| Product Summary | | Format: Hardcover | | ISBN: 9780375400117 | | Publisher: A. A. Knopf | | Publish Date: 9/1/1997 | | Buy.com Sku: 30052308 | | Item#: RDFTSF | | Dimensions (in Inches) 10H x 6.75L x 1.75T |
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| | | | "Suppose that you and I were sitting in a quiet room overlooking a garden, chatting and sipping at our cups of green tea while we talked about something that had happened a long while ago, and I said to you, "That afternoon when I met so-and-so...was the very best afternoon of my life, and also the very worst afternoon.".." (from the first line) Nitta Sayuri tells the story of her life as a geisha. In Memoirs of a Geisha, we enter a world where appearances are paramount; where a girl's virginity is auctioned to the highest bidder; where women are trained to beguile the most powerful men; and where love is scorned as illusion. Sayuri's story begins in a poor fishing village in 1929, when, as a nine-year-old with unusual blue-gray eyes, she is taken from her home and sold into slavery to a renowned geisha house. Through her eyes, we see the decadent heart of Gion - the geisha district of Kyoto - with its marvelous teahouses and theaters, narrow back alleys, ornate temples, and artists' streets. And we witness her transformation as she learns the rigorous arts of the geisha: dance and music; wearing kimono, elaborate makeup and hair; competing with a jealous rival for men's solicitude and the money that goes with it. But as World War II erupts and the geisha houses are forced to close, Sayuri, with little money and even less food, must reinvent herself all over again to find a rare kind of freedom on her own terms. Memoirs of a Geisha is a book of nuance and vivid metaphor, of memorable characters rendered with humor and pathos. And though the story is rich with detail and a vast knowledge of history, it is the transparent, seductive voice of Sayuri that the reader remembers.
Annotation:
In 1929, a poor fisherman sells his nine-year-old daughter to an elite geisha house in Kyoto. So begins the remarkable first-person account of how the lovely child, Chiyo, became the accomplished and much sought-after geisha Sayuri, with the help of a kindly mentor and despite the malice of a rival; and of how Sayuri struggled to balance professional success as a courtesan with the demands of her heart. Adapted into a 2005 movie starring Zhang Yiyi as the protagonist, this bestselling debut novel opened up a world hitherto unknown to most Westerners and sparked new interest in Japan and its culture.
| PraiseSan Francisco Chronicle Book Review
"MEMOIRS tells a captivating second story between the exquisitely crafted lines of the central tale. Themes of survival and ambition, of exploitation and renewal filter through this parallel narrative into the reader's consciousness....If Golden had 'only' told Sayuri's life story, [it] would have been a beautifully detailed but time-locked novel. By creating a subtext with larger themes..., Golden endows the book with powerful resonance for any time or culture." - David Wiegand 09/28/2000New York Times
"'Write what you know': in MEMOIRS OF A GEISHA, the first-time novelist Arthur Golden not only defies that old piece of creative-writing class advice, but does so with impunity and panache as well. The outcome: a remarkable piece of sleight of hand, a novel disguised as a memoir, told in the voice of a geisha who grew up in pre-World War II Japan....In recounting her story, Golden gives us not only a richly sympathetic portrait of a woman, but also a finely observed picture of an anomalous and largely vanished world. He has made an impressive and unusual debut." - Michiko Kakutani 10/14/1997 Washington Post Book World
"A scholar of Japanese art and history, Golden is intimate with his material, and it shows in his reconstruction of Gion in the 1930s and '40s....Sayuri's voice never falters--it is, to the end, utterly consistent. MEMOIRS OF A GEISHA is a breathtaking performance twice over, once by its bewitching central figure, and once by the masterful puppeteer who has given her life." - Janice Nimura 09/21/1997 Salon
"Arthur Golden's MEMOIRS OF A GEISHA is as exotic as a moonscape and as accessible and old-shoe comfortable as PRIDE AND PREJUDICE. The ritual culture of the geisha seems utterly alien, as remote from contemporary experience as foot-binding or arranged marriages, yet Golden pegs his first novel to such a recognizable set of dilemmas that its initially foreign landscape is made utterly familiar....Golden's storytelling is rich and slow-paced. Like Austen, he lavishes attention on the minute details that regulate and define social distinctions. In the raising of a teacup or an eyebrow there are worlds of implication. The prose style is simple and strangely satisfying, perfectly attuned to its time and place....MEMOIRS OF A GEISHA is an intelligent entertainment." - Dan Cryer 10/29/2000 New Yorker
"There is a particular pleasure to be found in reading a novel that is sui generis and yet is imbued with subtle shadings of its literary predecessors: this is a high-wire act....Rarely has a world so closed and foreign been evoked with such natural assurance....If Golden had done no more than elucidate these details in fine prose, 'Memoirs of a Geisha' would still be of enormous interest....But in the unforgettable Sayuri...Golden has found the heart and matter of a truth that lies beyond detail." - John Burnham Schwartz 10/19/1997 |
| Awards |
ABBY (1998) |  | nominated, Fiction | | |
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