Book Review: Memoirs of a Geisha
Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden was my newly initiated book club’s first pick and I must say we managed to start off on a pretty good note. My first impression of the book from its back cover synopsis was pretty average. In part, I owe it to not fully understanding who a geisha is. However, I stand corrected. The intense storytelling of Golden sucks you into the bounded lives of the characters right away and leaves no room for the possibility of putting the book down. Like the perfect Cinderella story, this memoir takes you through Sayuri’s transformation from a slave worker to becoming one of Japan’s most celebrated geishas.
My usual genre is non-fiction, so a memoir novel was something of a departure for me. I usually find fiction stories a bit harder to relate to and often get lost in the overly descriptive nature of the story. However, these are the very things that attracted me to this novel and I give credit to Golden for that. The way Golden presents Sayuri’s story in a first-person voice — so relatable and so unadulterated — it is hard to believe this is a piece of fiction. The war aftermath, the erotic romance, the fairy tale outfits, and the feminist statements — all hit the right buttons and make me want to read on. On the flip side, for these same reasons, I would not really see myself enjoying this book as much if I wasn’t a woman.
Golden helps you discover how respect is earned, how at times your fate is defined by the liking of others, and the essence of living your whole life in the pursuit of your one true love. As a woman, I find myself fighting the same battles as Sayuri does — finding my voice, wanting things to go my way, marking my territory, etc. To me, Golden manages to successfully climb inside a woman’s head and capture the intricacies of a culture that is far from the one he has grown up in. I am, though, intrigued to hear whether a Japanese woman finds Golden’s writing representative of the culture and authentic to the place of a geisha in Japanese society.
I still find the role of a geisha pretty fascinating — a battle between a being a symbol of beauty and being a symbol of slavery. This idea of a geisha being owned by her ‘danna’ is what disturbs me most and something I find hard to swallow as a woman who has always savored independence. But as Sayuri said, not much is different in the Western countries either:
“Well I often find myself wondering why she can’t sense how much we really have in common. She is a kept woman, you see, and in my day so was I. I’m sure there are a great many things I don’t know about these young women in their splendid dresses, but I often have the feeling that without their wealthy husbands or boyfriends, many of them would be struggling to get by and might not have the same proud opinions of themselves. And of course the same thing is true for a first-class geisha.”
On an emotional level, this book sparked in me very similar feelings to the ones A Thousand Splendid Suns did. Both authors bring us along the painful journey a woman embarks on, share how her virginity is a commodity for sale, and reiterate how it is her companionship and resilience that gets her over to the other side.
The cherry on top was the collection of clever yet oddly reflective of reality comments made by characters throughout the text of this fiction. It moved me to highlight sections of the text — an activity I usually do not practice:
“Yes, well we needn’t talk about that. Sometimes we get through adversity only imagining what the world might be like if our dreams should ever come true.”
All in all, Golden has done a tremendous job of carrying the reader through the highs and lows of Sayuri’s transformation and shedding light on an otherwise forgotten world. Just how each character plays a fitting and prominent role in this story, this novel has earned its rightful place on my bookshelf that I revisit.
