Geisha : A Life
by Mineko Iwasaki
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Book Summary Information
Author: Mineko IwasakiEdition: Hardcover
Format: Bargain Price
Published: 2002-10-01
ISBN: N/A
Number of pages: 304
Publisher: Amazon Remainders Account
Book Reviews of Geisha : A Life
Book Review: Truth vs. Fiction
Summary: 3 Stars
I found this book to be extremely intriguing and informative. Quite possibly fabricated in some aspects, but when your trying to learn about a culture that has so much secrecy behind it you read into whatever you can find. The secrecy is probably what makes it so fascinating to begin with!
In attempts to preserve something thats so important to a culture the author may or may not have been entirely truthful with things. A case of "what should be" or what is expected of the geisha vs. what actually exists. The depiction over the years of the geisha has resulted in a bit of a smeared reputation, I think her desire to preserve the name may have overwhelmed the actual fact. Not to mention the desire to market the concept probably alters the cultural differences to an "americanized" standard that will sell books.
Regardless I enjoyed this book very much I suspect there is truth beyond the story, but who really knows?
Summary of Geisha : A Life
No woman in the three-hundred-year history of the karyukai has ever come forward in public to tell her story -- until now."Many say I was the best geisha of my generation," writes Mineko Iwasaki. "And yet, it was a life that I found too constricting to continue. And one that I ultimately had to leave." Trained to become a geisha from the age of five, Iwasaki would live among the other "women of art" in Kyoto's Gion Kobu district and practice the ancient customs of Japanese entertainment. She was loved by kings, princes, military heroes, and wealthy statesmen alike. But even though she became one of the most prized geishas in Japan's history, Iwasaki wanted more: her own life. And by the time she retired at age twenty-nine, Iwasaki was finally on her way toward a new beginning.
Geisha, a Life is her story -- at times heartbreaking, always awe-inspiring, and totally true.
Now in her 50s, Mineko Iwasaki was one of the most famed geishas of her generation (and the chief informant for Arthur Golden's Memoirs of a Geisha). Her ascent was difficult, not merely because of the hard, endless training she had to undergo--learning how to speak a hyper-elevated dialect of Japanese and how to sing and dance gracefully while wearing a 44-pound kimono atop six-inch wooden sandals--but also because many of the elaborate, self-effacing rules of the art went against her grain. A geisha "is an exquisite willow tree who bends to the service of others," she writes. "I have always been stubborn and contrary. And very, very proud." And playful, too: one of the funniest moments in this bittersweet book describes a disastrous encounter with the queen of England and her all-too-interested husband.
Revealing the secrets of the geisha's "art of perfection," this graceful memoir documents a disappearing world. --Gregory McNamee
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