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Rating: 
Summary: interesting but not interesting enough...
Review: I HIGHLY recommend this book! Not particularly for its information about geisha. There are other books with more facts. The factual information was good, and quite a bit different from the usual song and dance of most books about geisha (in that I can truly feel and understand what it is she is feeling; it's a book about a person not an occupation). The footnotes at the back of the book were fascinating and provide a lot of sources for further reading that I had not been exposed to from prior books I had read about geisha. It isn't a "geisha do this, geisha do that" type of book. It's the story of one woman who just happened to be a geisha, but more than anything she was human. The writing is quite fluid. It's a really good translation! It's not dry or awkward in the least. This books "speaks." I truly "feel" a real person talking (and it's a translation, too!). From reading this book, I saw someone whose life was definitely not "cherries jubilee" but worked hard, tried hard, still failed, gave up sometimes, but managed to get by. I saw someone who saw the ugliest aspects of human nature, but still saw the beauty as well. I wish the book was longer. Her life is fascinating! It's quite a detailed account with lots of anecdotes, thoughts and feelings. Boy, were things different in her time (as compared to modern day geisha!)! This isn't Kyoto...or is it? After reading this book, I realized all the things in life that I take for granted and that I shouldn't. I really should step back, take a good look at things and try to make someone I love's life better. It's one of those rare books that makes one take a step back and reassess their lives. I'm really glad that I read it. I might read it again tonight... (Oh, there are no pictures of geisha in this book; just a few of places. I don't think this is for people who want a "coffee table" type book. It's not an "I love dancing and art so I became a geisha" book either. She doesn't much talk about dancing or art at all.)
Rating: 
Summary: I became quite introspective after reading this...
Review: I HIGHLY recommend this book! Not particularly for its information about geisha. There are other books with more facts. The factual information was good, and quite a bit different from the usual song and dance of most books about geisha (in that I can truly feel and understand what it is she is feeling; it's a book about a person not an occupation). The footnotes at the back of the book were fascinating and provide a lot of sources for further reading that I had not been exposed to from prior books I had read about geisha. It isn't a "geisha do this, geisha do that" type of book. It's the story of one woman who just happened to be a geisha, but more than anything she was human. The writing is quite fluid. It's a really good translation! It's not dry or awkward in the least. This books "speaks." I truly "feel" a real person talking (and it's a translation, too!). From reading this book, I saw someone whose life was definitely not "cherries jubilee" but worked hard, tried hard, still failed, gave up sometimes, but managed to get by. I saw someone who saw the ugliest aspects of human nature, but still saw the beauty as well. I wish the book was longer. Her life is fascinating! It's quite a detailed account with lots of anecdotes, thoughts and feelings. Boy, were things different in her time (as compared to modern day geisha!)! This isn't Kyoto...or is it? After reading this book, I realized all the things in life that I take for granted and that I shouldn't. I really should step back, take a good look at things and try to make someone I love's life better. It's one of those rare books that makes one take a step back and reassess their lives. I'm really glad that I read it. I might read it again tonight... (Oh, there are no pictures of geisha in this book; just a few of places. I don't think this is for people who want a "coffee table" type book. It's not an "I love dancing and art so I became a geisha" book either. She doesn't much talk about dancing or art at all.)
Rating:
Summary: interesting but not interesting enough...
Review: If you are looking for a book containing the precious thoughts of a Geisha, like Aruthur Golden's book, I highly advise you not to read this book. I did not like this book. I only found it attractive because of the chance to see how it was for a geisha in the hot springs/spa district. Compared to geisha in Gion, Hot Spring Geisha do not appear as glamourus.
This book is an autobiography, not a study of Geisha, it only gives a slivver of a glimpse into the life of a geisha. The story is- about her which happened to include being a geisha. It's more or less the story of a woman who was ragged by the hardships and poverty of Japan during that time.
Rating:
Summary: A look at a less-explored sort of geisha life
Review: If you've read MEMOIRS OF A GEISHA and GEISHA: A LIFE, by Arthur Golden and Mineko Iwasaki respectively, then your image of geisha is probably one of a world of glamor--high-status, highly-trained women existing in a world of glitter and flash, dealing with celebrities, scientists, movie stars of the stage and screen, mistresses of their chosen arts, and honored for their talents.
While this may be true of Kyoto geisha, this experience is not representative of all geisha, or even most geisha, as Sayo Masuda's book demonstrates clearly. Masuda was a hot-springs geisha, sold into servitude at the age of twelve, to a place as different from the glamor centers of Kyoto as it is possible to get. Though she was trained in shamisen and dance, the sexual aspect of her profession was at least as important as the artistic aspect, and she routinely met with cruelty, poverty and hunger.
I won't say this book shows what the life of a geisha was "really" like--Mineko's autobiography demonstrates that the glamor world of Kyoto was a real one. But it was not the only one, or even the majority one, and for a more comprehensive view of a different kind of geisha, this book here is indispensible. If Kyoto is all you know of the "flower and willow world," I recommend that you pick up Sayo Masuda's work, and expand your horizons.
Rating:
Summary: An Unapologetic Look at a Difficult Life
Review: This book deserves a lot of publicity and has gone unrecognized for far too long. Masuda's account of a difficult (to say the least) existence as a geisha in a small town in Japan in unapologetic and strangely elegant. Her writing style is spare but she knows just how to convey each experience so that the full impact hits the reader. For someone supposedly so uneducated, Masuda's painfully-acquired wisdom lives on each and every page.
Rating:
Summary: An Unapologetic Look at a Difficult Life
Review: This book deserves a lot of publicity and has gone unrecognized for far too long. Masuda's account of a difficult (to say the least) existence as a geisha in a small town in Japan in unapologetic and strangely elegant. Her writing style is spare but she knows just how to convey each experience so that the full impact hits the reader. For someone supposedly so uneducated, Masuda's painfully-acquired wisdom lives on each and every page.
Rating:
Summary: Should be Required Reading
Review: We should keep in mind, Memoirs of a Geisha was written about a fictional character. In this book, we explore the sad life of a real character, in this instance, a hot springs geisha (or more accurately, a glorified prostitute). Her candor and reflection were fascinating. We should not expect a historical account of events from an uneducated victim of indentured servitude. I did, however, get more than I expected in the way of storytelling, as perceived by the author. If anything is the biographical counterpart to Goldman's book, this one is...absent the fancies of fiction.
The author wishes to escape her past now and has surrounded herself only with people who know nothing of her past. I only hope she has recorded her life after this book ends so that when she leaves us, the rest of her story is not lost.
Of all the books I have read on this subject, I enjoyed this one the most.
Rating:
Summary: We sell bodies, not art
Review: While Minebo Iwasaki's remarkable autobiography 'Geisha, a Life' portraits the education and brilliant career of a top geisha, Sayo Masuda's recorded biography (she is illiterate) shows us a more than grim picture of the 'working' conditions of the vast majority of geisha, who were not educated to reach the top.
In fact, as a top geisha, Minebo Iwasaki could resist all her clients' sexual advances with the saying 'we sell art, not bodies'. But for the other ones the maxim was 'we sell bodies, not art'. As G.G. Rowley states clearly in his excellent introduction, the bottom line was 'sex for money'.
A geisha was a high class prostitute, who was owned by those who bought her and financed her education and kimonos. As a counterpart, they collected her fees until the total investment was paid back.
One of the most influential words in this biography is 'sold', beginning with the poor parents who were forced to sell their female children for sheer survival, over the geisha's virginity (here remarkably sold 4 times) to the milking of her protector.
This unvarnished book gives an appalling picture of the condition of the poor (the greatest part of the population) and more grimly the female poor in Japan up to the nineteen fifties of the past century. Life was a bitter struggle for survival on a diet of white rice, which many could not afford to buy every day.
This heartrending life story of a still more or less top class sex worker (there were lower ones) portraits us dreadfully that 'geisha were not considered to be human beings' (p. 76).
Nonetheless, Sayo Masuda told us a very 'human' story.
Not to be missed.
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