Description:"In this literary tour de force, novelist Arthur Golden enters a remote and shimmeringly exotic world. For the protagonist of this peerlessly observant first novel is Sayuri, one of Japan's most celebrated geisha, a woman who is both performer and courtesan, slave and goddess.
We follow Sayuri from her childhood in an impoverished fishing village, where in 1929, she is sold to a representative of a geisha house, who is drawn by the child's unusual blue-grey eyes. From there she is taken to Gion, the pleasure district of Kyoto. She is nine years old. In the years that follow, as she works to pay back the price of her purchase, Sayuri will be schooled in music and dance, learn to apply the geisha's elaborate makeup, wear elaborate kimono, and care for a coiffure so fragile that it requires a special pillow. She will also acquire a magnanimous tutor and a venomous rival. Surviving the intrigues of her trade and the upheavals of war, the resourceful Sayuri is a romantic heroine on the order of Jane Eyre and Scarlett O'Hara. And Memoirs of a Geisha is a triumphant work - suspenseful, and utterly persuasive."
My thoughts:
I really enjoyed this book about Sayuri's life in Japan during World War II as she learns to become a geisha. I especially liked her relationships with her mentor Mameha, the scarred businessman Nobu, and her friend, the Chairman.
Date finished: 1/23/2007
Book No.: 8
Rating: 4* = great
Genre: Fiction
ISBN-10: 1400096898
ISBN-13: 978-1400096893
Publisher: Vintage
Year: 2005
No. of pages: 512
Binding: Paperback
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