Arthur Golden’s Memoirs of a Geisha is set in Japan from The Great Depression through just after World War II. A young girl named Chiyo moves from her small town in Yoroido to the big city to become a geisha. However, Chiyo misses her family, and an older geisha is determined to destroy her. One day, a man notices Chiyo crying in the streets, inspiring Chiyo to become Sayuri, a remarkable geisha. Will Sayuri have a happy ending?Memoirs of a Geisha is this month’s May Readalong, and I have mixed ...

This book was wonderful. I absolutely love the movie, which I now need to watch!



In many ways, this was a sad story for me. I would really like to read a biography of a geisha and watch a documentary to really look into their world.

We lead our lives like water flowing down a hill, going more or less in one direction until we splash into something that forces us to find a new course.

Happy Reading!

Mel 🖤🐶🐺🐾

A timeless genre picture of a strong woman making the best out of terrible circumstances. Not just the personal story of the main protagonist is very well written, it´s how Japans´culture and history are shown in a new perspective one wouldn´t have ever thought of because of the stigmas and prejudices the same men haunting the poor women are imposing on them with their conservative, misogynic policy.The Asian waySexist male dominance manifested in many different forms and how the Japanese cultur...

In a small Japanese fishing village of Yoroido, on the coast of the Sea of Japan, a child Chiyo Sakamoto 9, lives with an ancient father, dying mother and older sister Satsu in a dilapidated home, leaning over a cliff the year 1929, things are tough and will get harder, as the Great Depression is about to commence...the impoverished family needs help and the two sisters are sold. Pretty Chiyo with beautiful eyes, to become a geisha after a long apprenticeship and the unlucky, plain Satsu, an abu...

”Whatever our struggles and triumphs, however we may suffer them, all too soon they bleed into a wash, just like watery ink on paper. “ Geisha Mineko Iwasaki basis for Chiyo/Sayori.Chiyo, with her sister Satsu, and her mother and father live in a shack by the sea on the coast of Japan. The shack leans, and has to be propped up to keep from total collapse. Her mother is sick and on the verge of death. Her father is a fisherman, uneducated, and generally befuddled by anything that doesn’t have ...

So.. Memoirs of a Geisha. I'd been wanting to read that one for a very long time. I had heard so many good things about it. It's supposed to be awesome, and deep, and beautiful, right? Wrong. It's not. The writing was what bothered me the most. It's pretentious and superficial, and sloooooww and it goes on and on and on and on and on and still, very little happens. In some sort of weird combination, the writing is both superficial and cliché. It feels like Golden thought it would be a good idea ...

Damn if you aren't one of the most problematic things I've ever read, Memoirs of a Geisha.Like much of non-Asian America, I was swept up in the delight of reading this book in 2000. I was fifteen and precocious, and the narrative was arresting. I couldn't put the book down. I wrote this in 2000:"Golden has hit pay dirt with this masterpiece. An insightful, curious, and caring look into the mysterious world of geisha, Arthur Golden peels away the ignorance and labeling that westerners have covere...

Memoirs of a Geisha is an American novel, and as such the attempt at West does East, especially on the complex and delicate subject of the geisha, is compelling, interesting, but also heavy-handed and ultimately ineffective (even more so in the case of the film). It is a wonderful introduction to geisha, Japanese culture, and the East for the uninitiated Western reader, and I can see why the book is popular, but I found it disappointing. For the reader already familiar with the culture, western ...

Like eating fancy dessert at a gourmet restaurant, Memoirs of a Geisha is beautiful, melts lightly off the tongue and will be forgotten shortly after it's done. The language is strikingly lovely, and Golden paints a remarkable picture of a time and place. If you're looking to learn something deep about the psychology of Japanese culture, or meet nuanced characters, then I'd steer you elsewhere. The story only skims the top of the more complicated aspects of a Japan in decline, focusing mostly on...

Very entertaining, but kind of made me gag. Everything was written in this faux-asian "My heart ached like cherry blossom petals floating on the river..." bullshit.