Memoirs of a Geisha
by Golden, Arthur
- Used
- Very Good
- Hardcover
- first
- Condition
- Very Good/Very Good
- ISBN 10
- 0375400117
- ISBN 13
- 9780375400117
- Seller
-
Tolar, Texas, United States
Payment Methods Accepted
About This Item
Knopf, 1997. Jacket and boards have only light wear. Pages are clean, text has no markings, binding is sound.. First Edition. Hard Cover. Very Good/Very Good. 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall.
Synopsis
Memoirs of a Geisha is a novel by Arthur Golden, published in 1997. The novel, told in first-person view, tells the fictional story of a geisha working in Kyoto, Japan, before and after World War II.
Reviews
On Jan 16 2014, a reader said:
Memoirs of a Geisha, by Arthur Golden, is a warm, happy read. It is the story of a Japanese girl whose father sells her and her sister to strangers as her mother dies. Her older sister is sold into prostitution, and our heroine, Chiyo, only nine years old at the time, is sold to a geisha household in Kyoto, and expected to become a geisha. We discover that, at this time, becoming a geisha requires years of schooling. Chiyo studies various instruments, singing, dancing, and the tea ceremony, so that she can become an entertainer of men in tea houses. Eventually, she is adopted as a “younger sister” by Mameha, a first-rank geisha. All of this occurs before the Great Depression and the Second World War. During that terrible period, everyone in Japan underwent great hardships. The geisha profession was legally abolished. Chiyo, by now known by her geisha name of Sayuri, spent the war years sewing parachutes in a former kimono maker’s home and shop. After the war, she eventually was able to return to her geisha life. The story of her success, largely guided by Mameha, and her own desire to become worthy of a man she has fallen in love with, is very endearing. Somewhat to our surprise, she eventually comes to live in the USA, along with her lover. We suspect, although we are never told outright, that she has an American son. She tells her story verbally over a period of months to a sympathetic writer. This is a hard book to put down; the action is so real, and the writing so lyrical, that we feel we must keep reading until we know the end.
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Details
- Bookseller
- Top Notch books (US)
- Bookseller's Inventory #
- 019713
- Title
- Memoirs of a Geisha
- Author
- Golden, Arthur
- Format/Binding
- Hardcover
- Book Condition
- Used - Very Good
- Jacket Condition
- Very Good
- Edition
- First Edition
- ISBN 10
- 0375400117
- ISBN 13
- 9780375400117
- Publisher
- Knopf
- Place of Publication
- New York
- Date Published
- 1997
- Keywords
- Fiction
- Size
- 8vo - over 7¾" - 9¾" tall
Terms of Sale
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About the Seller
Top Notch books
Biblio member since 2004
Tolar, Texas
About Top Notch books
Top Notch Books has been selling books on-line for 6 years. We currently have over 125,000 books in our inventory and we add titles daily. Our books include rare, antique, out-of-print, collectible, signed, as well as gently used books that are a good read.
Glossary
Some terminology that may be used in this description includes:
- First Edition
- In book collecting, the first edition is the earliest published form of a book. A book may have more than one first edition in...
- Jacket
- Sometimes used as another term for dust jacket, a protective and often decorative wrapper, usually made of paper which wraps...