Geisha by Liza Dalby Summary and Reviews
|
List Price: Our Price: $5.21 You Save: $17.74 (77%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $0.33 (click here) Category: Book See more book details and other editions |
|---|
Book Reviews of Geisha
Book Review: Wistful, Affectionate and Scholarly
Summary: 5 Stars
Geisha is a lovely read. I finished it months ago but still think about it frequently. Dalby's love for Kyoto and her respect for the people she interviews and comes to know are evident throughout the book. Especially entertaining are the chapter on traveling to a hot-spring resort and the section detailing the separate evolution of the community of Tokyo geisha. I also like the structure of the book. In its first pages, events are described that tip the reader off to the fragility of the geishas' world, and warn of its likely demise.
Reviewers who complain that Dalby wasn't a "real" practitioner of the art and that she lived among the geiko and maiko for only a year fail to understand how extraordinary it is that she was allowed into the geisha house. The world of geisha in Kyoto is gently but firmly closed, not just to foreigners but to the average Japanese person as well. To wander the tiny lanes of Gion at night is to really understand this. Everything is muted. Light from inside the small, demure wooden buildings leaks from under doorways and around window screens; the doings inside are protected from strangers' ears and eyes.
Ever the slightly less-refined sister of Gion and already in transition when Geisha was published almost three decades ago, Pontocho is no longer the same as it was in Dalby's book. Teahouses have been replaced by bars and nightclubs. Thankfully Dalby was there in time to explain the lives of the people whose time on earth revolved around that little lane, and whose way of life doesn't exist any longer.
Book Review: geisha
Summary: 5 Stars
In "Geisha" Ms Dalby invites the reader to wander, with her, through ancient and modern day Japan. Through her eyes you meet and greet people from all walks of life. With dignity and honour she introduces you to her Geisha friends. Before you are aware you a transported into the world of Geisha, a world so different and yet so like your own. When you finish the last page, there is a sadness and a wish to know that the people you've come to care about "live happily ever after". Thank you Liz, your book opened my eyes and touched my heart.Book Review: geisha
Summary: 5 Stars
This book by Liza Dalby is the most comprehensive book on geisha I have seen. Also, very readable.Book Review: the best I have read about Geisha
Summary: 5 Stars
Liz Dalby's book from the late seventies is a portrait in time of the flower and willow world of Geisha that no other Western author has ever been able to capture. This makes Arthur Golden's book Memoirs of a Geisha laughable compared to the poignancy of the stories of real Geisha and the lives they led at the time of writing.
Dalby also gives plenty of history (she is an anthropologist) as well as becoming her own test subject by actually portraying geisha herself. These personal accounts are worth every penny for the privelage. I would have much rather seen a film of this book!
There is so much that is deeply moving about her relationships with the Geisha and the dramatic losses of real life that are interwoven throughout the book. I would love to see a follow-up to the book, to see how all of this ultimately became part of her life.
There are excellent photos throughout, though some in color would have been nice. This is a true anthropological memoir but it is never dry, never overly intellectual. Dalby is not a great writer but she is a terrific journalist.
I've read many books about Geisha and this stands alone as the finest.