Memoirs of a Geisha

     I just finished reading Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden. The novel tells the story of a geisha named Sayuri (beautiful name isn't it?). Although the story and the characters are supposed to be fictional, the novel is a realistic view of the life of a geisha in the district of Gion (in Kyoto) during the 1930's and 1940's. This story is long. The print is the size of an ant, the pages are gossamer, and it is about an inch and a half thick. But believe me when I tell you that every period, word, and sentence, is worth reading. Memoirs goes so deeply into a sort of "geisha sub-culture" of mainstream Japanese culture. The storyline starts from when Sayuri was a child living in the countryside (going by the name Chiyo) until she was a retired geisha living in New York. What I love most about the book is the way Golden words everything. Nothing is said directly, per se. The reader is left to imply many details. The reason it took me so long to read this book s simply because of this. Having to go back and read a chapter twice just to decipher the meaning out of it took extremely long. I borrowed the book from Giselle at the beginning of the school year in September and I just gave it back two days ago. All in all, the book is pure genius and worth the time put into reading it. Hopefully, I can watch the movie very soon. I don't want to set my standards as high as the book, but I think it will be great.

I swear the woman in this picture is absolutely BEAUTIFUL.