Wednesday, August 8, 2007

Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden


My rating: 10/10

After seeing this movie, I have been planning to read this book for a long time…but not willing to buy it. Finally, I got a copy from my local EP library…and believe me, despite the elaborate literary descriptions, I finished the novel in two days. However, I would say that this is the first movie which does real justice to the novel.

One thing I like about Asian writers is that they have a very refreshing way of expressing their thoughts. What I mean is: the language used by them is so vivid and rich that you can actually feel it…and so is the case with this book. The various poetic and writing devices used in the novel (e.g. similes, alliterations, Onomatopoeia and metaphor) make it an epitome of expressive and authentic novel. Well…Here’s what it is about:

MOAG is the story of a Geisha, Sayuri in Japan, how she became Sayuri from Chiyo, what struggles she went through during the course of becoming a geisha and afterwards. The author is successful in making the whole Geisha life real and live. Here are few lines which I loved in the book:

“…my father went on sitting…he began to look like just a curious collection of shapes and textures. His spine was a path of knobs. His head, with its discolored splotches, might have been a bruised fruit…”

“ I lived in what I called a ‘tipsy house’…as a child it seemed to me that the ocean had caught a terrible cold, because it was always wheezing…

“…my mother’s eyes were a translucent gray…I told my mother I thought someone had poked a hole in her eyes and all the ink had drained out…”
You can buy the book here

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