"I wasn't born and raised to be a Kyoto geisha... I'm a fisherman's daughter from a little town called Yoroido on the Sea of Japan." Beginning in a poor fishing village in 1929, Memoirs of a Geisha chronicles the life of nine-year-old Chiyo, born with blue-gray eyes, and sold with her sister into the slave life of being a geisha after her mother's death. Lost in this new world where a girls virginity is sold to the highest bidder, Chiyo works as a servant in the okiya of Hatsumomo until she is taken under of wing of Hatsumomo's archenemy Mameha, another powerful and beautiful geisha in another okiya. After years of endless drama, extensive schooling on entertaining men, ducking Hatsumomo's wrath, and losing a best friend, Chiyo becomes Sayuri, one of the most successful geisha ever... only to lose it all again.
The first time Arthur Golden's Memoirs of a Geisha came to my attention was when I saw the cover of the book and a brief description in Cosmopolitan magazine two years ago.
A geiko entertaining a guest in Gion (Kyoto)
English: Fushimi Inari shrine
Memoirs of a GeishaAlthough I was interested in the novel, I was hesitant to read it because I don't generally like books with cultural and romantic references, however, from page one I knew that I was in for the long haul. Written like a work of poetry, Memoirs of a Geisha carries the reader through a complete range of emotions, the novel is a ride over the highest hills and mountains and back down again. What I found most intriguing was that this book is actually written by a man, but really explores the life, emotions, and trials of a woman so accurately and fully. It is hard to believe that a man could write a novel so deep and moving. Golden employed none of the literary...