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The result is a novel with the broad social canvas (and love of coincidence) of Charles Dickens and Jane Austen's intense attention to the nuances of erotic maneuvering. Readers experience the entire life of a geisha, from her origins as an orphaned fishing-village girl in 1929 to her triumphant auction of her mizuage (virginity) for a record price as a teenager to her reminiscent old age as the distinguished mistress of the powerful patron of her dreams. We discover that a geisha is more analogous to a Western "trophy wife" than to a prostitute--and, as in Austen, flat-out prostitution and early death is a woman's alternative to the repressive, arcane system of courtship. In simple, elegant prose, Golden puts us right in the tearoom with the geisha; we are there as she gracefully fights for her life in a social situation where careers are made or destroyed by a witticism, a too-revealing (or not revealing enough) glimpse of flesh under the kimono, or a vicious rumour spread by a rival "as cruel as a spider."
Golden's web is finely woven, but his book has a serious flaw: the geisha's true romance rings hollow--the love of her life is a symbol, not a character. Her villainous geisha nemesis is sharply drawn, but she would be more so if we got a deeper peek into the cause of her motiveless malignity--the plight all geisha share. Still, Golden has won the triple crown of fiction: he has created a plausible female protagonist in a vivid, now-vanished world and he gloriously captures Japanese culture by expressing his thoughts in authentic Eastern metaphors.
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Book Description Condition: New. Brand New. Seller Inventory # 1135364
Book Description Condition: New. Seller Inventory # 8971296-n
Book Description paperback. Condition: New. Language: ENG. Seller Inventory # 9780099552147
Book Description Soft Cover. Condition: new. Seller Inventory # 9780099552147
Book Description Paperback. Condition: new. Paperback. This is a seductive and evocative epic on an intimate scale, which tells the extraordinary story of a geisha girl. Summoning up more than twenty years of Japan's most dramatic history, it uncovers a hidden world of eroticism and enchantment, exploitation and degradation. From a small fishing village in 1929, the tale moves to the glamorous and decadent heart of Kyoto in the 1930s, where a young peasant girl is sold as servant and apprentice to a renowned geisha house. She tells her story many years later from the Waldorf Astoria in New York; it exquisitely evokes another culture, a different time and the details of an extraordinary way of life. It conjures up the perfection and the ugliness of life behind rice-paper screens, where young girls learn the arts of geisha - dancing and singing, how to wind the kimono, how to walk and pour tea, and how to beguile the most powerful men. This is a seductive and evocative epic on an intimate scale, which tells the extraordinary story of a geisha girl. Shipping may be from multiple locations in the US or from the UK, depending on stock availability. Seller Inventory # 9780099552147
Book Description Paperback. Condition: Brand New. 512 pages. 7.05x4.37x1.26 inches. In Stock. Seller Inventory # __0099552140
Book Description Condition: New. 2010. Paperback. . . . . . Books ship from the US and Ireland. Seller Inventory # 9780099552147
Book Description Condition: New. 2010. Paperback. . . . . . Seller Inventory # 9780099552147
Book Description Paperback / softback. Condition: New. New copy - Usually dispatched within 4 working days. Tells the story of a geisha girl. From a small fishing village in 1929, this title moves to the glamorous and decadent heart of Kyoto in the 1930s, where a young peasant girl is sold as servant and apprentice to a renowned geisha house. Seller Inventory # B9780099552147
Book Description Condition: New. Seller Inventory # 8971296-n