Geisha, a Life
by Mineko Iwasaki, Rande Brown, Rande Brown Ouchi
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Book Summary Information
Author: Mineko Iwasaki, Rande Brown, Rande Brown OuchiEdition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Format: Large Print
Published: 2003-03
ISBN: 0786251581
Number of pages: 474
Publisher: Thorndike Press
Book Reviews of Geisha, a Life
Book Review: To be the best no matter what...
Summary: 5 Stars
This is a beautiful story about a little girl who became one of the most famous geisha in Japan. Mineko, which is her adopted geisha name not her birth name, moved into the Iwasaki geisha house when she was only five years old. She started her artistic training when she was merely six. At a time when most five and six year olds in America are starting kindergarden, playing video games and sports, Mineko was already "working." Her passion and greatest devotion became the dance.
This biography came out in 2002 which may or may not have been around the time Memoirs of a Geisha published as well. Both novels are strikingly similar I noticed, especially when it dealt with World War II. But this novel, as opposed to Memoirs, is an actual biography.
The Japanese terminology is so fascinating to learn and explained very well. I learned that geisha in training were called maiko, or "women of dance," and geisha or geiko actually means "women of art." For a period of twenty five years (from age five until twenty-nine), Mineko practiced all the traditional and ancient customs including dance forms, music, and tea ceremonies (ochaya). Maiko is simply amazing. Despite learning traditional customs she is also an incredibly skilled business woman. She worked 7 days a week, 365 days a year, from the time she was fifteen until she was twenty-one. In the Iwasaki okiya she was the hardest working and most devoted geisha.
Her experience with love was also very humorous. Because she worked so intently she viewed most men as business transactions and nothing more. One man, by the name of Toshio, eventually changed her views. After visiting her multiple times he finally expressed his love for her, which she just scolded him as a young child (despite him being twice as old) and he was also married! Toshio explained they were both in a loveless marriage, but Maiko didn't want to hear of it; she refused him completely. Finally she told him, after his countless advances, if he came to the Gion Kobu every day for three years then maybe she would consider it. She pretty much figured that was that.
He came every single day for three years. But despite this their romance became rocky and unstable. He never left his wife. She later met a young painter, Jin, that won her over.
When Mineko decided to retire at the "old age" of twenty-nine, she was sent thousands of letters from her adoring fans. She met kings and queens, royalty, presidents, diplomats, politicians, and celebrities from everywhere in the world. Her assets were in the millions. She opened up her own club, then later sold it. She decided to get her art license and became an art dealer.
The beauty of this novel is how truthful and painful it was for her to grow up. I didn't really feel that she ever had a childhood, she always worked and trained every day. Her training did pay off because she was so incredibly popular, but there was still a hint of sadness in my opinion.
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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