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Reviews
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Date of last review
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1
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7458
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March 16, 2004
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Recommended By
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Average Price
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Average Rating
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100% of reviewers
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None indicated
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9.0
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Description:
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An alluring tour de force: a brilliant debut novel told with seamless authenticity and exquisite lyricism as the true confessions of one of Japan's most celebrated geisha.
Speaking to us with the wisdom of age and in a voice at once haunting and startlingly immediate, Nitta Sayuri tells the story of her life as a geisha. In Memoirs of a Geisha, we enter a world where appearances are paramount; where a girl's virginity is auctioned to the highest bidder; where women are trained to beguile the most powerful men; and where love, always elusive, is scorned as illusion.
Sayuri's story begins in a poor fishing village in 1929, when, as a nine-year-old with unusual blue-gray eyes, she is taken from her home and sold into slavery to a renowned geisha house. Through her eyes, we see the decadent heart of Gion--the geisha district of Kyoto--with its marvelous teahouses and theaters, narrow back alleys, ornate temples, and artists' streets. And we witness her transformation as she learns the rigorous arts of the geisha: dance and music; wearing kimono, elaborate makeup and hair; pouring sake to reveal just a touch of inner wrist; competing with a jealous rival for men's solicitude and the money that goes with it. But as World War II erupts and the geisha houses are forced to close, Sayuri, with little money and even less food, must reinvent herself all over again to find a rare kind of freedom on her own terms.
Memoirs of a Geisha is a book of nuances and vivid metaphor, of memorable characters rendered with humor and pathos. And though the story is rich with detail and a vast knowledge of history, it is the transparent, seductive voice of Sayuri that the reader remembers.
A dazzling literary achievement of empathy and grace by an extraordinary new writer.
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Affiliate link:
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Buy from Amazon
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Maciamo
Decommissioned ex-admin
Registered: July 2002
Location: Austrasia
Posts: 6652
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Review Date: March 16, 2004
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Would you recommend the product? Yes |
Price you paid?: None indicated
| Rating: 9
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Pros:
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page-turner, historically realistic, culturally enlightening
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Cons:
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the end could have been better
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When I first started to read Memoirs of a Geisha, I had forgotten to read on the back of the cover that this was a fiction and not a true story. I only came to realise it after having read 100 pages. The story is so deep in feelings and feel so much as if you were in Chiyo/Sayuri's mind that I was wondering how one can remember things with such an intensity. The book is beautifully written and though I usually don't read fictions, I couldn't help but turn pages after pages in the suspense of the following events.
At times, I remember having been moved so deeply that it influenced my social behaviour in the real life - until I finished the book ! Maybe because I am living in Japan and am married to a Japanese. I have been shocked by the accuracy with which is rendered the meanest traits of the Japanese mentality. Arthur Golden portraits the psychology of a very sensitive world, where the greed, passions and suffering can destroy the humanity inside us, or at contrary show how nearly lost hopes can make one survive the hardships of life.
But don't be fooled if you think you'll find such a world for real in present day Japan; it has all but vanished, like most of the traditional Japanese culture. I have recently bought a Japanese translation of the book for my wife who, like most people nowadays, know very little about Geishas. But it is not so much for the historical background as for the griping, deeply emotional story that I recommend it.
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