Memoirs of a Geisha: Reader's Journals

I thought including the reader's journals I wrote throughout the course of reading the book would provide something of a first person perspective, so here they are. 

Reader Journal #1 

07/10/14

I'm really enjoying reading Memoirs of a Geisha so far, and I'm about a third of the way into the book. Essentially what's happened up to this point is Chiyo Sakamoto and her older sister, Satsu, were taken from their poor fishing village and sent to Kyoto. Chiyo is sold to an okiya, or a geisha boarding house, but her sister is sold into prostitution. Chiyo often talks about how scary it is to have been taken away from her parents and her small village to a big city like Kyoto.

I grew up in a big city, but I find I can still understand the fear that Chiyo talks about throughout the chapters. It's surely connected to common sense, but the writing itself is also done in a way that you can really understand the characters and empathize with them. Her grief over her life being thrown around has many different branches to it; for one, she's afraid for herself. Whenever she is met with new characters that are linked to her moving away from her home, she always describes them as intimidating and ugly. However, she also talks about how she's upset for her sister, and how she feels it's all her fault that this situation arose, which is visible when she thinks to herself 'Satsu's lips turned down like a baby's, and she began to cry. Even if she'd hit me and yelled at me, I wouldn't have ached as much as I did watching her whole face tremble. Everything was my fault (Golden, 34).' Lastly, her anger at herself is reflected when she explains that' she is also sad for her mother and father, when she narrates 'I had a sudden image in my mind of my poor, sick mother propping herself on one elbow upon her futon and looking around to see where we had gone (Golden, 44).'

I've noticed while reading that the writing has a certain air of foreshadowing to it. Before they're sent away, many people examine the girls and talk about their general health, and Satsu receives many negative comments. When Chiyo steps out of the car expecting to be followed by her sister but is instead told that they will be separated, the writing quickly turns cold and frightening, and Chiyo immediately thinks that her sister must be going someplace worse. I found that thanks to the writing, I had already guessed where they were sending Satsu before it was specifically explained.

The way that Chiyo describes the world around her gives me the impression that she's very small and timid; everything is depicted as big,frightening, and unfamiliar, and all the characters are drawn out to be very unwelcoming and unfriendly. I find it very easy to relate to her as a character in that manner. The fact that she describes everything as so big definitely makes the mental image I have somewhat similar.

I could predict a lot of things about this novel. For one thing, timid characters almost always go through a very big character development, and become confident. I would assume that Chiyo is going to go through a very big transformation. Considering all the passages that go towards Chiyo missing her sister, I would also assume that they're going to meet at one point and try to fix their lives. However, Chiyo is alone in the beginning of the book, and that leads me to think that her sister may even pass away near the end.

I get the feeling that she's also a sincere, empathetic person. She has a unique way of looking at people, in the way that she doesn't necessarily look at them aesthetically. Often the people that treat her badly are described as very ugly, and it's quite the opposite with people who are good to her. I find it easy to relate to her in this manner also.

Overall, I'm really enjoying this novel! It's all set in a very different time and culture, and it's certainly interesting to read about something so foreign to me. I'm interested to see if my predictions are true. I'm definitely looking forward to reading the rest of this book.

Reader's Journal #2 

07/18/14

I'm reading 'Memoirs of a Geisha', and I'm currently about two thirds of the way into it. Essentially what's happened since my last reader's journal is that Chiyo has been taken in as an apprentice Geisha by an older, very popular Geisha, Mameha. Mameha and Hatusumono, who Chiyo lives with, are rivals. Ever since the beginning of her apprenticeship, Hatsumono has been trying to destroy Chiyo's reputation. Chiyo's Geisha name is also Sayuri now.

Considering the book is based on real life events, I'm not really sure if this is intentional. Reading through it, I've noticed that there's a really strong underlying message of feminism. A lot of the book focuses on how a Geisha's main goal is to please men. It's their constant main focus, and none of the characters seems to question it. The female characters are also only shown as either Geisha, maids, or prostitutes, while the men are always important, corporate business men. Although the book is set in a different time when gender issues were far more prominent, I think that it's been heavily outlined so that the reader will notice it more. There's a lot of emphasis on how a Geisha's main goal in life is to receive a good reputation by pleasing the men she entertains, and seducing a few good danna, which are men who provide for them in exchange for sexual favours and intimacy. It's sort of life prostitution, but more 'elegant'.

Currently, the book is focusing on two men having a bidding war for Sayuri's mizuage, or her virginity. I think because there's been so much focus on this particular issue, the plot is going to go in a completely different direction and neither of them are going to win her. Sayuri met a man who changed her view on life two years before the current time in the book, and she talks a lot about how he changed her. She worries that she'll never get to be close to him, because one of the two men is a close friend of his, and two men who are close associates can never be close with the same Geisha. However, I think that she is going to be close with him in the future, instead of the other two men.

I've found that many of my predictions are somewhat coming true. Sayuri is evolving from a very timid character into a far more stable and intelligent one. She no longer describes things and places and big as scary, but usually as interesting and beautiful. She talks a lot about how she feels like she's lost the child in her, and she doesn't really know how she feels about it. I feel like by the end of the book, she'll have completely let go of the little girl in her and developed into a really accomplished Geisha.

Considering the topic of feminisn again, I've noticed that Sayuri's main role models are also only men. She fantasizes a lot about the chairman, and Mr. Tanaka (a man from when she was very young, who sold her to her okiya). She bears a lot of anger towards Mr. Tanaka, which makes me think that she's going to meet him in the future.

So far, I think that Memoirs of a Geisha has really great writing, and makes the reader feel like they're really reading something written by a Geisha. I'm really enjoying it so far and looking forward to reading the end of it. 

Reader's Journal #3 

07/28/14

I just finished it recently and I really, really enjoyed it. It was interesting to read a book that was based not only in a completely different time, but also a different culture.

A really big theme occurred to me near the end of the book, and it's the theme of 'Nothing is as it seems.' This theme presents itself numerous times throughout the book; for one, Sayuri is a beautiful Geisha, yet she came from a small fishing village. No one expects that of her, let alone believe her when she tells them. It's also apparent through the character Nobu; he has burns all over his face, and has quite a stern personality, yet he's loyal and kind. Lastly it shows through Hatsumono; she's known as one of the most beautiful geisha, yet she's a destructive person.

Another interesting thing that came up numerous times in the book, which I imagine is a popular superstition where Sayuri was from, was the thought that people had either more wood or more water in them. Sayuri talks about this earlier in the book, when she mentions that her mother told her they both had a lot of water in them. “My mother said it was because we were made just the same, she and I- and it was true we both had the same peculiar eyes of the sort you almost never see in
Japan. Instead of being dark brown like everyone else’s, my mother’s eyes were a translucent gray, and mine were just the same.” (Golden, 9)

I found many of my predictions from earlier in the book came true; for one thing, Sayuri's character development goes a very long way. At the beginning of the book, she's terrified of everything and tries her best to get out of the situation she's been forced into. Near the end, however, she's become a strong character who's accepted her fate. Her character development is actually evident from the very beginning of the book, in the preface, when she says “I long ago developed a very practiced smile, which I call my “Noh smile” because it resembles a Noh mask whose features are frozen. Its advantage is that men can interpret it however they want; you can imagine how
often I’ve relied on it.” (Golden, 8) Losing the little girl in her wasn't easy though; she often talks about how she misses that little girl, and she feels like a very big part of her was lost when she became a Geisha. For example: “The mistress of the teahouse asked me a question, and when I heard her call me“Sayuri,” I realized what was bothering me. It was as if the little girl named Chiyo, running barefoot from the pond to her tipsy house, no longer existed. I felt that this new girl, Sayuri, with her gleaming white face and her red lips, had destroyed her” (Golden, 167)

My predictions about the chairman were also true; she talks about him very much in the book, and in the end they do end up together.

I found that there was heavy focus in the book on how most of the main contributors to Sayuri's career are men; her emotional motivation always came from the chairman, Nobu is a great friend to her, Doctor Crab paid heavily for her mizuage, and the General is her danna for quite a few years. However, Mameha, who was her older sister for her apprenticeship, had probably the biggest impact on her career. I found their relationship very interesting, it was almost like a mother daughter type of dynamic.

The last line of the book really stuck with me. “But now I know that our world is no more permanent than a wave rising on the ocean. Whatever our struggles and triumphs, however we may suffer them, all too soon they bleed into wash, just like watery ink on paper” (Golden, 428). Here Chiyo is evaluating her life, and I think it's interesting because it's the last thing she shares with us.

Overall, I found this book incredibly interesting and well written. It was fascinating to read something from such a different culture!