Book Review - Memoirs of a Geisha

Yesterday, on the train back from Toronto, I finished reading Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden.

I have to say this is the best book I've read in a very, very long time. It's astonishing how you get pulled into a world that's completely foreign to you, yet you feel like you're there and you understand the surroundings, and you feel like you're part of that world.

Arthur Golden is a brilliant writer, and I was very surprised to learn that this was his first novel. I don't know if he's written any others, but if he has, I want to read them. He writes from the point of view of a woman, his language sounds like that of a geisha...though only subtly so, so that you're not distracted by it, nor tire of it quickly. His research was meticulous, and I'm sure that everything he described in the book, except perhaps most of the references to "real" people, are perfectly accurate. I feel like I now know what it was like to be a geisha, and what it was like to live in that world.

The book is about a girl who eventually becomes Japan's greatest geisha, Sayuri. Sayuri (named Chiyo as a child) is taken from her home at the age of nine and sold into an Okiya - a geisha house - where she works as a maid for a few years until she is sent to school to start learning the arts of the geisha. Unfortunately, Sayuri is both a little headstrong, and wants to run a way with her sister, who was sold into prostitution. Plus, the resident geisha of the Okiya takes an intense disliking to her, because she can see that Sayuri could very well become a powerful rival.

The currents of Sayuri's life are directed by the people around her, and it's not until she decides to take her destiny into her own hands that things start working out for her.

I can't recommend this book enough. It had me riveted from the first sentence. It's one of those books that sucks you in and doesn't let go. I loved it.