Lovely Little Shelf

The Book: Memoirs of a Geisha, by Arthur Golden

The Story: I’m not going to go really deep here, because I know that probably 90 percent of you have already read this. In fact, I’m pretty sure that almost everyone in the world, non-readers included have read this.

So. A quick re-cap:

Chiyo is this beautiful girl whose impoverished family lives in a fishing town.  She is plucked up early in life and taken off to become a geisha.

Mameha, one of the most celebrated geishas in the country takes Chiyo under her wing and teaches her all the tricks of the trade.

After many struggles at the home she is being brought up in and many struggles with the society around her, Chiyo becomes a full fledged geisha.

All of this is told by an older, wiser Chiyo looking back on her life, sitting in her apartment in New York City.

What I Thought: For whatever reason, I am a bit hesitant to read most things written about Asia.  I’m not sure if it is because it all just seems so foreign (duh!) or just a general non-interest in the culture, but I’ve only read a handful of books about this part of the world.  I had this one sitting on my shelf for a good long while before I broke down and read it, and it was one of those cases where I kind of smacked myself.  Why on earth was I so reluctant?!  This is good stuff.

The writing here is kind of amazing.  Somehow Golden captured perfectly this young girl’s mind.  Her attitudes, her speech, her thought process…. it was impecable.  I think that that is what made this book great for me.  While it was about a culture that I am nearly completely unfamiliar with, the themes of love, friendship, destiny and truth are things that ring true across boundary lines. This person that he captured was so real that she could pretty much step off of the page.

He also created a nearly perfect villain in Hatsumomo.  Oh my word.  She was perfect because she was just so frigging evil.  There were moments when the person in her came through, but she was just awful from start to finish.  I would literally shiver a little bit when she stepped into a scene.  Again, crafting a character like that is nothing more than pure old good writing.

Say what you will about his fact checking and research (and I’ve heard people have said a LOT about them), but Arthur Golden can flat out write.

Rarely have I read a piece of historical fiction that intrigued me more.  I remember reading this while we were on a roadtrip and using my phone to look up all this different stuff on wikipedia.  I wanted to know absolutely everything about the geisha culture.

It is just crazy to me that less than 75 years ago, people could still bid to “buy” a girl’s virginity.  Is that not unreal?  I know that a lot of Japanese culture backs up the geisha lifestyle by saying it is not prostitution- they are just paid to entertain…. but when men pay money to have sex with a young girl… well… that is prostitution.  I know that it is technically illegal now, but I’ve heard that in certain parts of the country that still goes on.  Can you imagine?

So. Good stuff.  Does anyone have any good non-fiction suggestions that would go with Memoirs of a Geisha?

Conclusion: If I was not, in fact, the last person on earth to read this, then please check it out.