Geisha: A Life
by Mineko Iwasaki
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Book Summary Information
Author: Mineko IwasakiContributor: Rande Brown
Edition: Paperback
Format: Bargain Price
Published: 2003-09-30
ISBN: N/A
Number of pages: 320
Publisher: Washington Square Press
Book Reviews of Geisha: A Life
Book Review: I truly hope it's just a language barrier
Summary: 2 Stars
I hope and pray that it's a simple misinterpretation from Japanese to English (or a number of them...per page) that make this woman appear so amazingly awful. I mean just...awful. Warning: you won't like this woman very much. Additional warning: as opposed to, say, Darth Vader or Satan, there isn't even anything interesting in her awfulness to hold you to the page. This book took me three hours to read and that's only because I couldn't stop putting it down. Its simplicity should have called for 90 casual-speed minutes at best.
Somewhere in the middle of all the name-dropping and self-petting, you come to realize that there's no way that in a profession where personality really is everything, this woman could have been number one considering the things she said and did to, for example, English royalty (oh, please)...which means, ironically, that she's lying about herself and not in a good way. Getting the Queen of England jealous? Oh good heavenly days, deliver us.
I wish she had at least been deliciously, rather than pathetically, nasty so that the book could have been an interesting read.
Two stars for the humor of hearing what passes for everyday English (calling older people "Gramps," for example) since at least *that* was entertaining. I'm very disappointed, though -- I expected at least something juicy, but amid all the self-genuflecting about how people gave her $3,000 tips and never expected to even cop a feel without being chased around with a kitchen knife, there was just really nothing interesting...except, notably, a story or two about the history of others as told to her. Now those were worth reading.
Thank God I picked this up from the library rather than paying for it.
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