ISBN: 0754003655

Hörkassette, [EAN: 9780754003656], Audiobook, Chivers Audio Books, Chivers Audio Books, Book, [PU: Chivers Audio Books], Chivers Audio Books, According to Arthur Golden's absorbing first … Plus…

Hörkassette, [EAN: 9780754003656], Audiobook, Chivers Audio Books, Chivers Audio Books, Book, [PU: Chivers Audio Books], Chivers Audio Books, According to Arthur Golden's absorbing first novel, the word "geisha" does not mean "prostitute," as Westerners ignorantly assume--it means "artisan" or "artist." To capture the geisha experience in the art of fiction, Golden trained as long and hard as any geisha who must master the arts of music, dance, clever conversation, crafty battle with rival beauties, and cunning seduction of wealthy patrons. After earning degrees in Japanese art and history from Harvard and Columbia--and an M.A. in English--he met a man in Tokyo who was the illegitimate offspring of a renowned businessman and a geisha. This meeting inspired Golden to spend 10 years researching every detail of geisha culture, chiefly relying on the geisha Mineko Iwasaki, who spent years charming the very rich and famous. 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 rumor 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., 67216011, Populäre Belletristik, 67221011, Action & Abenteuer, 67916011, Anthologien, 67220011, Buch zum Film, 67923011, Familiensagen, 67924011, Historisch, 67223011, Horror, 67926011, Krieg, 273042011, Medizin, 273043011, Metaphysisch, 67925011, Männerabenteuer, 67219011, Märchen, 67217011, Politisch, 55229011, Religion & Esoterik, 65642011, Schwul & Lesbisch, 1322750031, Seeabenteuer, 67218011, Sport, 67927011, Western, 66034011, Belletristik, 54071011, Genres, 52044011, Fremdsprachige Bücher, 67215011, Literarisch, 66034011, Belletristik, 54071011, Genres, 52044011, Fremdsprachige Bücher<

ISBN: 0754003655

[SR: 4051314], Audio Cassette, [EAN: 9780754003656], Audiobook, Chivers Audio Books, Chivers Audio Books, Book, [PU: Chivers Audio Books], 1999-09-01, Chivers Audio Books, The first thing… Plus…

[SR: 4051314], Audio Cassette, [EAN: 9780754003656], Audiobook, Chivers Audio Books, Chivers Audio Books, Book, [PU: Chivers Audio Books], 1999-09-01, Chivers Audio Books, The first thing you notice about the audio version of Memoirs of a Geisha is that Arthur Golden's 428-page novel has been reduced to a scant two cassettes. But dismay quickly gives way to mounting pleasure as Elaina Erika Davis (Contact, As the World Turns) begins her delicate rendering of geisha culture in the years before the second world war. Davis reads the abbreviated story of Sayuri with an authentic-sounding Japanese accent--one mixed with a magical combination of Asian reserve and theatrical energy. As Sayuri ages from a 9-year-old peasant girl to a popular geisha in her late 20s, Davis directs her voice gently away from curious youth to a tone that reflects Sayuri's uphill life. From start to finish, the listener is absorbed in the elegant spirit of Davis's performance, eager to hear the next chapter of Sayuri's transformation into one of the most famous geishas of the century. How unfortunate, then, to learn that book readers not only get the basic story, but a fascinating look at the intricate rules and rituals of geisha culture. Here, for example, is one of the many revelations omitted from the cassette: "Japanese men, as a rule, feel about a woman's neck and throat the same way that men in the West might feel about a woman's legs .... In fact, a geisha leaves a tiny margin of skin bare all around the hairline, causing her makeup to look even more artificial .... When a man sits beside her, he becomes that much more aware of the bare skin beneath." We're also denied several subplots--the aborted friendship between Sayuri and a geisha named Pumpkin, for example, or much of the story involving the man Sayuri is secretly in love with. But what remains is as precious as a traditional Japanese kimono--at once artistic, suggestive and moving. --Ann Senechal, 590934, Literary Fiction, 62, Fiction, 1025612, Subjects, 266239, Books<