from my book club mates, unless, of course, they feel the same way I do and don't finish it.
Rating:
Summary: Bravissimo! Memoirs raves!
Review: "But now I know that our world is little more than a wave rising on the ocean. Whatever our struggles and triumphs, however we may suffer them, all too soon they bleed into a wash, just like watery ink on paper." This excerpt, taken from the words of Arthur Golden's fictional character Sayuri, beautifully reflects the main theme in his novel Memoirs of a Geisha; no matter what type of hand life deals to us, in the end our struggles are of little importance. This talented author successfully gives a detailed account on the life and hardships of struggling Geisha in Japan during the 1930s and 1940s. Golden pulls the reader from the present and takes her back to a different place and time, providing a brief escape from reality. From the very beginning of this story, we are immediately immersed in a different world with a culture completely unlike our own. We are transported to a different place and time -where women are objects to be won, and where love is seen as delusion. Golden writes in first person from the voice of a young Japanese girl, effectively drawing us even closer to the story. In Memoirs of a Geisha, we learn of the struggles and joys of young Chiyo-chan as she is taken away from her home in Yoroido and abandoned at an unwelcoming Okiya in the geisha district of Kyoto, Japan. From there Chiyo-chan changes to Sayuri-san in her climb up the social ladder and discovers the pride and shame of her life as a geisha. As the previous excerpt from the novel demonstrates the lesson that Sayuri has learned by the end of her life, so do the readers of Golden's work also come to this conclusion by the end of the story. The clever way in which he organizes the events that take place in Memoirs of a Geisha make this possible. Although the character Sayuri and her story are fictional, the historical content in it of the life of geisha is true. I think that this novel fits its appropriate genre of historical fiction. As mentioned, the story in itself is not true but the historical facts included with it are. The author, Arthur Golden was educated at Harvard College where he studied art history and specialized in Japanese art. In 1980 he earned an M.A. in Japanese history from Columbia University. He researched the day-to-day life of Geisha for over ten years and interviewed actual Geisha of Gion before writing Memoirs of a Geisha along with numerous other people who spent time in Kyoko during World War II. The only discrepancy of the accuracy of Golden's portrayal of geisha that I have read about is that some geisha today disagree with his assumption that geisha are equivalent to prostitutes. Golden writes this novel in a very realistic style. Because he narrates from the first person point of view, the tone is very intimate and personal. The story becomes engrossing; it is as though we are reading someone else's diary. Every bit of information is a secret - captivating and enthralling. The reading difficulty was not so challenging that I was bombarded with unfamiliar words that I had to look up to understand the plot. However, this did not take away from the overall challenge and interest of the book. Golden writes with a semi-poetic style and includes a unique dialect to enhance the believability of the characters. After reading Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden, I experienced a kind of bittersweet joy. I was grateful that I had reached the conclusion of the novel and yet almost sad that I had to be brought back into reality from the fascinating world of geisha. Previous to reading this novel, I had temporarily lost my love for reading; Memoirs restored it completely. Immediately after finishing this thrilling novel, I wanted to find out more about the lives of geisha and obtain another one of Golden's works. Amazingly though, Memoirs of a Geisha is his first novel. Get yourself a copy of it today so you won't be the last one in line when he comes up with a second.
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