Thank you for taking time to write the comments I could intuitively feel but do not have the background in Japanese culture to voice. I also agree with your comments about characters and the fact that even though the book is entertaining it is fiction.

I really enjoyed your commentary on the book. I think I was one of the people you speak of who made the mistake of taking fiction for fact with this book, that is, in the first 200 pages. Once I read the author bio and realized that it was a white guy from Massachusetts writing as if he was a geisha in WWII Japan, I was suspicious from the next word on. I really don't know why he even bothered to try and write the story in the first person.

I have notoriously heard that the movie is a pile of crap, so I have chosen not to watch it.

With that said, it was a very entertaining book until around page 400 and then again for the last 2 pages. Somewhere in between there he gets very caught up with her love affair and he really lost it for me. However, the last two pages made me weep. I thought they were heart felt and beautiful.

If you have time, can you please recommend some books that you feel accurately represent the culture?
I would also be interested to hear read your thoughts/reviews on any of Murakami's books.
Thanks again
Lowdown

Excellent review. It's nice to hear an insiders perspective and I especially found the word "clunky" to be apt for Golden's awkward tale.

Duh. Of course it's fiction. If I wanted a history lesson or a biography from an actual geisha, I would have picked something up from the non-fiction section of the library.

Anyone who reads this book and takes it for a historically accurate representation has bigger problems than just misinterpreting the intention of this book. The purpose of a novel is to enlighten the human condition, not teach history.

I feel the main point of this novel was the sweeping and bittersweet love story between Sayuri and the Chairman, the tragic notion that life is full of compromise, but that some amount of good can be hoped for in spite of all the disappointments.

And of course the author is entitled to write the story from whatever viewpoint he or she wishes. To vilify Golden for having the audacity to write from the point of view of an imagined Japanese geisha in a time-gone-by is an insult to every author who has ventured beyond the limits of their own experience and explored a view on life from someone else's perspective. (Hello, Harriet Beecher Stowe??) And naturally an author is almost duty-bound to seek a perspective other than his or her own - otherwise, we'd just be reading the person's memoirs.

It's FICTION, people. ENJOY IT.

I like the detailed background about the flaws in what is posed as historical accuracy. I have wondered about many of these elements for some time. I will however take the story at face value because I did like the story but move on from there.

Like Melissa said...it is fiction...and I enjoyed it as such, however I would be interested in some historically accurate representations of the japanese/geisha culture and would appreciate it Juushika if you could suggest some.

I really like your review of this book, it explains all the problems I had with the book but didn't know how to voice. Thank you!

I got so fooled by that fake translator note!
I was also sort of disappointed that he was an American man-it seemed to me that he didn't have the right to go into that strictly woman's world. But I still did enjoy it, even if Sayuri's experiences with men seemed to me extremely depressing on the opposite sex..

You have a great review, and point of view on the book I never even thought of. But then again, the book IS fiction.

what a great review! Thank you! I'm one of those readers who'd put off reading this book for ages, even as most of my friends and acquaintances fell to reading it--essentially, I put it off because when i read fiction, I'm looking for 'truth': not specifically historical or non-historical truth but, rather, the truth of authenticity in the voice. And, to be honest, knowing from the first that this was a white American guy with a long list of degrees from Mass (a white American guy who simply studied Japanese history and spend a short while in Japan--would have been different if he'd grown up there, perhaps) I was suspicious and reluctant. In the end, I found myself reading it on a long holiday after I'd exhausted all my other books and someone left this one behind. And I won't lie: it was a compelling read in many ways. I did enjoy it. But I didn't buy it. So thanks for your inside note, it places it all into context.

"Comfort Women" by Nora Okja Keller provides an excellent contrast to Arthur Golden's book "Memoirs of a Geisha." However, I warn you in advance that it is gut wrenching in its' sincerity. While Golden's work was superficial and deliberately artistic Keller's book chases thru your imagination like a howling lost soul. It is described as a book about mothers and daughters but it is as much about a relationship between the self one chooses to reveal and the self one chooses to hold sacrosanct. It's easy to fly thru the book at the speed of light but I don't recommend doing it that way...read it as slowly as you can and refuse to miss details that are hauntingly written and provoking. A warning though, this is an emotionally intense book versus a vacation read.

I would like to know a lot more about Japanese culture, but I have no idea where to start. I started with this, but after reading your review it made me feel ignorant for thinking it was actually true. If anyone can recommend me some books about Japanese culture, Japan, or even geisha, I would really appreciate it!

Thanks for the review! It was very informative and got me wondering if you could give some examples of inaccuracies in the book when Golden was trying to depict the Japanese geisha life.

I don’t think that Golden was necessarily trying to be tricky by writing the fictional translator’s note; Nathaniel Hawthorne did the same thing in The Scarlet Letter. It’s a literary device that isn’t used often, but is done so to create a certain artistic effect. Whether that device is successful or not is up for debate. Also, I think it’s totally feasible for a person of one gender to write from the perspective of another gender and be successful at it. Flannery O’Connor wrote about men authentically; William Faulkner occasionally wrote from his female characters’ perspectives and succeeded. It’s just that such a thing requires a greater removal of the self—you have to be able to see completely through that character’s eyes, which includes not just what they see and feel and think, but how they see and feel and think it. Whether Golden succeeded in doing so is, again, what is up for debate; I’d say he didn’t completely. And, as far as cultural authenticity goes, being an "outsider" who has read novels by great Japanese authors, it's easy for me to see how Western Memoirs of a Geisha is. There’s a marked tonal difference, for one; it’s much warmer and more effusive than a Japanese novel would be. The pacing is different, too; more direct, I guess, or with a more clearly marked plot arc. However, Golden wasn't writing for a Japanese audience; he was writing for a general American audience that has entirely different expectations. I think it's important to keep that in mind. While I wouldn’t put this book up on a pedestal and call it a contemporary classic, I will say that it’s solid popular fiction. If anyone is interested in reading Japanese novels, I recommend Snow Country by Kawabata Yasunari or Masks by Enchi Fumiko (my favorite novel).

Totally agree about all the nature nature nature metaphors, they became incessant and insulting, as you say. Ruined a good story.

Heidi wrote: "I don’t think that Golden was necessarily trying to be tricky by writing the fictional translator’s note; Nathaniel Hawthorne did the same thing in The Scarlet Letter. It’s a literary device that i..."

I completely agree with the pacing difference. I hadn't even realized it until you mentioned it, actually...

Geisha, a Life, is allegedly the premise for Sayuri's character, and she writes this book, to clear up any falacies he may have implied w Memoirs. Please forgive my brief review, but after reading both I can still say that Memoirs, did exactly what a good "fiction" book does for me. Leaves a lasting impression,that I for one won't soon forget.

Find Women of Comfort

I don't know what you're talking about but Hatsumomo DID NOT have any reason to treat Chiyo so unkindly. Only like once does she give her a reason to hate her and that's already after Chiyo's got in trouble for the lies Hatsumomo told and she was already treating her like a dog. After someone did all that stuff to me i'd want to be mean to her too.