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Memoirs of a Geisha (Audio CD)
by Arthur Golden
| Category:
Fiction, World War II, Japanese culture |
| Market price: ¥ 508.00
MSL price:
¥ 438.00
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| Stock:
Pre-order item, lead time 3-7 weeks upon payment [ COD term does not apply to pre-order items ] |
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MSL rating:
 Good for Gifts |
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AllReviews |
1 2   | Total 2 pages 16 items |
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Ann Beattie (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-24 00:00>
Wonderful, involving, intelligent, fascinating, and almost Dickensian in the way the characters inhabit the landscape, and the landscape permeates the characters. It's a unique, beautifully written book.
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Pico Iyer (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-24 00:00>
I still can't quite believe that an American male can so seamlessly enter the soul of a Japanese woman, and catch her world, its textures, its hopes, and its sinuous patter with such perfection. Memoirs of a Geisha evokes all the delicate steel of Kyoto's geisha culture with such uncanny fidelity that, after you've finished, you feel as if you've entered not just another world, but an extraordinary and foreign heart.
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Julia Blackburn (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-24 00:00>
Sayuri tells her story with such gentle courtesy and determination that you are quickly brought under the spell of her character. She takes you by the hand and leads you into a world that is both formal and intimate, a world that I had only before glimpsed in the fleeting and beautiful images of traditional Japanese ink painting... Memoirs of a Geisha is a wonderful achievement.
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Geraldine Brooks (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-24 00:00>
A haunting tale of a hidden world that could hold an audience spellbound through many an evening in a lantern-lit teahouse. |
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Elinor Lipman (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-24 00:00>
Memoirs of a Geisha is a masterpiece. Every detail on this canvas is fascinating, even arresting, while at the same time the bigger portrait - the story, the truth told, a life revealed - is spellbinding. |
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Washington Post Book World (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-24 00:00>
Astonishing... breathtaking... You are seduced completely. |
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The New Yorker (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-24 00:00>
A story with the social vibrancy and narrative sweep of a much-loved 19th century bildungsroman... This is a high-wire act... Rarely has a world so closed and foreign been evoked with such natural assurance. |
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K. Webber (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-24 00:00>
This is the sort of book that draws you in from the very first page. As the title suggests, it is the story of Sayuri, sold by her parents at a young age to an okiya, a geisha house. Not only is it an engrossing story of suffering, longing, and triumph, it's also a fascinating look at the life of a geisha during the 1930s and 40s. The description of the places and characters was so vivid I could see it all. The whole concept behind a geisha - that having a mistress was not only acceptable but even expected of wealthy men - was somewhat jarring to my Western sensibilities, but the tale was told with such compassion and earnestness that it was easy to get drawn in to the different culture, and almost forget that it was written by a middle-aged American man and not an aged Japanese woman. There were things here and there that struck me as unrealistic - Nobu's interest in geisha despite finding them irritating, the pure malice of several characters - but by and large it was a great read.
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A. Lin (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-24 00:00>
Phenomenal in every way. A geisha is a Japanese piece of art, not a prostitute. As a matter of fact, "gei" means art in Japanese. This classic story is about a young girl named Chiyo-chan who is taken at a young age, along with her sister [Satsu], to be trained as geisha. Chiyo and her sister, unfortunately do get separated. Separated from her family; taken from Yorido to Gion. As a young girl, Chikyo faces many obstacles, from betrayal of trust and unthinkable spiteful tricks from Hatsumomo. As she does take the process of becoming a geisha, with the assistance of her older sister [Mameha], her love for any man is looked upon as an illusion. I remember clearly when Mameha tells Sayuri that they dodn't choose to become geisha; they are force to become geisha. As the story takes its course, friendship and trust is lost for love. Betrayal seems so vivid. A geisha's love was abstract. It is as if love is looked down upon. Geisha are just there to entertain and please. Sayuri's memoirs reflect the most beautiful thoughts of a geisha. Golden depicts every thing as if it were surreal but lyrical in the most astonishing ways.
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A reader (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-24 00:00>
I have never read a book like this. I'm into fantasy books, mostly, like Harry Potter. I've read memoirs like Rocket Boys. I've read fiction books that tell of some experience, but not like this. They all seemed so fake. I always ended up with the feeling that it couldn't happen in real life or that real life wasn't like this. Books that did seem real, had an element of fantasy that made me think-but wait, this doesn't exist. (Ella Enchanted, Harry Potter) Charles Dickens was too eighteen-hundreds. That didn't feel real either. The past is just as much fantastical as witches and wizards and unicorns. Even though this story took place in the 1930s, it feels so real. Just like it was happening to me. I loved the first person; I haven't read that many books in first person. This book, story, has an ethereal beauty and yet is so down to earth. It has a happy ending, even, that seems real. Arthur Golden has captured the way a human-being is and feels. It is simplicity in its simplest form, but more complex than even we, who are human beings, can imagine. The author has captured what nature meant us to be and who we are, though we may not realize we think complex thoughts in such a simple way. I went through two sleepless nights being Sayuri, for I could not keep this book down. Even when I was not reading the book, I was thinking about. Most stories, after they end, I wish to continue, but this book was so complete, I did not think once of what would happen next. There were no "holes", as I call them, in this world, because this world was not imaginged or created in a few years, but thousands, millions, billions. While I was being this book, just as in my life, the weight of the past, present,and future was weighing down on me along with the realization of how big and small was the world and universe i live in. This book really is that beautiful, and I'm only 14. No one actually thinks like Shakespeare; they think like this.
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1 2 | Total 2 pages 16 items |
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