Review: Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden

I had a "frenemy" in high school.  Her name was Kim.  Kim and I were, for all intents and purposes, almost exactly alike.  We even looked the same (except I wore glasses 24/7 back then and she did not).  We both had long brown hair, we were both tall for our age, we were both readers...we both liked the same guy.  Hence our status as "frenemies."  Even though we knew (and acknowledged) that we could have been best friends if we didn't both like the same guy, we insisted upon having a love-hate relationship from sophomore to senior year of high school.  She dated him, and then I dated him, and he was a jerk to both of us.  

In early spring of 2000, when Kim and I were in the same English class, she told me that she had just read an amazing book, and wanted to loan it to me, since she knew that we had similar literary preferences (to this day, I will take her book recommendations over everyone else's, she knew me that well).  That book was Arthur Golden's Memoirs of a Geisha.

Sakamoto Chiyo is only nine years old when she and her sister are cruelly ripped from their parents'  home in the little poverty-stricken village of Yoroido, Japan, and taken to Kyoto -- a city rich in culture and famous for its geisha ("artisans"), ladies who are trained in the arts of dance and entertainment, who are mistresses of some of the most famous and powerful men in Japan.  Little Chiyo, noticeably beautiful (especially for her blue-gray eyes, unlike any other eyes in Japan), is sold to the mistress of an okiya, where she is expected to begin training in the arts of being a geisha.  Poor Chiyo is homesick for her parents and her older sister, and tries desperately to return to Yoroido for years, before a chance encounter with a wealthy businessman alters her life -- and her dreams -- forever.

Years later, she is the beautiful geisha Sayuri, caught between the life she is expected to live -- that of the obedient geisha -- and the man she has fallen in love with.  Set against the backdrop of Japan during the Great Depression and World War II, Sayuri must learn to balance the flow with the tide that her life has become, and to find a way to be both a successful geisha and not give up on her dreams.

The writing in this book is, in my humble opinion, what makes it so fabulous.  I don't know what an American writer has to go through, or how much he has to immerse himself in the culture, to make his writing style sound like that of a Japanese geisha writing down her life-story, but somehow Arthur Golden succeeded.  Even now, eleven years after the first time I read Memoirs, I still feel transported to Kyoto, Japan, every time I read it.  I can see the beautiful kimono, hear the bells ringing at the Shinto shrines, and imagine the cherry blossoms swaying in the breeze as Sayuri so beautifully describes each detail.  The writing style is almost lyrical, and so beautiful that I never grow tired of reading it.

Although it has come to light that Golden's story about the lives of geisha in Japan in the 20th century is not completely accurate (Mineko Iwasaki, the geisha whom Golden interviewed for his research, was reportedly furious because she felt Golden portrayed geisha as little more than prostitutes), the reader who chooses to indulge him or herself with Memoirs purely for the beauty of the writing will not be disappointed.  Those who are better-versed in the history and lifestyles of the Japanese geisha will certainly see more inaccuracies than I did.  To me, it's just a beautiful story.

And (for those of you who really care and might be wondering) -- what happened to Kim and I?  I'm pleased to say that after three years of being "frenemies", we put aside our differences right before graduation, became best of friends...and years later (in 2004 and 2010, respectively) were bridesmaids in each other's weddings.  Kim has now been happily married for nearly seven years and is the mother to three little girls (ages three, one, and with another one due later this summer), and lives in Rhode Island.  We still talk on the phone several times a week, and she is one of my best friends.  So our story had a happy ending as well.

Kim (left) and me on my wedding day, Nov. 5, 2010