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  • I could not put this book down, I mean almost literally I read strait through it! I have no idea why I let this book sit on my shelf for so long but now I am just grateful that I read it. Beautifully written, the characters are so well crafted that I loved even the ones I hated. It was one of those ... Continue

    I could not put this book down, I mean almost literally I read strait through it! I have no idea why I let this book sit on my shelf for so long but now I am just grateful that I read it. Beautifully written, the characters are so well crafted that I loved even the ones I hated. It was one of those books that had me wishing it was longer so the story wouldn't have to end.

    

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• ― Icedream said on Feb 22, 2008 about the Mass Market Paperback edition| 1 feedback| 1 feedback

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  • better than the movie (aren't they always :)

  • At first I thought this was a true story and I have to admit, when I found out it was fiction I was a bit disappointed. Nevertheless, I love this book because it's unlike any other book I've ever read. I learned about Japanese culture and I gained a respect for geisha.

    

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• ― Ca1iforniasquirt said on Sep 20, 2007 about the Paperback edition| Add your feedback

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  • Sad and dark story. By the time I finished the book I had come to the conclusion that Geishas are just exploited girls..call whatever you want but in the end it is just pitiful how the whole system work to exploit women..

    

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• ― Annam_Mathews said on Jul 5, 2006 about the Hardcover edition| Add your feedback

An alluring tour de force: a brilliant debut novel told with seamless authenticity and exquisite lyricism as the true confessions of one of Japan's most celebrated geisha.  

Speaking to us with the wisdom of age and in a voice at once haunting and startlingly immediate, Nitta Sayuri tells the story of her life as a geisha. In Memoirs of a Geisha, 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, always elusive, is scorned as illusion.  

Sayuri's story begins in a poor fishing village in 1929, when, as a nine-year-old with unusual blue-gray eyes, she is taken from her home and sold into slavery to a renowned geisha house. Through her eyes, we see the decadent heart of Gion--the geisha district of Kyoto--with its marvelous teahouses and theaters, narrow back alleys, ornate temples, and artists' streets. And we witness her transformation as she learns the rigorous arts of the geisha: dance and music; wearing kimono, elaborate makeup and hair; pouring sake to reveal just a touch of inner wrist; competing with a jealous rival for men's solicitude and the money that goes with it. But as World War II erupts and the geisha houses are forced to close, Sayuri, with little money and even less food, must reinvent herself all over again to find a rare kind of freedom on her own terms.

Memoirs of a Geisha is a book of nuances and vivid metaphor, of memorable characters rendered with humor and pathos. And though the story is rich with detail and a vast knowledge of history, it is the transparent, seductive voice of Sayuri that the reader remembers.

A dazzling literary achievement of empathy and grace by an extraordinary new writer.

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