Rating: 5 / 5

I love this book. I’ve loved it since I first read it some odd 7 years ago and I’ll continue to love it a long time from now…not sure where I’m going with this but you get the idea, I love, love, love this book. It’s a beautiful piece, beautifully written and for a Nipponfiliac such as yours truly, it’s GOLDEN, see what I did there?

I picked it to be the first book I reviewed for no other reason than I miss home; I re-read it on the bus back home for the Christmas holidays (20hours on the road is no joke and there’s nothing like a good book to kill the time), so call it being home-sick.

So the book basically reads like a recount of events, an autobiography (the title’s a dead giveaway) complete with a translator’s note which makes it seem proper legit, and in many ways it is. The reader feels like they’re having a conversation with this old Japanese lady who is telling you the tale of her life as a lustrous Kyoto geisha in the 1930s-40s. In fact it begins (with the exception of the translator’s note) like this:

“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…”

This already creates a mental ambiance, sets the place (which as it were, happens to be from an apartment at the Waldorf Astoria so a very fancy place) at least it did for me. You don’t get the feeling that it has in fact been written by some white man from Tennessee, albeit who holds an M.A in Japanese history-which is one reason I love this book. Likely someone who is Japanese, or knows enough about Japanese history and culture to note any discrepancies, would not agree with me but in any case I’m allowed to remain blissfully ignorant.

Nitta Sayuri (formerly Sakamoto Chiyo) is the said old Japanese woman with you in the present who takes you into her past. Hers is a beautiful, tragic journey from a poor fisherman’s daughter in a poor fishing village to how (and why) she became a famous geisha- which as we read on we come to realise really isn’t all it is pegged to be. It is filled with the little superficialities in life where looks mean everything and you are pretty much nothing more than a painted face in brilliant kimono whose life’s mission is to entertain powerful/wealthy (married) men and where the notion of happiness derived from love is a ludicrous, almost shameful, idea. Just a painted face, a delicate porcelain mannequin of sorts, to be lusted over but rarely touched (that privilege was reserved for the highest bidder) so that having a lover is dangerous for a geisha, whose air of unattainability is crucial to their allure. In fact there’s a geisha, queen b***h actually, Hatsumomo, who had a lover, and it seems she proper loved him- her ONLY redeeming “human” quality, was almost banished from the okiya* because not only would it bring shame to her, but to them as well not to mention the profits they would lose out on.

It is ironic therefore that above all else, this book is a great romance, (oh Chairman!) and it has a happy realistic ending so, yey! It is filled with betrayal, intrigue, some wise and some not so wise decisions, Sayuri’s coming of age, acts of jealousy and desperation, some questionable Japanese practices all wrapped up in one of the most captivating books I’ve ever read.

I actually watched the movie adaptation before I read the book so I sadly had a few expectations going into it, but it is so well written that the impression left by the movie was pushed to the curb. I am glad however that the movie does well on its own, it’s a lovely film. You know those movie adaptations that are downright bogus? This one isn’t and I would recommend its viewing before or after reading the book (as a golden rule, I would never recommend watching an adaptation pre-book but this is among the few exceptions to the rule). If you’ve read the book or watched the movie, I’d love know what you thought!

Until next time, stay golden dear reader.

Ps: notice the lack of memes? You’re welcome.

*Okiya: An okiya (置屋 ^?) is the lodging house in which a maiko (apprentice geisha) or geisha lives during the length of her nenki (contract or career as a geisha). A young woman's first step toward becoming a geisha is to be accepted into an okiya (boarding house).