Geisha readings...
Amy and I are both currently reading "Memoirs of a Geisha" by Aurthur Golden. We're going to go out for coffee when we're both done reading it to talk about it, and then see the movie together. Last night I read over 100 pages, which is rare for me to do in one sitting, not because I don't like reading but just because I get easily distracted. I'm finding the second half of the book more depressing even though most people who have read it, that I've talked to, say the second half is much happier. Maybe they just mean that the last chapter is happy, because the whole second half of the book certainly isn't! Even though Golden does an excellent job of writing the memoirs in a way that seems authentic and genuine, the story of Nitta Sayuri is entirely made up.
I think I'd also like to read the non-fiction autobiography called "Geisha, A Life" by Mineko Iwasaki. To the best of my knowledge, that is the only detailed non-fiction story published by a geisha (or, geiko) and seems like it could also be an interesting read. It actually might be written by Rande Brown, and actually a memoir for Mineko Iwasaki, but either way it is non-fiction, and she choose to tell and publish her real life story. Mineko worked as a geiko in Kyoto, just like the fictional character Sayuri in "Memoirs of a Geisha", but their childhoods were extremely different. Even though Memoirs is a fictional story, Golden claims to have stayed true to the historical facts of how geisha lived in the 1930s and 1940s. I'd like to compare a real story, with this fictional one, partially to see how well a job he did.
*****
Woah weird....I just checked the back pages of Memoirs, and read that Arthur Golden actually met and intimately interviewed Mineko Iwasaki! Okay, now it makes more sense as to how he seemed to have such an insider's view of the geisha life in Kyoto. She even gave him a tour! I knew he had an art history degree from Harvard, specializing in Japenese Art, but I didn’t know he actually met and talked to Mineko Iwasaki! This explains the rest of his knowledge. But I wonder why he consistently used the word "Geisha” in his book when Mineko, and the people of Japan, referred to them as“Geiko”?
I should stop babbling about this book, and save this conversation topic for Amy. She's probably the only one who reads my journal that would care to know about this anyway.