Memoirs of a Geisha

This book, surprisingly, was really good. I don't know why I am surprised; I guess the fact that a white, American male wrote this threw me off. Honestly, this book was so much less cliche than either Amy Tan or Maxine Kingston Hong even though it wasn't technically an Asian American novel.

Three things I liked about the book: 1. the characters were believable: Sayuri, the main geisha, was real in her pain and her experiences and Mameha, her older sister geisha, was also very believeable; 2. the plot moved along even though the book was 500 pages; 3. again, the unclicheness of the whole thing--- Golden never stuck in Asian stories just to make the book seem more Asian.

Also, this book shocked me on two levels. First, although I always knew it was true in the back of my mind, I was really surprised by the woman's dependence on man for success. It wasn't just that a woman was expected to be courteous to all men and to serve them without complain, but also her fate, whether she turned out to be a successful geisha or not, depended completely upon the men she associates with. For example, Mameha had a fancy place to live when she was connected to a Baron, but once that Baron lost everything financially, Mameha had to move out and live in a one room house. That is rather annoying, but it is nice to know how far women, hopefully even those in Japan, have come since the days of World War II. Another pretty awesome thought: Sayuri mentioned once about how the art of succeeding in life was to let the men think they were in charge but manipulate them behind the scenes to get what you want. Not in a man hater sort of way, but just an empowerment sort of way. So I guess they weren't completely helpless.

Another thing that shocked me: how disappointed I was when things finally started going Sayuri's way. In the beginning, she was completely miserable and a victim of the world around her, being dragged away and sold to a geisha house (okiya) and having to suffer the evils of Hatsumomo. Near the end, things start looking up (I don't want to go into too much detail in fear of spoiling it for those who want to read it!), but everything just seemed like exciting and fun to read. It's like in a fan-fiction where there is all this angst between Bella and Edward (tee hee) and when they finally get together and just make out all the time, you feel really sad because the angsty part, before they knew the other's affection, was really, the better part of the story.

So, maybe sad stories are the ones that interest us the most. Though, really, I couldn't stand Tess of the D'urbervilles...

4.5 out of 5.0