Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden Reviews

To be honest with you, I feel cheated. I bought this book because I believed it was a geisha's diary. I thought the author novelized her story, maybe excluding events that were boring or not very interesting for Occidental readers. Most of all, I thought this woman lived a very special life so that her memoirs were worth publishing! ...  Read the complete review

I initially got this book as part of a 'package' when I signed up for a book club because, even though I hadn't heard of the author before, the title interested me, and I was pleasantly surprised when I read it. I read avidly, and one of the things in general about male authors is that few can write as women and sound ...  Read the complete review

I was recommended "Memoirs of a Geisha" by a friend, I was a but dubious about reading it, but after reading the first few pages I found it difficult to put down. You find yourself becoming more and more emersed in the world, you start to picture everything in your head such as all the different people and clothing described in the ...  Read the complete review

'Memoirs of a Geisha' seems to have been on the bestseller list at many bookshops since its first UK publication in 1998. It's by no means the first book on the subject, but it's undeniably the most popular. In fact, several years before the publication of 'Memoirs', Liza Dalby, the only American woman ever to become a ...  Read the complete review

I have just finished Memoirs of a Geisha and I can honestly say that I was captivated from start to finish. It is so rare to find that book that you can't put down - and this is one. Obviously from the title it is about the life of a Geisha. Sayuri starts in a small town fishing village as a young girl and the novel follows her life ...  Read the complete review

The book was a gift and I was a bit sceptical as to whether I would enjoy it or not. Three days after beginning it I finished the last page feeling very moved! I decided to read it again straight away and was just as absorbed the second time! My Aunt (who kindly bought it for me) told me that it was a true story (and the reader does get this ...  Read the complete review

As I lapped up every word and phrase of this wonderful book I just could not believe that this was a novel... The way it flows through your mind - you actually become the young woman that this book is about - you convince yourself that you are actually reading an autobiography. Written in the style which has the girl narrating ...  Read the complete review

The frightening thing about this book is that it is so distant from our own world, yet so close in both time and space. Sayuri's life is as alien to most of the book's readers as you can really get. The things she suffers we can read about, but never understand. Golden really shines in showing this complex society where women live in a way ...  Read the complete review

This wonderful, thick novel has found fame very quickly - and rightly so. It tells the story of Chiyo, who, as a nine year-old girl finds herself facing a bewilderingly different and somewhat alarming new life as a geisha in her native Japan. Having received the appropriate training and reaching her new goal of becoming a ...  Read the complete review

Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden was in the best-sellers list for months, and deservedly so. It is the moving tale of Sayuri, who is sold to an okiya (a training house for geishas) at a young age, and who gradually learns the art of the geisha, an embodiment of femininty who is part entertainer and part top-class prostitute. The story is ...  Read the complete review