Memoirs of a Geisha

beautiful writing but it just dragged on and it just wasn't enjoyable. The plot was boring.
Reading about men making sexual comment towards a young teen for most of the book was hard to read, i know its true and should be written about but it was just constant and made me feel repulsed from this book.

I also have a huge problem with a certain paragraph but i'll have to type it all out later as i just got my nails done and can't type properly lol. I'm definitely questioning why the author wrote this book... very bad vibes from him.

At first I thought, the topic of interest of this book was so misogynistic to the core, that I'd have to wash it down with some Atwood or Woolf. But then I realized this is just women ‘manipulating' men for financial gain; that men were just clients, and now I'm comfortable.
This book is dripping metaphors all over. It is beautiful, that at the low points in the novel, they were the flimsy rope I caught on to, and prevented this from falling into dnf.
The first half is beautiful, has a strong storyline, puts us inside the head of the lead character. We feel what she feels, hopes what she hopes and it hurts when she gets hurt. Somewhere along the lane she abandons us; leaving us in some corner of her tea party room, to watch her from afar. This didn't make me feel like dropping the book though. The whole thing was like a TV drama, with jealousy, passion, betrayal (and plenty of horny men); just more sophisticated and prettier with all the cute little metaphors.

“Sometimes the smartest remark is silence.”

“The heart dies a slow death. Shedding each hope like leaves, until one day there are none. No hopes. Nothing remains.”

“We must not expect happiness. It is not something we deserve. When life goes well, it is a sudden gift; it cannot last forever.”

“My mother always said my sister was like wood. As rooted to the Earth as a sakura tree. But she told me I was like water. Water can carve its way through stone. And when trapped, water makes a new path.”

The writing is beautiful with its use of different imageries to describe various feelings and situations. It also brings a certain humour and levity to the book.
However, the story itself was disappointing and ineffective.
I may be bringing my own morals to the story, but i felt having Sayuri fixate so much on the Chairman, such that it basically robbed her of her other traits an awful aspect of the story.
Also, I did not like the ending.

I love this book. It's perfect. At times it is touching and heartbreaking, and the love story is poignant. Sometimes I was angry because the main character was not treated well and had a hard time. But I'm glad she found true love, and even if she had to wait for him, she was finally happy with him. I also really like the movie. I recommend the book and the movie.

A solid four stars. I liked this book a lot, and it was an easy read. I waffled on whether or not I liked the main character throughout the story though, and in the end I was left mildly disappointed. I did like the introduction to geisha life and will probably seek out additional information on the topic from other sources.

There has been a lot of criticism of this book, and the fact that it is penned by a Western male author. Whether Golden's interpretation of geisha life in early 1900s Japan is accurate, I cannot say; but, he certainly had me convinced that these were real memories recalled in the voice of Chiyo/Sayuri.

The first few chapters were very sad, in a heavy, despairing sort of way; towards the end of the book, the sadness evolved into a bitter, regretful sorrow. The overall feel of this tale was romantic and remorseful, highlighted by many beautiful metaphors.

I have no doubt that much of Golden's writing is, as he says, the result of many hours of research, however, I am still interested to read an “insider's” view of the geisha lifestyle. Mineko Iwasaki, who it has been alleged, is the basis of Golden's novel, has written her autobiography which disputes many “facts” that Golden included; her book is published as “Geisha, a Life” (US title) or “Geisha of Gion” (UK title).

I really liked this book until I was half way through and I found it wasn't really going anywhere. There was nothing particularly wrong with it, it was a memoir as you expect, but I just found it a little dull when not much had really happened by the time I had read half of it. I hate giving up on books but so I compromised and watched the film and I didn't find the film that riveting either. Perhaps it just wasn't the book for me, I prefer a bit more drama and I didn't find much drama in the storyline. Having said that, it is absolutely a memoir of a Geisha which I had little to no knowledge of before and I did learn a lot about their traditions and way of life which I found interesting.

I am a junkie of Asian history and stories. I loved this. I don't know how realistic this is but it definitely was an interesting description of a world and society that no longer exists. And yes, there was love larger than life as well as assholes and a mentor. All elements that you get in sooooooooooo many coming of age stories or “bildungsroman”..But I warmed to this one despite all it's cliches. The ending was emotional and really crowned the book. 5/5

I choose to give a rating based off how I felt before doing research...This book is written very well with an almost poetic flow and I was astonished to find out how cruel eastern civilization is, until I did research and found out that the author fabricated the woman's story to the point where she sued him for defamation. Now I don't know what's the truth and what's fake. Sounds like a Mel Gibson movie.

Where was the depth in this? To be honest, reading it was nothing but a chore. There are no complex storylines, no character development, no memorable lines, and even the most basic notion of “Show, Don't Tell” was completely missing. All secondary characters are devoid of any personality that goes beyond a defined emotion; a lack of believable human beings was the most noticeable aspect of this story.

With an underwhelming attempt at “poetry” and being artistic, Golden managed to screw up what could've been an intricate story about a Geisha's relationships within a small town. How does someone manage to write a main character to be SO one-dimentional and boring?

Chiyo/Sayuri does not seem to have any goal in life other than to marry The Chairman, like, is that all??? no desire to reunite with her sister, or grow as a person??? what happened??? how is this a successful book?

It is unfair to reduce the entire identity of a woman into “someone who must get married.” Golden tried (and failed miserably) to give life to his main character but it just comes off as ridiculous. Women do not only think of love and romantic partners, or just randomly think about stupid surface level metaphors.

Awful.

5 stars for SURE. This was a fantastic book about something that I have no knowledge of. My extent of Japanese history does not extend past an art history class that I took when I was a senior in college. A refreshing change to my usual historical novels, this book was incredibly tragic but summed up in a tone of ‘this is just how life is'. The cultural differences and the absolute resiliency of women in Japan in both the past and present cease to amaze me. The telling of this story was truly a look inside some of the deepest roots. The impacts of actions and how all things are intertwined in this culture, as well as the setting taking place during World War II just magnified the tragedy. It was really heavy to hear the author basically say that her life is not her own. Duty over love, and hiding of emotions. Very raw and intimate. I would highly recommend this book and will continue to seek out the subject matter to learn more in additional research and novels.

Ziyi Zhang portrayed the role of Chiyo/Sayuri so convincingly and beautifully that I decided to read the book years later to see how it really was.
The author's writing is so engaging that after reading it, I feel as if I lived the life of the little girl with the grey-blue eyes myself. For us lay people, the author was able to describe in vivid detail the life of the mysterious geishas and what they had to go through to become the best artists they could be. The deeper I got into the plot, the more respect I had for the geishas.
Although Chiyo's story is pure fiction inspired by a real geisha, it's almost surreal that somewhere in the land of the rising sun, this actually happened and how many of those women could then say they were as lucky as the protagonist.

Let me add an interjection so that the author is not believed every word on the page, because geisha is not a courtesan, but happens to be a very respected artist, even in today's Japan.