Sep 17, 2006 08:32 AM
2701 Views
(Updated Oct 03, 2006 04:25 PM)
Memoirs of a Geisha
One of the best attributes of a book that tells you whether it is good or not is its ability to make the reader not want u put it down at all. In that regard, ‘Memoirs of a Geisha’ by Arthur Golden, passes with flying colors.
I first purchased the book when it was highly recommended by a friend. She specifically told me read the book before I watched the movie, which is also by the same name. However, I have not had an opportunity watch the movie yet.
The way the story as been presented is a bit peculiar. It is a narrative for starters, with the usual haws and hums that go with any narrative. Apparently, it is a narrative of a geisha from Japan during the days of the Great depression and World War II, currently settled in New York, recorded by the apparent author. Its only when you read the acknowledgment section in the end of the book, as opposed to the translators note in the beginning, do you realize that, as explicitly stated, the character of Nitta Sayuri and the characters in her story are all fictional.
What are not fictional are the components of the story and the backdrop in the beautiful pre-war Japanese geisha district of Gion. The story of Nitta Sayuri begins in her humble home, set in a fishing village in Japan, from where she is sold to a place where young girls are trained to become geisha or women trained to entertain men with conversation, singing, and dancing. Explicit details about the trials and tribulations underwent by young girls to become geisha as well as details about the lifestyle and culture of pre-war Japan has been provided.
Though she has all that is needed to make a successful geisha, Sayuri’s career is cut short by a jealous inmate of her own household, Hatsumomo, a beautiful and successful geisha herself. Its only when Hatsumomo’s rival, Mameha takes it upon herself to train Sayuri in the arts of becoming a geisha, that the story steps out of the despairing cloud that seems to hang over the whole narrative.
How Sayuri becomes a geisha and how she struggles through the War and the aftermath keeps you spellbound. Also her unrequited love for the Chairman and to what extremes she goes to get obtain that love makes one think of Scarlett ‘O Hara from ‘Gone with wind’.
It is interesting to read the book from the eyes of an outsider and dispels quite a few myths, about geishas as well as how Japan suffered from the war a great deal as well and yet emerged as the power it presently is.
Overall, it is a very interesting book and definitely a ‘wont-let-you-put-it downer’.
