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| Memoirs of a Geisha | 
 enlarge | Author: Arthur Golden
Publisher: Vintage
Category: Book
List Price: $7.99
Buy Used: $0.01
You Save: $7.98 (100%)
New (75) Used (561) Collectible (14) from $0.01
Avg. Customer Rating:  2477 reviews
Sales Rank: 5667
Media: Mass Market Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 512
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 6.8 x 4.2 x 1.2
ISBN: 1400096898
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9781400096893
ASIN: 1400096898
Publication Date: November 22, 2005
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Help save a tree. Buy all your used books from Green Earth Books. Read -> Recycle -> Reuse!
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| Customer Reviews:
 Do not see the Movie, but definitely read the book!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! June 7, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This is hands down one of the best books ever written. The details, clarity, and insight into this secret world of geisha's (completely misunderstood by the West's need to categorize everything) is written as this is truly the memoirs of Sayuri. However, she does not exists, she is a compilation of the author's many interviews.
The way that he embodied her life, her fears, her hopes, and her sorrows was masterful. If you are looking for a good read this summer, I would put this on the top of the list.
On a side note: bypass the movie, once you have read the book it will only anger you.
Eloquent and inspiring May 30, 2008
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
I almost find it hard to believe that a man wrote this book. We are so realistically placed in Chiyo's mind, in her world. It is a very eloquent novel about faith and patience with life. Chiyo is said to be like water - put an obstacle in water's path and it will flow around; but over time, water can carve stone. It also brings the reader through the transformation of Japan during the war - as the very culture, so perfectly constructed and tightly followed, was cracked open. A very beautiful and inspiring story.
 Awful May 25, 2008
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
I was given this book as a "must read" and was highly disappointed. I felt the book:
a) failed to create a believeable female protagonist
b) did seem too Western (even with my extreme lack of familiarity with Japanese culture)
c) seemed as if Golden is trying to demonstrate his knowledge of the culture by stuffing in as many details of Japanese culture as possible. BORING! Props to you, Golden.
All in all, I would recommed catching the movie for this one. I am usually a devout "novel is always better" critic, but this time I feel the movie portrayed the characters in Sayuri's life with personality (with Mameha being very kind and Hatsumomo being terribly nasty) and evoked some genuine emotion for Sayuri's dilemma (which I severely lacked in the novel).
Enthralling, it will draw you in from the very first paragraph. An impressive and exotic story. May 18, 2008
This is the moving story of Sayuri a Kyoto geisha who came from a very poor home in the fishermen's town of Yoroido.
She begins her story telling us readers: "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." Her story is an amazing blend of survival and fierce hope.
Chiyo was sold with her sister into slavery by their father because he couldn't raise them alone with the little money he got and his wife was so ill he couldn't take care of all three so he sells his girls to Mr. Tanaka who seemed to Chiyo as the most gracious and kind of men only to learn that this is not true. Mr. Tanaka sells them to an Okiya (a geisha house) when she was only 9 years old because her blue eyes are so different that she will be able to grow into a pretty and interesting woman and that is what a geisha should be like, pretty and interesting in order to entertain men preferable rich men of course.
Narrating her life story from her elegant suite in the Waldorf Astoria, Sayuri tells of her traumatic arrival at the Nitta okiya, where she endures harsh treatments from Granny and Mother, the greedy owners, and from Hatsumomo, the sadistically cruel head geisha.
But Sayuri's chance meeting with the Chairman, who shows her kindness, makes her determined to become a geisha. Under the tutelage of the renowned Mameha, she becomes a leading geisha of the 1930s and 1940s.
Golden, with degrees in Japanese art and history, has brilliantly revealed the culture and traditions of an exotic world, closed to most Westerners.
With him 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 is scorned as illusion.
This book is a triumphant work of fiction, at once romantic, suspenseful, erotic and unforgettable.
Beautifully written May 9, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Memoirs of a Geisha is such a beautifully written novel. I found it nearly impossible to put down and read until my eyes felt as if they were about to burst out of their sockets.
It's hard to believe it was written by a man, even harder still to believe that the character of Sayuri never really existed.
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