Just Finished Reading: Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden

Chiyo is a young girl in the fishing village of Yoroido in 1920’s Japan. She is like thousands of other children growing up in poverty and obscurity except for one things – she has spectacular grey eyes. When her mother develops cancer and her father struggles to cope salvation seems to appear in the guise of the local business leader who offers to help. Before they know what is happening Chiyo and her sister are put on a train to Tokyo unaware of what is ahead of them. Within moments of arriving in the huge confusing capital the young girls are separated with Chiyo being taken in at a Geisha house while her plain sister ends up somewhere less pleasant. Chiyo slowly comes to the realisation that her father has sold both of his children into servitude. So begins the long and painful journey from a non-descript peasant girl from an obscure fishing village to the world renowned Geisha known as Sayuri (played by Ziyi Zhang in the 2005 movie adaptation) who is courted by the rich and powerful men of pre-war Japan. At the heart of it all is the young Geisha’s love for the man that she knows she can never possess (played by Ken Watanabe).

As a huge fan of Ken Watanabe, Ziyi Zhang and Michelle Yeoh I was eager to see this movie when it came out in 2005. I haven’t watched it since, despite owning the DVD, but thought that I’d give the book a ‘go’ as I remembered enjoying the film at the time. During my reading of this book, during my lunch break at work, several of the women I work with remarked that they had read it and enjoyed it – though one did raise an eyebrow in my direction that I was reading such a thing! Although I enjoyed the first third or so – and maybe as much as 50% of this novel – I did find it overall rather slow, plodding and to be honest a bit dull. It was, of course, largely a story of unrequited love, or at least love that could not be publically requited. So we had people hiding their feelings for each other and suffering the consequences – for year after year after year. Either circumstance or culture prevented much from happening between the two main characters….. and that was basically it – for a little over 400 pages. I’m guessing that enjoying something like that must be more of a girl thing than a guy thing. It’s probably seen as romantic or something; you know the whole ‘love through adversity’ thing. Personally the word I would use is tedious – despite being well written and very visual. I struggled to finish it and can’t honestly say that I enjoyed it very much. Unsurprisingly therefore I can’t recommend it – to my male readership anyway.