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Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden

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An epic tale and a brutal evocation of a disappearing world' The Times A young peasant girl is sold as servant and apprentice to a renowned geisha house. Many years later she tells her story from a hotel in New York, opening a window into an extraordinary half-hidden world of eroticism and enchantment, exploitation and degradation and summoning up a quarter of a century of Japan's dramatic history. 'Intimate and brutal, written in cool, lucid prose it is a novel whose psychological empathy and historical truths are outstanding' Mail on Sunday Amazon Review According to Arthur Golden's absorbing first novel, the word geisha does not mean prostitute, as Westerners ignorantly assume--it means artisan or artist. To capture the geisha experience in the art of fiction, Golden trained as long and hard as any geisha who must master the arts of music, dance, clever conversation, crafty battle with rival beauties and cunning seduction of wealthy patrons. After earning degrees in Japanese art and history from Harvard and Columbia--and an M.A. in English--he met a man in Tokyo who was the illegitimate offspring of a renowned businessman and a geisha. This meeting inspired Golden to spend 10 years researching every detail of geisha culture, chiefly relying on the geisha Mineko Iwasaki, who spent years charming the very rich and famous. The result is a novel with the broad social canvas (and love of coincidence) of Charles Dickens and Jane Austen's intense attention to the nuances of erotic maneuvering. Readers experience the entire life of a geisha, from her origins as an orphaned fishing-village girl in 1929 to her triumphant auction of her mizuage (virginity) for a record price as a teenager to her reminiscent old age as the distinguished mistress of the powerful patron of her dreams. We discover that a geisha is more analogous to a Western trophy wife than to a prostitute--and, as in Austen, flat-out prostitution and early death is a woman's alternative to the repressive, arcane system of courtship. In simple, elegant prose, Golden puts us right in the tearoom with the geisha; we are there as she gracefully fights for her life in a social situation where careers are made or destroyed by a witticism, a too-revealing (or not revealing enough) glimpse of flesh under the kimono, or a vicious rumour spread by a rival as cruel as a spider. Golden's web is finely woven, but his book has a serious flaw: the geisha's true romance rings hollow--the love of her life is a symbol, not a character. Her villainous geisha nemesis is sharply drawn, but she would be more so if we got a deeper peek into the cause of her motiveless malignity--the plight all geisha share. Still, Golden has won the triple crown of fiction: he has created a plausible female protagonist in a vivid, now-vanished world and he gloriously captures Japanese culture by expressing his thoughts in authentic Eastern metaphors. Review An epic tale and a beautiful evocation of a rapidly vanishing world The Times The sort of novel that novel-lovers yearn for, which is to say, so convincing that while reading it you become transported to another time, another place, and feel you are listening and seeing with someone else's ears and eyes -- Margaret Forster Endlessly fascinating...a narrative that is both gripping and beautifully paced...a wonderful read Observer Sayuri's memoirs reveal Golden to have great gifts of imaginative empathy...fascinating Independent This is one of those rare novels that evokes a vanished world with absolute conviction and in every detail... This book is exceptional Daily Mail Review An epic tale and a beautiful evocation of a rapidly vanishing world The Times The sort of novel that novel-lovers yearn for, which is to say, so convincing that while reading it you become transported to another time, another place, and feel you are listening and seeing with someone else's ears and eyes -- Margaret Forster Endlessly fascinating...a narrative that is both gripping and beautifully paced...a wonderful read Observer Sayuri's memoirs reveal Golden to have great gifts of imaginative empathy...fascinating Independent This is one of those rare novels that evokes a vanished world with absolute conviction and in every detail... This book is exceptional Daily Mail About the Author Arthur Golden was born and brought up in Chattanooga, Tennessee. He is a 1978 graduate of Harvard College with a degree in art history, specialising in Japanese art. In 1980 he earned an MA in Japanese history from Columbia University where he also learned Mandarin Chinese. After a summer at Beijing University, he went to work at a magazing in Tokyo. In 1988 he recieved an MA in English from Boston University. He has lived and worked in Japan, and since that time has been teaching writing and literature in the Boston area. He now lives in Brookline, Massachusetts, with his wife and children
Publication Details

Title: Memoirs of a Geisha

Author(s):

  • Arthur Golden

Illustrator:

Binding: Paperback

Published by: Vintage: , 1998

Edition:

ISBN: 9780099771517 | 0099771519

512 pages. 12.9 x 3.1 x 19.7 cm

  • ENG- English
Book Condition: Good

Cover worn
3594h

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Foxing - Wikipedia
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Age tanning, or browning, occurs over time on the pages of books. This process can show up on just the edges of pages, when this occurs it is sometimes referred to as "edge tanning." This kind of deterioration is commonly seen in books printed before the advent of acid-free paper in the 1980s.
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  • Trade Name: Book Express Ltd
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  • Address: 35 Nathan Terrace, Shannon, 4821, New Zealand.
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  • NZBN: 9429031911290

       

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