Posted on by seasonsshadow

Book Review – March 23rd

Memoirs of a Geisha – Arthur Golden

Rating: 2 out of 5.

Hello friends! We have a theme! I also took a long time to decide if I was going to review THIS book! Now, let me back up. For those that have read my blog post about the books I would like to read this year (which can be found here), you may be looking at this post and your calendar. You are right, Memoirs of a Geisha was scheduled for May, not for March. The Master and Margarita was scheduled for March.

Yeah. About that.

Apparently, everyone and their dog wants to read that right now. When I searched for it, there were already TEN holds on it. My library system is pretty good, but they only have 2 copies of the damned thing. As of writing this, I am hold five of eleven, so there is some hope that I can have it by the end of May. In similar news, since I am skeptical that I will like many of the books on my list, I am not purchasing them.

This book kind of underlines why.

First, I want to address the lawsuits that surrounded the author, Arthur Golden, after the publication of this book. For those of you that don’t know, Geisha culture is a fairly tight-lipped affair, so speaking out about practices, norms, expectations, and events hasn’t been very widely approved of. Golden’s Memoirs certainly spurred a flurry of information and fact-finding, but I honestly can’t say it was for the right reasons.

One of the women that Golden interviewed for background had requested that her identity remain a secret. That was not respected as he thanked her in the acknowledgements, and although I’m sure the author meant well, caused a lot of problems for this woman. She received death threats and it caused a strain on her interpersonal relationships. Golden was sued for breach of contract and ended up settling out of court for an undisclosed sum.

Now that I’ve mentioned that, please buckle in for a not-very-friendly review.

Do you remember the book “A Million Little Pieces”? Do you remember how it was marketed as a memoir, but then a little while after, it came out that the author James Frey was making his story more dramatic so it had to be remarketed as general fiction and/or misery literature?

Memoirs felt a lot like that, but more… amateur. Like you know those fanfictions you wrote in high school, where you shamelessly self-inserted yourself into a story and your love interest of choice notices you for your *whatever trait you choose*? Your voice, your hair, your eyes, your singing, your height? Well, that’s sort of how this started. Everyone notices Sayuri’s eyes. They’re pale and unusual.

Now, I don’t typically mind this, because people are unusual! People have a lot of cool traits! There’s usually something of someone to look at and appreciate! I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t sucked into the story in the first few chapters. However, the moment Sayuri gets to Gion, everything goes downhill and the entire rest of the story made me increasingly more uncomfortable.

When I ranted to my partner about the plot, he summed it up really nicely by offering me “Sounds like it’s a whole book of terrible people making terrible choices.” It’s not ALL really that bad, but… I found myself unable to get much evidence to the contrary.

I typically try my best to read a book objectively. Just because I don’t like the plot, doesn’t mean that I think the book is bad. So why then, did this super popular book get such a low rating from me? I alluded to it in the paragraph talking about fanfiction. Arthur Golden has a degree in art history, in Japanese history, and one in English. He interviewed Mineko Iwasaka for her deep knowledge and involvement with the Geisha lifestyle.

AND YET. Some of the language and connections that he used and made felt like he had learned about certain aspects of life in an okiya and as a Geisha, and then just ran away with them. Some may argue “yes. That is what fiction is. You learn about something, or you speculate on something, and you write about it.” Which yes. Yes, that’s how that works. I’m not arguing that. What point I hope to slide in here is that when you are writing something on a topic that’s so tight-lipped, you have to be careful which face you decide to show in your writing. The book was written for an English audience, and how do you think people received it when he compares Geisha to escorts and prostitutes? He allegedly rewrote Memoirs three times, each from a different perspective, until he settled on Sayuri’s.

To Golden’s credit, Sayuri is believable as a narrator. Her personality is consistent throughout the book (almost to a fault) and you go through the book (mostly) being able to get behind her motivations. Not all authors can say that, especially when the author is writing a gender that he does not identify as, from a culture that he does not identify with.

What all this blather is trying to say is: Arthur Golden writes his book very well, on a topic that was done not very well.

It’s sort of like the uncanny valley. The book falls too much into ‘realism’ to be completely dismissed, but aspects of it are so squidgy and uncomfortable that it’s hard to completely settle into it.

All in all, take it as it is – fiction, and maybe watch the equally problematic cinematic release featuring Chinese actresses and save yourself some time.

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