I kept hearing that I should read it. I had no interest in the subject, but figured I'd give it a try. I immediately liked the narrator's voice. One page, two, three, and before I knew it, I was through the book. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and would read it again. ( )

I loved Memoirs of a Geisha, but maybe not for the reason most people loved it.

I remember seeing this book out everywhere years ago, and then the movie poster was everywhere in my city too. Over the years, I pondered picking the book up but just never came across it in my travels. And then recently, I found it at a charity bookstore and decided to take the plunge.

I liked the storytelling itself and how the book was written. Arthur Golden's writing style worked well for me and I was hooked on every page. I wanted to know how the characters were doing and how they would end up. Supposedly, this book is very deep and has meaning, but I saw it just as a story in a very different world than the one I live in. I was intrigued by the life of a geisha and hoped for a happy ending. I was surprised that the ending was so... simple. I thought it might change or be quite epic, but it just ended in a very 'blah' way for how well the book pulled me in.

Despite this book being extremely slow and the exact opposite of what I liked, it really worked. I couldn't put the book down. I'm surprised by this but also quite impressed. It takes a very special writing style to hold me when the book is very slow.

I'm sure this book isn't purely accurate but I still enjoyed it. Taking it as a story, it was an interesting read. I'll definitely be wanting to find some books on geisha written by Japanese and Asian writers in the near future.

Four out of five stars. ( )

Originally published in 1997. This is a novel based on true facts of what it was like to grow up and become a geisha in Japan in 1920's and 1930's. I was impressed that the author, being a man, could have so many thoughts as a woman. Arthur Golden has the most beautiful writing style which flows so easily and is also very visual.

I watched the movie many years ago and am ready to watch it again after finally reading the book. My friend, Happy, had even gifted me a bottle of perfume named after this book and movie, which I didn't care for too much. But it was the thought that counted. ( )

Did a man really write this? Amazing. ( )

If you want to learn about geisha, don't read this. Read "Geisha, a Life" by Mineko Iwasaki. It's by someone who actually was a geisha, not a foreigner who made up most of what he knows and mixed a bunch of professions and gave a largely male gazy book to us. Iwasaki's novel reads much better, is very accessible, is a joy to read and very invested in women's issues, family issues, politics, education, passion, and overall just a lot of great stuff. Now THAT I'd love to see made into a movie.

Now I love beautiful prose. I love books that make me think about things. Golden certainly has the gift for writing beautifully and poetically. But I feel at times that this novel kind of went a bit too far with that. All that beautiful prose that the movie has (most of which is not actually in the book), is quadrupled, and then quadrupled again. After a while, it makes the book feel heavy and I actually skipped a bit because wow it dragged after a bit. Sayuri gives one long-winded metaphor thought after another, and it's like some heavy-handed lesson that doesn't seem to teach you more as time passes.

I also understand that this is supposed to be fictionally auto-biographical, but I was left with a couple questions about it that I think could have been easily answered. For instance, Golden never really touches on how the wives of the men who visit geisha feel about their husbands' interactions, especially if these men become danna and thus end up with mistresses, perhaps more than one at a time. Or if these wives are given the same opportunity to be with another man other than their husband. Knowing as much history as I do, I think that the wives a) just dealt with their husbands adultery and went on with their lives because they PROBABLY had no choice in the matter, and b) did not have the opportunity to be adulterous on their own time for the same reason they probably had no say in their husbands' adulterous actions. They were probably severely punished, and perhaps labelled as criminals if they were caught with men who weren't their husbands or perceived as adulterous.

But at no point does Sayuri think on this. We never meet the Chairman's wife. He never speaks about her. He does speak about his children, though. We only really meet two wives: one who is dead, and whose passing is used as a way to better connect to an old man Sayuri knows, and a wife who demonstrates that she knows about her husband's actions. Sayuri is supposed to be caring, or maybe she isn't. Maybe she's just self-absorbed. In the end, she doesn't leave Japan because she feels uncomfortable around the feelings of the Chairman's wife. She leaves because the man he wants to adopt feels uncomfortable with her presence as a possible roadblock to his success. She isn't hidden where she is because the Chairman wants to keep her from his wife (although I suppose this was always underlying there somewhere). She's hidden because he wants to keep her presence and their relationship from Nobu, the Chairman's business partner and friend.

We get so intimate in these character's lives. We learn about how they treat periods, sex, and the actions before, during, and after sex, the significance of dirty hair, abortions, mistresses, prostitution... but we don't learn about something like this? ( )