Review for "Memoirs of a Geisha" by Arthur Golden

We don't become geisha because we want our lives to be happy; we become geisha because we have no choice. 




Rating: ⭐⭐⭐

Chiyo's life, told in retrospect, is incomprehensible to almost all 21st century girls. Chiyo, who later becomes known as Sayuri, was kidnapped, sold into slavery, orphaned, abandoned by her one remaining family member, and abused, all before the age of 12. Chiyo's life depends on survival, and in the okiyas of 1940's Japan, survival depends on becoming a successful geisha.

This book is an important read to get a perspective on a) the role and activities of geisha, and b) Japan in the 1930-40's. These are two topics I was not familiar with before reading this book, and I really appreciate getting to learn about Japanese history and customs through this story. Yes, I realize it's fictional, but it was so extensively researched that I don't think I can discount its accuracy out-of-hand.

A note on the aforementioned accuracy: I've heard the allegations against Arthur Golden, about how he released the name of the geisha who he interviewed for the book even though he agreed to protect her privacy. I don't know if that was ever confirmed, but honestly it's really not my business. I'm rating and reviewing this book for the quality of the work, not for some legal controversies that may or may not be twisted up in it.

I suppose it has something to do with the way the story is being told by future Sayuri in retrospect, but I didn't get as much emotion out of the characters as I would have expected, given the horrors they went through. The events are told very matter-of-factly, and the emotions are more told than shown. I attribute this to 1. the retrospective POV (Sayuri even admits that it's easier to talk about pain after one is no longer suffering, in the end of the novel), 2. the fact that Chiyo had abuse, machismo, and inferiority engrained into her head from a young age, so she may have been less affected by it than if she had had a normal childhood, and 3. the narrator.

I listened to this book on audio, and I didn't love the narration. The voices were fine in terms of dialogue, but the Chiyo perspective was monotone and gave Chiyo a sense of indifference. I think the book would have had more of an emotional effect on me if I had read it instead of listening to the audiobook.

This book was way too long. There were so many stories and events in the book that made me think, "Wait, hasn't this happened already?" I found my mind wandering off because the plot dragged at certain parts or rushed through other parts way too quickly.

I still enjoyed reading this book though, because it isn't just a window in Chiyo/Sayuri's life as a geisha, but into Chiyo/Sayuri's life as a whole. We get to hear her entire perspective on life, from before she was a geisha to her time during it and afterward. I like that it was set during both the Great Depression and WWII, I think that really allowed for some important contextualization. And I liked how culture shock was included in the book, both for Sayuri about American men (soldiers) and for Americans about traditional Japanese customs.

I read this book as a part of America's Best Loved Novels Reading Challenge, and if you're interesting in great American novels I recommend you read it too!